This time last year we posted an update after attending the 2018 edition of C2 Montreal in which we reviewed some of the biggest themes of the event. After taking in some of this year’s edition in May, we decided to follow-up with another update highlighting what jumped out to us as the most prevalent subjects on display.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Once Again
At the risk of being repetitive, it would be impossible to discuss the prevalent themes of C2 without once again bringing up AI. This was by far the predominant topic at the conference, being discussed from many different perspectives. We’ve discussed AI at length in previous posts, but one of the more interesting facets that was a focus at C2 was the emerging ethical framework surrounding the topic. WILL.I.AM was one of the big name speakers at the conference this year, having partnered with a local Montreal company, Stradigi AI, and he discussed ethical issues such as addressing biases being unconsciously built into AI algorithms, as well as managing the impacts of AI on under-served communities.
The topic of AI ethics is rapidly gaining attention as it becomes a more pervasive part of our society, and begins to affect our everyday lives. Issues like unemployment, distribution of wealth, racial biases, security, and responsibility for mistakes or accidents, have all yet to be sufficiently explored in the relation to artificial intelligence. The World Economic Forum published a list of the top 9 ethical issues in AI which can be found here, and this is a topic that has been a focus of many prominent individuals like Bill Gates and Elon Musk.
Climate Change & Sustainability
Last year Sustainability was a major topic, and this was once again the case at this edition of the conference. A lot of attention was focused specifically on the topic of climate change, with a workshop hosted by Jamie Margolin. Jamie is a 17-year old climate-change activist, who is the founder & co-director of Zero Hour, an organization dedicated to fighting climate change. Her presence at C2 served as an example of some of the extremely inspiring efforts being made by the youth of today to help to build a better and more sustainable future for our planet. We highly recommend checking out this piece by the New York Times that talks about the movement Jamie and her partners have started: Meet the Teenagers Leading a Climate Change Movement.
Other topics related to Sustainability mainly included the various ways in which our production of goods needs to be revolutionized. This ranged from the topic of electrification of transportation, to a revolution of the meat industry. This latter topic in particular is of interest to us in our industry, with the recent post-IPO success of plant-based meat replacement pioneer Beyond Meat (BYND). We expect the topic of this “food revolution” to warrant its own dedicated blog post in the not-too-distant future.
This was just a brief look into some of the main themes we took away from this year’s C2 conference. As always, thanks for reading and stay tuned for future posts!
Di Iorio Wealth Management
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