On the second day of SHIFT Business Festival, the sun-soaked festival crowd was again treated to world-class keynotes, demos, workshops, making new acquaintances and relaxing together. The stellar line-up of presenters ensured stages and tents were packed to the limit, while the yards of the old prison filled with people enjoying the food, music and arts.
Wednesday’s program track on the Industry stage, titled Modern mobility, concerned the future of transportation and mobility. Mayor of Turku, Minna Arve, opened the program, stressing the importance of smoothly functioning transportation, both within the city limits and into the city from elsewhere. The city’s key development goal is to complete the on-going project to achieve a one-hour train connection between Turku and Helsinki, which would significantly improve the city’s accessibility.
The Mayor also expressed her pride about SHIFT, which has grown steadily each year, acting as the city’s business card and bringing in a large number of attendees from other cities and from abroad.
The program track contained also a keynote by Peter Vesterbacka about the importance of private investments for the future development of transportation. According to Vesterbacka’s investigation, Finland, Estonia or even the EU do not have the resources necessary to make the investments to infrastructure that are needed in the area, referring to the proposed construction of a rail tunnel between Helsinki and Tallinn. Vesterbacka also commented on the one-hour train project mentioned by Arve, stating that the goal would need to be set higher and the travel time reduced to half an hour at most.
Dr. Geoffrey West, theoretical physics researcher at the Santa Fe Institute, was the first keynote speaker on the Main Stage. West was initially interested in the mysteries of life and growth and has since specialised in studying the growth of urban areas. With urbanisation, societies are faced with the challenges of exponential growth, but also stand to benefit from it. At SHIFT, West focused specifically on the mechanics and significance of scalability: an increase in size means an increase in efficiency for all organisms, be they biological or urban entities. West’s teachings are used extensively in increasing business growth, as well.
The two-day festival concluded with the Algorithmic Inequality program track. Cathy O’Neil, world-leading data activist, took the Main stage, who holds that we already live in an age governed by algorithms and, unfortunately, are tragically under-prepared. In her book, Weapons of Math Destruction, O’Neil even likens some algorithm-powered decision-making systems to weapons of mass destruction.
Algorithms are never going away, and O’Neil urges people to question whether the information being gathered about them and then combined by algorithms is all on an ethically sound basis, and whether the information is being collected lawfully. Is it possible to deny your information being collected, for instance, when searching for employment? Who controls the gathering, sharing and combining of information?
With her company, O’Neil is working towards the creation of an “FDA for algorithms”. However, she fears that, especially with the current administration, there is still a long way to go.
The Algorithmic Inequality track also contained a demo by Risto Miikkulainen, Vice President of Research at Sentient AI, about the possibilities and challenges of automatic segmentation, as well as a workshop by Maikki Sipinen and Meeri Haataja about means of implementing ethical guidelines with AI.
After an extensive and varied program during the day, the evening celebrations were eagerly anticipated. Besides the music and art experiences, in particular the promise of Finland’s first chip party interested the attendees.
Mari Männistö
Head of Marketing & Communications
+358 45 8684 808
SHIFT Business Festival connects groundbreaking technology with leaders of traditional industries for a discussion about the ethics of future development. The festival, attracting 4000 great minds and visionaries, is held May 22nd - 23rd 2018 in the abandoned prison of Kakolan Lääni, Turku, Finland.
SHIFT is organised by a non-profit organization with the purpose of shaping breakthrough technology to be responsible and sustainable.
SHIFT is not an event. It is a beginning.
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