Catherine Hasted and I were invited to speak at the 2024 Global Innovation Forum London (thanks to Max Angelov for masterminding a brilliant schedule and meeting of the minds!). It was great!

Catherine and I spoke about “Solving Tricky Problems” — the kinds of problems that often tend to benefit the most from cross-disciplinary, cross-industry thinking and we drew upon examples from our collective experience at Cambridge and Oxford, and ThinkLab collaborations.

The Global Innovation Forum (GIF) 2024 in London is an annual showcase of talks and workshops addressing innovation, creativity, and design across diverse sectors. With an overarching theme of “Life is a Prototype” this year’s event included talks from experts on a range of topics such as: human-centered and inclusive design, emerging technologies, community-driven change, fostering innovation in large corporations, and enhancing human creativity with AI.

For the full schedule of speakers, click here.

One of the things I was especially excited to talk about was how the future of innovative thinking may very well depend upon our ability to connect expertise across academia, public and private sector.

I loved the breadth of topics covered, with an especial focus on innovation, with talks ranging from “Inclusive Design”, “Demystifying AI” and “Creativity Culture.”

I loved the live illustration of our talk:

Talk about multitasking! This is some serious skill to listen, synthesize and then illustrate the talks as they are unfolding:

And I just adore themed food. I don’t think I fully read what I was eating or drinking, but the science experiment themed food was 👌