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Participating in conferences is an outstanding chance to share own experience and get inspiration from others. Nowadays, events become a lot more interactive with the focus on networking and collaboration. While conferences themselves are not trendsetters, they signal us of phenomena that will stick around and deeper influence in our lives. Let’s have a glance at the main events in 2017 and their impact on the future.
Strengthening
the role of youth
The 21st century is the century of opportunities. According to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, the highest prevalence of enterprenal activities is among 25-34 and 35-44-year-olds. Establishing own business is easier nowadays. As the core value shifts to the service-based offering, the cost of starting package and risks are lower than a decade ago. Supporting the development, Forbes organizes Forbes30under30 summit. This year event will gather up to 750 innovators, 25 industries representing 35 countries in Israel. Forty percent of the attendees are CEOs and Founders who will share their experience and help young entrepreneurs to develop their businesses. The summit is full of inspirational talks as well as outstanding plan for networking activities.
Global Entrepreneurship Monitor predicts that in the next five years a quarter of U.S. entrepreneurs will give jobs for 20 or more people. Considering this fact, there is a need to prepare future business owners to create sustainable enterprises. It is the aim of Next Gen Summit with a slogan “CONNECT. COLLABORATE. INSPIRE.”
Similarly to NextGen Summit, there are plenty of niche events for young entrepreneurs and dozens of mentor programs: Startup Grind Global Conference in California, Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, South by Southwest that has boosted Twitter in 2006, GrowCo in New Orleans, and the list can go on and on. All these happenings signal us for new networking economy with emphasis on freelance jobs. Who knows, in the world where machines take over the labor and income is basic and universal, work might be a sort of entertainment and communication sphere of living.
Women equality
worldwide
Strong women have to keep together and help each other to grow their influence in the world. As women establish their places in the business by building the presence in the managing positions, there are more networking and educational events for the fairer sex. According to Grant Thornton report, women held 25% of senior management roles in 2017 globally, which is only one point higher than in 2016. The situation is not developing as positively as expected. The report underlines that due to geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties, the concentration on diversity in the workplace has been downgraded. Accenture’s report on digital fluency says that by doubling the pace of digital education for women developed nations will reach gender equality in the workplace already in 25 years. Developing economies will achieve equality in 40 years with the double effort of female digital literalization. UN Secretary-General António Guterres highlights: “Women’s economic empowerment is at the heart of the 2030 Agenda. We will not achieve the Sustainable Development Goals if there is no accelerated action to empower women economically. We know that women’s participation in all spheres of life, including in the economy, is essential to sustainable and durable peace and the realization of human rights.”
Conferences for women empowerment are popping up all over the world.There are global events like 13th Annual Women’s Leadership Conference, 8th Annual Women’s Leadership and Empowerment Conference, or Forbes Women Summit 2017, which cumulatively bring over thousand multigenerational innovators, influencers, entrepreneurs highlighting global issues and finding ways to tackle the challenges. This year there is a trend on focusing on working with NGOs and local empowerment programs. In addition to all the global events, there is an endless number of local ones from LA to villages in Africa. The main goal is to share the confidence and inspire women to achieve higher goals. Here is an example of the “She rises” conference in LA:
Tech geeks
get together
Young entrepreneurs and women empowerment conferences are definitely on the top of the wave. Nevertheless, the strongest innovation epicenter is the technology. Technology unites everyone regardless their origin, gender, or age. Technology events focus on the future scenarios and ways to enable them through science. They are known for being the most interactive, networking, and entertaining events. Moreover, influential future-oriented speakers are magnetically drawn to such happenings. Bill Gates, Tim Cook, Virginia Rometty and others innovators and founders of today’s world are sharing their experience globally on conferences like WSJ.D, TechCrunch Disrupt NYC, TechWeek, SXSW, and others.
Scandinavia is famous for its tech and startup ecosystem. More and more tech structures are attracted to the northern lands due to their startup ecosystem. The biggest hackathon experience in Europe has moved to Helsinki. in 2016, the Junction brought together 1285 developers and granted over 600K€ in prizes. It is a conference where “nothing is impossible and no idea is too crazy”.
Another paramount tech event Slush has gathered together more than 7,000 attendees, 2,300 startups, facilitating around 6,000 investor–startup meetings in 2016. As for Autumn 2017, Slush is to double the number of participants up to 15,000 people inspiring from six stages full of program.
Altogether, there is a strong stream of changes utilizing technology. Regardless the subject of conferences, there are common trends they all share. First, the number of conferences is growing introducing more and more niches happenings globally. This developing boosts innovation in any corner of the world and helps to share expertise across the oceans. Secondly, all the events start to compete between each other and try offering an additional benefit to visitors. One strong focus is an opportunity for mentoring and networking. People are ready to pay for connections that can boost their businesses. And third is the expectation of interactiveness and high-tech comfort. Most of the conferences are live streaming keynote speeches and offering specific applications that help collaboration during the happenings. After all, the main thing is to get knowledge, relax and have fun at such conferences. Organizations will have to jump over their heads to provide the best personal and business experience for their clients.
