Fast Company Brings First-Ever European Innovation Festival to Milan and Florence Powered by Gucci

NEW YORK, June 24, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Fast Company today announced the line-up for its European Innovation Festival (FCEIF) —the first-ever global thought leadership summit of its kind. The three-day event, powered by Gucci, will take place from July 9-11 in Milan and Florence. The Festival, titled "The Dawn of Superintelligence," will highlight the potential for collaboration between man and machine as society sits on the precipice of a new era of technological advancement and artificial intelligence. The Festival will bring together a high profile collection of global thought leaders to explore the opportunities and challenges that come from marrying the precision and analytics of computers with the sensitivity of humanity.             

Speakers for the Festival include: Yuval Noah Harari, historian and author; Darren Aronofsky, screenwriter and director; Jared Leto, tech investor, actor and musician; Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, economist, international development expert and former Finance Minister of Nigeria;  Alec Ross, author of "The Industries of the Future," technology policy expert, and senior innovation advisor to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Natalie Massenet, founder of Net-A-Porter and co-founder and managing partner, Imaginary Ventures; Riccardo Sabatini, scientist and entrepreneur; Jessica Brillhart, immersive director, writer and founder of Vrai Pictures; Dustin Yellin, contemporary artist; Chloe Macintosh, chief creative officer, Soho House, and cofounder, Made.com; Massimo Bottura, chef patron and Food for Soul founder; Marian Goodell, CEO, Burning Man; Giuseppe Sala, Mayor of Milan, and Marco Bizzarri, President and CEO of Gucci.

Each year, the Fast Company Innovation Festival gathers influential visionaries from the worlds of business, design, and culture to problem solve and share their insights alongside Fast Company editors.

"At Fast Company, we cover the intersection of design, creativity and leadership—very human disciplines—with technology and innovation, the engines of modern business and society," said Stephanie Mehta, Editor in Chief, Fast Company. "Our inaugural European Innovation Festival will address the critical question of how to bridge technology and humanity. We also see this as a seminal moment for Milan, one of the world's most progressive cities, to be a hub for thought leaders and influencers, and we are delighted to work with Gucci, an iconic brand we consider to be both digitally savvy and creatively innovative, to facilitate this important discussion."

Marco Bizzarri, Gucci President and CEO, commented, "We are at a real tipping point with AI becoming pervasive in our lives. At Gucci we have established a culture of innovation fostering experimentation and new technologies, but always in support of creativity and the human touch. We are therefore delighted to help power this Festival bringing together leading thinkers in conversations about the new paradigms in front of us."

"We live in challenging times, in which we need the ideas of people to foster change and hope in our communities," said Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala. "We need to find new ways to combine economic and social growths, and support them in a sustainable way. Cities like Milan are the catalyst and the engine of this global wave of innovation. We have the privilege and the duty to welcome everyone and listen to every idea, which can fruitfully contribute to this global discussion."

Programming will feature expert talks and panels on a range of topics, such as "What Happens When Technology Hacks Humanity," "Identity in an Avatar-Friendly World," "Machine Learning and the Emerging World," "How Technology Can Change and Enhance the Meaning of Community," and more.

The Festival kicks-off at the Gucci Hub, the brand's corporate headquarters, located in Milan's historic Caproni aeronautical factory. Following a meticulous restoration of the original 1915 structure, the Gucci Hub brings together the fashion house's Milan offices, worldwide showrooms, and also serves as a venue for fashion shows and photo shoots.

The Milan portion of the Festival will also feature a one-of-a-kind interactive exhibition, Sensorium, curated by H-Farm, an innovation platform where entrepreneurship and education coexist using unique digital approaches to support the creation of new business models and transformation of both young people and companies. Sensorium is a self-guided experience, engaging selected startups and artistic installations in deploying advanced technologies allowing Festival attendees to engage with six "supersenses" in order to stimulate emotions in a creative manner.

The startups, artist collectives and technologies were carefully selected for their unique solutions, humanistic philosophy and innovative approach to product design, the exhibition will feature solutions like Arctop, a software platform that applies specialized artificial intelligence to electrical measurements of brain activity in order to infer people's feelings, reactions, and intent. Weart, a robotics lab that develops wearable and portable devices designed for the digitalization of the sense of touch, able to record and playback forces, vibrations and temperature changes,  OLO a creative farm using technology for creating visual communication, panGenerator, a new media art & design collective blending ephemeral digital realm with physical world, Razer, the world's leading lifestyle brand for gamers.

For a select group of attendees, the European Innovation Festival will culminate with an exclusive Fast Track in Florence on July 11, including a tour of the Gucci ArtLab, the company's futuristic center of industrial craftsmanship and laboratory for leather goods and shoe products, and Gucci 9, a center of innovation exploring the best ways to optimize the remote client experience. These attendees will also experience a private visit to the Gucci Garden, followed by a special dinner at Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura.

The agenda is below and the most up-to-date information on the Fast Company European Innovation Festival can be found here: https://europeaninnovationfestival.fastcompany.com/. Tickets can be purchased via this link: https://fastcompany.swoogo.com/europeaninnovationfestival-us.

FCEIF AGENDA
DAY ONE: TUESDAY, JULY 9

OPENING PERFORMANCE

THE END OF HOMO SAPIENS: WHEN DO HUMANS CEASE BEING HUMAN?
At what point do cyborgs, genetically-engineered humans and upgraded superhumans cease to be human, and become a new species or even a completely new kind of entity?
SPEAKER:
Yuval Noah Harari, historian and author of Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

MADE IN MILAN
A fireside chat with Giuseppe Sala, Mayor of Milan.

VIRTUAL VILLAGES: HOW TECHNOLOGY CAN CHANGE AND ENHANCE NEW COMMUNITIES
How do we ensure a sense of community in an advanced society? As the nature of work and play evolve, how will cities and other community centers evolve to meet the needs of residents whose lives follow very different patterns—and what role do civic leaders play in ensuring that citizens feel more connected and less isolated?
SPEAKERS:
Marian Goodell, CEO, Burning Man
Chloe Macintosh, adviser, Soho House, and cofounder, Made.com
Julie Rice, cofounder, SoulCycle and partner, WeWork

FOOD FOR THOUGHT—--AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT
Stephanie Mehta will speak with chef Massimo Bottura about innovation, sustainability, and philanthropy.

LIVING ALGORITHMS: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE GETS DEEPLY PERSONAL
Increasingly, artificial intelligence is being deployed to allow companies to understand and explore intimacy, feelings, beliefs, and desire—soft skills that go beyond rote predictive analytics. How can companies deploy artificial intelligence to deepen the personal touch and the emotional connection with clients and customers? How do we match this intimacy with privacy and the protection it demands?
SPEAKERS:
Julian Birkinshaw, professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at London Business School
Rudy Cline-Thomas, founder and managing partner, Mastry
Natalie Massenet, cofounder, Imaginary Ventures; non-executive chair, Farfetch; and founder, Net-a-Porter

UTOPIAN ROBOTS: THE PURSUIT OF INCLUSIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
In "A Cyborg Manifesto," essayist Donna Haraway argued that the "cyborg is a creature in a post-gender world . . . it is resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy, and perversity. It is oppositional, utopian, and completely without innocence." But can the highly evolved and superior machine of Haraway's manifesto ever truly materialize?
SPEAKERS:
Imran Chaudhri, cofounder, Hu.ma.ne
Michael "MJ" Jones, Director of Research, Salesforce
Additional speaker to be announced

DEVELOPERS AND DEVELOPMENT: MACHINE LEARNING AND THE EMERGING WORLD
How will AI impact economies and markets still coming into their own? Will superintelligent machines allow developing markets to leapfrog mature economies, or will automation leave emerging markets behind? Stephanie Mehta explores the possibilities and risks of AI for the new world with Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, economist, former finance minister of Nigeria, and international development expert.

GENERATION AI: HOW THE FIRST DIGITAL NATIVES SEE THE WORLD
Young people born after 1995 are unlike any generation that has come before them: They've grown up fully immersed in the internet, mobile technology, robotics, and predictive analytics. But they are also stubbornly independent: Machines won't necessarily tell them what to wear, buy, or watch, or how to think. Our panel explores how generation AI looks at the world, and how it will change it.
SPEAKER:
Sheel Tyle, founder and CEO, Amplo
Additional speakers to be announced.

DAY TWO: WEDNESDAY, JULY 10

MORE THAN HUMAN: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN TECHNOLOGY HACKS HUMANITY?
The idea of a "bionic man," popularized by the 1970s American television show, is no longer the stuff of fiction. Engineers and biologists are collaborating to develop technologies to supplement and even supplant human functions. How do these scientific miracles make the leap from computer code to genetic code, and what are the societal and ethical implications?

SPEAKERS:
Moran Cerf, neuroscientist and business professor at the Kellogg School of Management and the neuroscience program at Northwestern University Riccardo Sabatini, scientist and entrepreneur

WE'RE ALL "PLAYER ONE": IDENTITY IN AN AVATAR-FRIENDLY WORLD
The dawn of superintelligence will also mean the dawn of new opportunities for humans to invent and reinvent themselves online. Vast computing power will enable—and encourage—people to create and deploy multiple versions of themselves into the virtual world. What does this new form of diversity foretell for meaningful human connection and sense of community?
SPEAKERS
Kevin Abosh, artist, I AM A COIN
Martine Jarlgaard, artist, Meet Yourself
Akash Nigam, CEO, Genies

JARED LETO: IN CONVERSATION
The actor, musician, and prolific investor shares his outlook.

THE INDUSTRIES OF THE SUPERINTELLIGENT FUTURE
Gucci President and CEO Marco Bizzarri and Alec Ross, author and visiting professor at King's College London, explore the ways superintelligent machines will shape creative industries and push business and society in new and unexpected directions.

EVERY PLATFORM TELLS A TALE: HOW TECHNOLOGY IS CHANGING THE ART OF STORYTELLING
Technology is dramatically expanding the way artists tell stories, unleashing incredible creativity and bringing new dimension to art. The panel will explore these new forms of creativity, what it means for the way humans need to study and experience art, and what these new forms of storytelling will mean as they proliferate into fields such as education, marketing, and beyond.
SPEAKERS:
Samuel "Blitz" Bazawule, filmmaker and musician
Jessica Brillhart, founder, Vrai Pictures
Dustin Yellin, artist and founder, Pioneer Works

INVESTING IN THE FUTURE: SEEDING THE NEXT WAVE OF SMART STARTUPS
Artificial intelligence startups raised nearly $10 billion last year, a record amount for young companies in the automation and machine-learning space. Which, if any, of these well-funded firms will become the Next Big Thing, and can any startup unseat companies such as Google, Amazon, Tencent, and Alibaba, which boast the world's most robust data sets?
Speakers to be announced

UNNATURAL SELECTION: CAN MACHINES SAVE OUR PLANET?
Can man, machine, and nature coexist and inform one another? Artificial intelligence already is being deployed to help scientists track and reverse changes to the ecosystem; will these smart machines develop an organic affinity for preserving earth and its inhabitants?
SPEAKER:
Darren Aronofsky, filmmaker and screenwriter
David de Rothschild, explorer and environmentalist, The Lost Explorer LLC
Africa Flores-Anderson, NASA-SERVIR Amazonia Science coordination lead and Land Cover and Ecosystem Theme lead, Earth Science Center, University of Alabama in Huntsville

DAY THREE: THURSDAY, JULY 11

CODEX DREAMS: HOW MODERN SOCIETY REFLECTS DA VINCI'S GROUNDBREAKING VISION SPEAKER:
Professor Paolo Galluzzi, Director, Museo Galileo

THE NEW FRONTIERS OF MANUFACTURING: FROM ROBOT FACTORIES TO
ZERO-GRAVITY PRINTING
Digitization is ushering in a revolution in manufacturing, turning factory floors into laboratories for advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, and 3D printing. This new industrial revolution will transform how and where our products are made, how we shop for them, and the role of craftsmen and workers.
SPEAKER:
Matthew Putman, founder and CEO, Nanotronics
Additional speakers to be announced

INNOVATING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
A look inside Gucci 9, Gucci's client service center.

ABOUT FAST COMPANY
Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies and thinkers on the future of business. Since 2011, Fast Company has received some of the most prestigious editorial and design accolades, including the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) National Magazine Award for "Magazine Of The Year," Adweek's Hot List for "Hottest Business Publication," and six gold medals and 10 silver medals from the Society of Publication Designers. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Mehta and the publisher is Amanda Smith. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com.

ABOUT GUCCI
Founded in Florence in 1921, Gucci is one of the world's leading luxury fashion brands, with a renowned reputation for creativity, innovation and Italian craftsmanship. Gucci is part of the global luxury group Kering, which manages the development of a series of renowned Maisons in fashion, leather goods, jewelry and watches. For further information about Gucci visit www.gucci.com  

Media Contact:
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[email protected]
917-593-3223

SOURCE Fast Company