Webinar: Innovation, Deep Uncertainty, and Strategic Foresight

This panel will explore how deep uncertainty influences business, government policy, and societal decision-making about innovations. The discussion will focus on how strategic foresight can translate into actionable insights about risks and opportunities, especially for breakthrough innovators. The panel will highlight their discussion with examples that cut across economies to include transportation, communications, energy, biomedical, and consumer offerings. Registration is required.

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Dr. Bruce Vojak is the co-author of "Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms" (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2012) and five book chapters on innovation. He is also the Founder/Managing Director of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, LLC. Bruce serves on the Board of Directors of Midtronics, Inc. and the Advisory Board of JVA Partners, periodically consulting on the topic of innovation for Procter & Gamble, and regularly presenting and leading workshops for, and advising various other companies. Prior to founding Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, Bruce served as Associate Dean and Adjunct Professor in the top-ranked College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Professor Dan Cahoy in the Smeal College of Business specializes in the teaching and study of intellectual property law, as well as related issues in technology law and general business law concepts. He has published numerous articles in academic law journals on topics such as IP and alternative energy policy, FDA regulatory policy, reforming the U.S. patent system, the use of contracts to extend limited intellectual property rights, and the use of experimental economics to improve jury studies. Professor Cahoy is also a patent attorney, licensed to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Dr. Martin Pietrucha is a Professor of Civil Engineering at Penn State University. He has over 40 years’ experience in transportation engineering specializing in highway design, highway traffic operations, highway safety, human factors, and transportation policy issues for a variety of public and private institutions. His research deals primarily with human factors as they relate to transportation safety and operations.

Dr. Darryl Farber studies and works on strategic foresight and sociotechnical systems analysis with a focus on critical infrastructure systems. He recently co-developed and led a unique academic-think tank partnership, the 2018 Penn State-Atlantic Council Workshop on Strategic Foresight, Deep Uncertainty and Leadership. Dr. Farber has developed the course, Global Trends: Strategic Analysis and Systems Thinking for Leadership, which is based in part on the critical input and review he provided to the United States Government report, Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds. He serves on the faculty in the College of Engineering at Penn State and on the executive committee of the Council of Engineering Systems Universities.

Sponsored by the Smeal College of Business and the College of Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University