MyWave's Intelligent Personal Assistant Launches In Europe With Keynote Address At Ctrl-Shift "Growth Through Trust" Conference In London

LONDON, Dec. 8, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- MyWave, the first technology company with an Intelligent Assistant where the consumer has control of their personal data, launches in Europe today with a keynote address at the Ctrl-Shift "Growth Through Trust" Conference in London.

Ctrl-Shift is a London-based consultancy specializing in the Personal Information Economy.   In her keynote address at the Ctrl-Shift conference, MyWave Founder and CEO Geraldine McBride will talk about the Personal Data Revolution being as significant to the UK and EU economies as the Industrial Revolution.  According to a July 2014 report by Ctrl-Shift, Personal Information Management Services (PIMS), that help individuals gather, manage and use information (including personal information) to make better decisions and manage their lives,  is ultimately set to unleash GBP16.5bn in new value for the UK as part of the Personal Information Economy.

Initiatives such as PSD2 revised Payments Services Directive, due for implementation in the UK and EU by 2017 provides fuel for the Personal Information Economy.  This directive will see the opening of data silos and secure sharing of data via API's between brands with transparency and permission by consumers.

Everyday Payments Providers will move beyond their traditional boundaries and create deeper everyday relationships with customers.  Merchant-funded reward schemes and relevant location-based offers under the control/permission of the consumer are enabled.  Bold and elaborate ecosystem partnerships are possible with banks, telecommunication companies, retailers, outside financial institutions, utilities, technology firms and other digital players.  This will create new end-to-end outcomes for consumers making their lives easier and unlocking new value-added services for business growth.

MyWave is already operational in McBride's home country of New Zealand and in Australia.  Its first New Zealand customer, energy management company Saveawatt, will be presenting at the Ctrl-Shift conference.  Saveawatt's CEO Tim Rudkin will demonstrate MyWave's Intelligent Assistant in action, effortlessly finding the best power deal for their household and automating the switching process.  Rudkin will also highlight the benefits for energy retailers, including better customer acquisition and retention, lower costs for marketing, more effective sales offers and promotions, access to real-time market data, and personalized relationships with consumers.

In addition to the energy sector, MyWave is serving enterprise brands in multiple other markets, including automotive, retail, banking and financial services, residential real estate, travel and health and wellness.

At the Ctrl-Shift conference, McBride will also emphasize the importance of the "norms of human relationships," whereby consumers control access to their personal information in conjunction with brands, and share that information with transparency and permission, under their control. 

"The current Customer Relationship Management (CRM) approach, used by most businesses and Intelligent Assistant companies today will be rejected by digitally-empowered consumers who no longer consider themselves to be 'passive participants' at the very end of the sales cycle," McBride will tell the Ctrl-Shift audience.  McBride, a former CEO and President of several regional divisions of SAP including North America, Asia Pacific Japan, Australia and New Zealand, founded MyWave in 2013.

"Relationships between brands and consumers need to be centered around permission to share information, and that permission is based on trust, respect, and a two-way conversation that provides mutual value to the consumer and the brand.  This is the basis for the Personal Data Revolution, and only Intelligent Assistants that respect these norms of human relationships will prosper in today's digital economy," McBride will say. 

MyWave re-imagines the customer experience by putting an Intelligent Assistant named Frank in the consumer's pocket to "hyper-personalize" the customer-brand relationship.  It does this by allowing the consumer to control and update their own data based on their preferences and buying intentions, and share their preferences and needs in real-time, enabling a business to tailor products and services in a far more targeted and relevant way.

MyWave also recently launched in the U.S. at the Opus Intelligent Assistants Conference in New York City, where McBride gave the keynote address.  The company is currently valued at GBP26.6 million, and key investors include Andre Crawford-Brunt, global head of equities trading for Deutsche Bank.

MyWave Vice President and Chief Evangelist Wally Brill will oversee company operations in Europe.  Brill is a former eBay customer service executive, and was an early pioneer in speech recognition technology.

Other MyWave executives include Chief Technology Officer James Ladd and Chief Experience Officer Amy Johnson.  Ladd has developed software products across multiple domains, from securities trading to multi-player games, and is creator of the Redline Smalltalk programming language.  Johnson has an MA (honors) degree in business studies from the University of Edinburgh.  Her Master's thesis illuminated the changing role of the customer from a passive participant to an active value creator in Porter's Value Chain.

Brill, Ladd and Johnson will all be in attendance at the Ctrl-Shift London conference, and Johnson is speaking on "Closing the Gap and Going Viral with Millennials and Generation Z."

"The world has changed since the industrial revolution; the digital revolution has been embraced by my generation.   They have more power in their hands through mobile devices than at any time in history.  However, the way most businesses operate still follows the old industrial paradigm.  In order to not only survive but to thrive, businesses need to embrace innovation and new ways of doing things, and see disruption not as a threat but an opportunity," Johnson will tell the conference participants.

"Today's empowered young consumers want instant information, an emotional, two-way connection to a brand, and a respect of their privacy  The current industrial business model, where the product is central and pushed down to a largely powerless customer, is ineffective and annoying to millennials and generation Z," Johnson will say.

Advisors to MyWave include Joe Pine, author of "The Experience Economy," and Doc Searls, author of "The Intention Economy:  When Customers Take Charge" and director of ProjectVRM at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, which supports companies working toward customer empowerment.

About MyWave
MyWave (www.mywave.me) is a technology company radically redefining the relationship between business and customers by offering "Frank," the next-generation intelligent personal assistant.  Frank makes customer's lives remarkably easier by transforming their interactions into "Customer-Managed Relationships (CMR)," where they are in control of their experiences across brands and service providers.  Frank does this by securely storing customer's personal data and preferences in their own cloud.  Using real-time market data and dynamic conversations, Frank enables businesses to generate increased sales and revenues by creating the hyper-personalized relationships and brand experiences that customers demand.

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SOURCE MyWave