WIRED London Conference Ogilvy Labs Report By William Harvey @WilliamEdHarvey

Here  at  the  Labs,  we've  been  Connecting  the  Connected  (as  we  like  to  call  it)  for  14  semesters  now.  Despite  that  long  track  record,  we  were  still  delighted  to  be  invited  to  attend  the  Wired  2014  conference,  being  held  at  the  Royal  Tobacco  docks  for  the  4th  year  running.    

Since  it's  inception  in  1993,  WIRED  has  been  internationally  respected  and  admired.  It  has  a  multi-­‐disciplined  approach  across  a  vast  range  of  subject  matter.  It  explores  from  people  pushing  the  boundaries  in  Tech,  Arts,  Health,  Money,  Work  and  Science.  

Now  in  its  4th  year  WIRED's  conference  brings  together  12  months  of  ideas  and  input  from  the  magazine's  global  community.  It  hosts  15  session  topics  over  2  days  with  mix  of  speakers,  live  demos  and  inspiring  subject  genres.  This  year,  that  included  'Entertainment  Meets  Hardware',  'Creating  Innovation',  'Education  Re-­‐thought',  'Culinary  Creativity'  and  'Mind  games'.  

WIRED  Events  are  designed  to  cut  through  the  tech  noise  surrounding  us,  and  to  deliver  insights  on  what’s  next.  If  you  want  to  be  ahead  of  the  curve,  as  well  as  your  competition,  the  WIRED  conference  is  an  essential  date  in  the  calendar.  

We've  pulled  together  a  short  &  sweet  overview  of  this  internationally  acclaimed  event  to  share  with  you  some  of  the  powerful  ideas  that  we  picked  up  along  the  way.     Conference in Numbers 4th Year of the conference2 Days of content15 sessions topics50 speakers1000+ attendies30+ New Tech hands-on experiences1 Robot

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Speakers Stars of the show! WIRED '14 pulled together a diverse range of speakers from a wide range of disciplines. Here are some that stood out for us :

Quantium Mechanic Computers With Eric Ladizinsky. Kicking the ‘Technology Without Limits’ Section on day 1, Eric from D-Wave Machines shared with the audience why quantum computing will be civilisation's next big revolution. Where are not yet able to extract meaningful insight through classical computing, quantum computing can help. But how does it work? In layman's terms, imagine that you have five minutes to find an X I've written on a page of a book in the British Library. Not that easy, right?. However, if you were in 50 million parallel realities, and you looked at several pages in each of those realities, you would be able to! This would require all those alternative realities to talk to one another whilst doing it. That's the basic premise of quantum computing. Enabling you to solve multiple problems in alternative reality at the same time. With only 2 of these currently in existence (one owned by Google) it is still at an early stage but may unlock entirely new possibilities for humanity (and business!) in the future.

Culinary creativity With Sam Bompas One of the most elaborate speaking events this year came from Sam Bompas of ‘Bompas and Parr’. They look to bring together Science and Food. Most well known until now for their magnificent creations with jelly, including staging a huge exhibition of famous architectural buildings made entirely of jelly, Bompas and Parr have collaborated with a wide range of specialists so far, to explore the mysteries

and wonders of food. For New Year's Eve 2013, they brought together pyrotechnics and flavorists to create edible fireworks on the Embankment in London. The result was explosions of banana-flavoured confetti that was hypoallergenic, kosher and halal. Sam is a breath of fresh air, always looking to disturb what is expected of us by mashing up the traditional disciplines of food and science, questioning our understanding, use and consumption of food and how it might be approached in entirely new and innovative ways.

Wearable get Fashionable With Will.i.am & Zeha Hadid The most high profile keynote speaker for the 2 day event was the philanthropist and music icon Will.i.am. A man of many talents and interests, he has created schools in his home town to teach disadvantaged kids to code as well as created R&D facilities and factories in the deprived neighborhood he grew up

in to create new jobs for the community and offer a career path alternative to drugs. He was just off the plane from LA where he had launched his first wearable device the PULSE ‘Smart Cuff ’, a stand alone Communication device that contains a battery, speaker, sim card and entire chipset. Using the OLED screen users can navigate the device through a range of 3G, WIFI, Bluetooth and GPS connections. It boasts to be the first wearable with no 'phone required, as it is your phone. Will.i.am was also joined on stage by the legendary Architect Zaha Hadid to announce their collaboration and to show off a number of designs for the PULS they are working on to make wearable tech fashionable. This marked another player attempting to tap into the fashion tech space just 4 weeks after Apple announced the Apple watch (that won’t be shipped until early 2015). Looks like 2015 will be the year of fashionable wearables.

Pitch at the Palace HRH Duke of York A light relief from heavy mind boggling-talks was the announcement and first round of the 'Pitch at the Palace’ by His Royal Highness the Duke of York.

Pitch at the Palace, now in its 3rd round, is a process to support the outstanding UK tech start up community run by The Duke of York on behalf of the Royal family. The process kicks off with 36 companies pitching at a number of bootcamps across the UK. Shortlisted down to 12 to pitch at Buckingham Palace on November 5th in front of the top 300 experts, Investors and VC’s the UK has to offer.

WIRED acted as one of the knock-out rounds, and we saw 6 companies pitch

- Poetica who have created a writing editor using crowd-sourcing through a web browser. - Squirrels is a plug in for payroll, so large companies can offer small loans and saving plans in advance of pay day to their staff. - Chaser is an automated invoice charging system across platforms. - Therapy Box who have created communication apps for children with learning disabilities. - Wide io offers a market place for people to upload and pay for user generated algorithms and lastly - Borrow my doggy that connects Dog owners with people who want dogs as an alternative to kennels!

“Deciphering the Code to our DNA will be the biggest revolution of our generation” Anne Wojcicki - 23 and Me

“Not ask what can we do, But what should we do! ” Nina Tandon - WIRED fellow

HRH Duke of York Took stage on the second day to judge the short list for the 2nd Pitch at the Palace

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“Internet gave us knowledge, Mobile gave us legs, Robots will give us wings!”

Stuart Turner

“Boredom is The Mother of Creativity”

Ron Arad - Industrial Designer

Gadgets and Gizmos Telefonica Test Lab As well as the world class range of speakers there was of course plenty of 'hands on' showcasing some of the latest and greatest tech developments : Virtual Reality headsets, 3D Printers, Google Glass and social listening tools as part of the Telefonica Test Lab. For us there were 3 stand out element’s.

ASIMO As part of a European first, WIRED put on a demo session of the New 2014 ASIMO robot from Honda. ASIMO (Advance Step Innovative Mobility) was originally created in 2000 as part of Honda's aspiration to helping those who lack full mobility. Since then it's come on leaps and bounds. They unveiled the most advanced humanoid robot to date, a completely automated robot that can make thousands of computing decisions to analyse its surroundings, can walk, run, hop, carry, kick and even shake your hand and recognise your gender, Over the last 14 years the primary focus has been assisting people with limited mobility. It feels like a real indication of where the world of robotics is going, and because of the increase in affordability of Robotics we'll see it used more in marketing and experiential capacity for brands.

Sprouts IO As part of the Culinary creativity section of the agenda, we heard from Jennifer Broutin co-founder of Sprouts IO, A cross between gardening plot and a

connected plant pot. Sprouts IO is a soil free appliance for growing fresh fruit and veg indoors. With 20% of the world's fresh water going into mass manufacture of fruit and veg, Sprouts IO is looking to enable people living in urban areas to create produce for themselves, rather then rely on the traditional food chain. Using a smart soil humidifying system, Sprouts IO allows people to grow quality produce at home. Simply add the seed cartridge, water, and the system automatically sets growing cycles and harvest schedules.

Electric Transport It wasn't just small bits of table top tech on show either. There were a number of electric vehicles on display. As fossil fuels deplete, thankfully, there is a growing trend to look into alternative energy sources for our transport. A game changing player prompting a difference in this space is Elon Musk with Tesla electric cars. Recently launched in the UK Tesla is looking to disrupt the personal transport market with high quality, high performance cars at reasonable prices. Tesla has continued to lead in innovation in this space, with the introduction of supercharging stations with a 30 min charge providing 170 miles (compared to the standard 85 miles). The Model S that was also on show boasted a range of 275 miles on one charge with ZERO emissions!. This surely marks a sea change in the world of personal transport and the marks the start of the electric car race.

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Decode the body Humans meet Tech

Digital Health We are seeing an increasing growth of self diagnostic digital health instruments

‘Decode the Body’ was a topic which grabbed our attention; we saw a range of speakers address the continuing trend of 'sensorisation' of the body allowing us to track and understand ourselves better and provide insights into the condition of our physical selves through data collection and analysis.

23 and Me - Anne Wojcicki The opening speaker was Anne Wojcicki from 23andMe , named invention of the year 2008 by Time Magazine. Their goal : to enable everyone to have access to their genetic information, by offering direct to consumer personal gene tests. Their product allows people to understand their DNA genetic make up and through that, their ancestry and history. DNA testing info would have historically cost thousands of pounds, now - £99. It is a massive leap forward for the mass consumer market to have access to family origins, e and access to the information you need to make the right health and life decisions for your genetic makeup.

Bio Hacker - Andrew Hessel A speaker that captivated the audience in this human/tech space was from and unlikely source, the 3D software company Autodesk. Andrew Hessel is a bio-hacker and is part of the Autodesk Lab looking into the possibility of unlocking and understanding the human cell as ‘..the world's most complex machine that we just don't yet fully understand’. With over 40 TRILLION cells in the body and each gene able to store up to 6GB of data, decoding and re-purposing genetic information could mean a huge leap forward in a number of fields.

Autodesk Life science workspace has project Cyber-web that looks to take digital data using bio-3D printers and store data of live DNA.

Wired Innovation Fellow - Nina Tandon Dotted throughout the 2 day agenda were a number of WIRED 'Innovation Fellows' sharing insights and expertise. The fascinating Nina Tandon from epiBone, the world's first company just looking at growing Bones for skeletal reconstruction, was part of the Decoding the Body section. Her extensive stem cell work in the past has helped contribute towards the the development of potential organ replacement, including lungs, bladders and kidneys. Tandon gave a remarkable TED talk back in 2012 and is now part of a thriving community in Brooklyn of bio engineers and bio artists. She spoke about the leaps happening in the reconstructive organs space, and specifically the potential for regrowing bones. She's driven by a singular philosophy '..don't ask what can be done, but what SHOULD be done’ in bio-engineering research. EpiBone have already worked with stem cells growing and building custom bone replacements, and are just finishing trials on pigs with the plan for humans soon!

Ethical Issues to Resolve The recurring theme and caveat throughout this highly contentious section was, of course debating ethical issues. Strong opinions abound within the debate, this is just the beginning.

If you would like to know more please contact will.Harvey@ogilvy.com

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