After an impressive launch year in 2017, Dublin Tech Summit returns for 2018; and it’s bigger than ever. You can check out the wide range of talks and the great speakers on show through the Dublin Tech Summit website. As you can see, the Summit is great for businesses looking to peek into the future, but if you’re looking for some talks that’ll appeal to your consumer side, here are five to look out for.
The Future of Global Travel
Have you used Airbnb yet? I used it last year for the first time. It’s an incredible service that lets you rent the home of a complete stranger when you’re travelling. You might have heard people using the term ‘disruptive tech’ and Airbnb is the perfect example of this. Disruptive tech is a new way of doing things that completely change a long-standing norm. Remember there used to be taxi offices for phoning cabs? Well, now we have MyTaxi. Over the UK, Uber lets the general public replace taxis altogether. And hotels? Well, they’re making way for Airbnb.
These are all examples of disruptive tech. Travel is going to change massively in the coming years from digital passports to Elon Musk’s Hyperloop. Aisling Hassell, Airbnb’s Global Head of Customer Experience will take to the INNOVATIONxTECH stage at 10am Wednesday.
VISA and Payments Innovation
I’ve been blown away by how payments have changed in just a few short years. Laser cards used to be a real thing and at the time were somewhat groundbreaking. Now, they’re a distant memory as we tap cards, shop online and even use our smartphones and smartwatches to pay for stuff. The EU is chugging along with the creation of a Digital Single Market and paving the way for new technology to help how we buy stuff and pay bills with PSD2 being one of the first examples.
Paul Walsh from VISA will be on the INNOVATIONxTECH stage at 12.10pm on Wednesday to show what VISA has in the pipeline.
Banking in 2028: The State of the Industry
You’d be forgiven for thinking Goosed is turning into a finance news site lately, but it’s really because consumer technology and banking are enjoying a great run right now. Traditional banks are under fire from modern alternatives. Just like travel, disruptive tech is rampant in banking. I ran through Irish banks recently and showed just how diverse the landscape is with banks ranging from offering very little innovation to completely modern online banks.
This talk takes place on the FUTURExTECH stage at 3.30pm on Wednesday and brings leaders from companies who are really challenging norms in the banking sector. Check this talk out to see how the banking frustrations of 2018 will be the Laser cards of 2028.
Policing the Web: Who’s Responsibility Should It Be?
The latest season of Silicon Valley is all about the Pied Piper guys building a ‘new internet’. It’s a cool thought. Will everything that’s gone on in recent years, we’ve learned so much. Should we start over with the internet we’d definitely have done it differently and better. Unfortunately, that’ll never happen, so what do we do with the internet we have? Chances are we police it.
Who should be in control of the internet? Governments have proven to be an unpopular choice for this task given the example of China where Google and Facebook are forbidden. Should the government have that kind of control? If not, then who should? On the surface, you might not think this to be the most consumer-friendly talk in the world, but everyone really needs to start paying attention to the online world and how we’re positioned within it.
This talk, kicking off at 10.55am on Thursday over at the FUTURExTECH stage should provide a great insight into what lies ahead for online regulation.
Voice Control and Audio Recognition
Desktop computers used to be all the rage. We’d book flights on them, browse the web either shopping or just wasting time and managed things like the music on our iPods using iTunes. That life is not so long ago, yet the smartphone has replaced nearly all of this craic leaving our dependency on desktop computing as a distant memory. Would you believe the days of the smartphone might already be numbered too?
Voice has been touted as the next major change in how with interact with technology. Desktop was keyboard. Mobile is touchscreen. The future will be voice control. This talk should give you an idea how what this revolution looks like and kicks off over on the MUSICxTECH stage on Thursday at 4.35pm. I’m not entirely sure what the following talk is on the same stage, but they definitely win the award for best title with “Audio Recognition: Voice Control to Major Tom”.
We’ll be covering the two days of Dublin Tech Summit which also features the one and only Casey Neistat. We didn’t include him in this list because he’s talking about brands connecting with people and stuff but it should be really interesting nonetheless. The real win is if you go check out Casey’s YouTube page where he’s making simply incredible videos.
Dublin Tech Summit takes place on Wednesday and Thursday this week. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for the latest craic, live from the conference centre.
