The Duke has long been interested in Britain’s flourishing tech start-up scene, and this session will build on the success of the recent Pitch@Palace event where entrepreneurs were convened together with investors and advisors to boost the fortunes of quality early-stage businesses. Following insight from The Duke, the session will feature short pitches from a number of selected startups. Delegates will be asked to vote on which they would back to go forward to Pitch@Palace.
According to WIRED, there will be almost 50 pioneering speakers from around the world appearing at WIRED 2014, including Anne Wojcicki, CEO and Co-Founder, 23andMe, which has built one of the world’s largest databases of individual genetic information; Esther Dyson, Founder of HICCup which runs Way to Wellville, an open-source, evidence generating challenge devoted to defining and testing models for producing community health; John Graham-Cumming, author of The Geek Atlas, who has tracked Hollywood’s portrayal of geeks over the decades; Physicist Eric Ladizinsky, Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of D-Wave Systems where he introduced industrial optimization practices for high yields; Yuri Suzuki, Founder and Creative Director of Dentaku Ltd and Founder of Yuri Suzuki Creative Lab, who explores the realms of sound through exquisitely designed pieces; Sir John Hegarty, cofounder of ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty, on how to be creative; web pioneer Ze Frank, EVP Video at BuzzFeed, where he is focused on finding new formats in social video and is known for creating viral projects such as ‘Earth Sandwich’ and ‘You Me/Now Me’; Charmian Gooch, Nobel Peace Prize-nominated co-founder of Global Witness, which rigorously investigates those exploiting natural resources and funding conflict and corruption; Prof Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University and winner of the 2013 TED Prize for his wish to build a School in the Cloud, where children can explore and learn from one another; Cesar A. Hidalgo, Head of the Macro Connections group at the MIT Media Lab who focuses on improving our understanding of the world’s complexity including the development of data collection menthos and metrics; Jay Bregman, Founder & CEO of smartphone app Hailo, whose smartphone technology could change the way consumers buy everything; and Sam Bompas, founder of Bompas & Parr, jelly making experts and leaders in flavour based experience design, culinary research, architectural installations and contemporary food design whose creations include an inhabitable cloud of gin and tonic and a chocolate climbing wall.
WIRED 2014 will be held on October 16-17, 2014 at London’s Tobacco Dock, E1. The two-day event promises to be just as thought provoking as previous years and will be a haven for disruptive thinking and radical ideas, setting the agenda and providing a unique platform from which to engage with the future, says WIRED.
