Innovation Forums
The AU 2012 Innovation Forums will leave you informed, inspired, and energized about where design is going.
The Reality of the Cloud
Tuesday, November 27, 10:30 a.m.–noon
Today the cloud seems to be in the forefront of business conversations and is entrenched in our everyday lives. Think about Netflix, Spotify, or Evernote. Many of us use a cloud service daily without even thinking about it. What impact does this rapid adoption have on our professional lives, and what advances can we achieve by taking advantage of the power of the cloud?
Join our host Andrew Anagnost, Autodesk senior vice president of Industry Strategy & Marketing, and a few of our customers who have already integrated the cloud into their work:
- Peter Leyden, CEO of Reinventors Network and former managing editor of Wired Magazine
- Teresa Payton, former White House CIO, and cybersecurity authority and identity theft expert
- Scott Zimmerman, manager, Enterprise Systems, Bechtel Corporation
See how adoption is occurring faster than we might have thought. Form your own opinion about whether a public or a hybrid approach might be the best solution for your organization as speakers discuss security and explore the pros and cons of a public versus hybrid cloud. And finally, what does the future hold? Get a glimpse of the possibilities the cloud offers and how complex data problems will rapidly accelerate the move to the cloud.
The Future of Making Stuff
Tuesday, November 27, 1:30 p.m.–3:00 p.m.
What does the future hold? How will you and your business be able to keep pace in a world where accelerating technology is leaving entire industries in the dust seemingly overnight? The accelerating complexity of challenges we each face every day can be terrifying as we try to bring new products to market, deliver improved levels of service, and compete in a ferocious global economy.
Fortunately, a broad spectrum of enabling technologies is becoming widely accessible to everyone. These enablers can allow us to overcome complexity and take full advantage of the challenges of today to create the opportunities of tomorrow.
Attend this mind-blowing session to learn from the world's most innovative experts about the incredible work they are doing today and about the shocking future of making things that they see in front of us.
This session features:
- Mickey McManus, president and CEO, MAYA
- Mark Hatch, CEO, Techshop
- Ash Notaney, VP of Product and Innovation, Project Frog
- Domenic Di Giorgio, digital creatureologist, Creature Technology
- Jason Martin, founder and CEO, Carbon Audio
- Patrick Triato, Lead Designer, Carbon Audio
- Sarah Krasley, thought leader, Autodesk
- Jay Rogers, CEO, Local Motors
Everyone Is a Designer
Tuesday, November 27, 3:30 p.m.–5:00 p.m.
We are entering an era in which the consumer is both the designer and the manufacturer: DIY creations on Kickstarter; 3D printers in your home; increasingly affordable computing and components; membership-based workshops filled with digital fabrication tools; and open-source electronics, combined with design techniques that create new, unique—and often highly creative—inventions and applications.
The democratization of technology and the rise of the maker subculture are changing who does the work of design, and how they conceive, explore, and fabricate things. Are we all designers now? Or is this more hype, similar to the promise of the Jetsons™ and the paperless office?
Join us to hear more from speakers—from an array of disciplines—who will share their stories, talk about how the “make-it-yourself” mindset is driving innovation, and discuss where this DIY movement is really heading.
This session features:
- Eric Wilhelm, founder of Instructables
- David Lang, co-founder, OpenROV
- Schuyler St. Leger, enthusiastic amateur maker
- Jason Chua and team, SparkTruck, Stanford d.School
- Ben Kaufmann, CEO, Quirky.com
- Anne Filson and Gary Rorhbacher, partners at Filson and Rohrbacher and co-founders of AtFAB
The Future of Design: How the Masters Create in 2025
Tuesday, November 27, 5:30 p.m.–7:00 p.m.
Imagine that it is the year 2025 and the world of technology is anew: quantum computing is now common, 3D printing has become a cheap commodity, biological programming has redefined the concept of life, and sensors of every type are embedded in almost every manufactured product, fulfilling the promise of the Internet of things. But in 2025, the world continues to churn. Economies on every continent have gone bankrupt. Massive corporations have fallen, replaced by rapidly growing startups—and the average global temperature has risen 1.2°C.
Join us to see how several leading designers have applied exponentially growing technologies to create the products the world now wants and needs.
This session features:
- Brian David Johnson, Intel futurist and author
- Alvise Simondetti, ARUP Futures
- Franz von Holzhausen, head of Design, Tesla Motors
- Michael Gough, VP Experience Design, Adobe
- Rex Gringon, head of Animation, Dreamworks
- Daniel Kraft, Singularity University chair
- Trevor Haldenby, founder, Byologyc
You will see state-of-the-art cars, robots, medical equipment, running shoes, games, and movies, as well as the way these creations were designed and fabricated. You just might be surprised how unexpected the future may be.
The Collective Wisdom of Design Across Boundaries
Wednesday, November 28, 10:00 a.m.–11:30 a.m.
Join us as we examine how various disciplines are addressing the blurring boundaries between industries in the context of a global problem. In advance, we solicited opinions from the online community on how best to deliver health care to underserved locations. At the forum, 4 leaders from our core industries—building, infrastructure, manufacturing, and media & entertainment—will use their talents and technological knowledge to present their interpretations of the problem. They will discuss the commonalities and differences in approach, process, and technology, and then propose the most viable solution. The result: a possible answer to this global problem based on collective input, ideas, and innovation. During the forum, attendees will vote on their favorite solution. The winning solution will be further developed by a non-profit or academic organization with an Autodesk grant.
This session features:
- Phillip G. Bernstein FAIA, RIBA, LEED AP, vice president Industry Strategy and Relations, Autodesk
- Dr. Myshkin Ingawale, co-founder, Biosense Technologies
- Dr. Alasdair MacDonald, director Strategic Innovation, Balfour Beatty
- Liz Ogbu, environments designer
- Professor Marla Schweppe, Rochester Institute of Technology
Join the conversations below and tell our speakers what you would do to solve this global problem in each of these industries:
A Better World: How Smart Design Is Improving Our Planet
Wednesday, November 28, 1:00 p.m.–2:30 p.m.
Today, innovators are making more than a living–they are making a difference, channeling their passion for design to make a better world.
Currently, one in 7 lives in a slum or refugee camp, and nearly half the world's population has no access to clean water or sanitation. Yet too often designers are desperately needed in the places where they can least be afforded. Meanwhile, the impact of dirty cook stoves, impoverished families, energy pollution and historical artifacts lost due to conflict are attracting the attention of motivated design professionals.
In this session:
- Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity, will describe clever and pragmatic ways to raise living standards for communities worldwide.
- Ethan Kay of Biolite Stoves, will show how to take an entrepreneurial approach to solving health, energy, and social concerns.
- Eve Blossom of Lulan will describe how she trained impoverished designers on lucrative trends and then built a business that lifts them from poverty.
- Günter Waibel and the Smithsonian Institution will show how they applied reality capture technology to capture, archive, and share artifacts and specimens with researchers, students, and the public.
- Gia Schneider of Natel Energy will describe how environmentally safe hydroelectric systems can generate renewable power more broadly.