GMV celebrates its 30th anniversary with a “A Vision of the Future

Madrid’s Torre de Cristal (Glass Tower) is the venue chosen by GMV for the conference “A Vision of the Future”. Four international leading figures from the worlds of science and technology (Michio Kaku, Daniel Sieberg, Bas Landsorp and Dr. Julio Mayol) will analyze how innovation & technology are going to transform industries such as space exploitation, transportation, ICTs or healthcare and their impact on our lives in the coming decades.

GMV is convinced that business success depends on a long term view of technology and innovation. This has been a hallmark of the brand since the firm’s foundation 30 years ago. As part of this ongoing outlook, on the upcoming 12 June Michio Kaku, a US theoretical physicist and author of best-sellers like “Physics of the Future”, will be giving the opening speech of the conference, followed by a round table discussion with the participation of the rest of the speakers. The science popularizer, Eduard Punset, will chair the debate between these outstanding scientific minds of our time. This debate is likely to leave no one indifferent, investigating as it will such aspects as the future changes in sectors like space, transportation, healthcare and ICTs, the groundbreaking technologies that are likely to bring these great changes about and what companies should be doing today to ensure they play a key role in these game-changing products and services of the future.

Their reflections are bound to act as a watershed between the past and the future, since the ultimate aim of the conference is to inspire the main representatives of the business world and bring home to them the importance of investing today in the R&D that is going to change the future while looking at the influence this newly developed technology will have on our lives in the coming decades.

“GMV wishes to forge a social awareness of the importance of research to Spain’s economy and competitiveness; this calls for a significant effort of coordination and liaison between all the various government levels and authorities”, argues the company president, Mónica Martínez Walter, who will be in charge of inaugurating the whole event together with the Secretary of State of Research, Development and Innovation of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Carmen Vela. Finally, the closing speech will be given by Carmen Librero Pintado, Secretary General for Transport in the Spanish Ministry of Public Works.

PARTICIPANTS:

MICHIO KAKU (born 1947) is an American theoretical physicist, the Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics at the City College of New York and a recognized communicator and popularizer of science. He has written several books about physics and related topics, has made frequent appearances on radio, television, and film and writes many online blogs and articles. He has written two New York Times Best Sellers: Physics of the Impossible (2008) and Physics of the Future (2011). Kaku has hosted several TV specials for the BBC, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, and the Science Channel. KEY SPEAKER.

DANIEL SIEBERG (born 1972) is author of ‘The Digital Diet’ and Senior marketing manager at Google. Since joining the company in late 2011, Sieberg has led a team that supports journalists around the world as they use Google’s newsgathering tools including Google Maps and Google Earth, Fusion Tables, Google , Search, Trends, YouTube and others. He also routinely appears on TV and radio to talk about a wide variety of Google’s products and initiatives. The Emmy-nominated Sieberg was previously a technology reporter dating back to the late 1990s for the likes of CBS News, CNN, ABC News, and BBC News America. His reports and analyses have also featured on MSNBC, NBC News, Fox News, Al Jazeera, CBC, NPR, CTV, the Vancouver Sun and many other outlets. Sieberg is the author of The Digital Diet: the four-step plan to break your tech addiction and regain balance in your life, which is all about becoming a high-powered, high-efficiency communicator in today’s fast-paced world. KEY SPEAKER.

BAS LANSDORP (born 1977) is a Dutch entrepreneur, best known as the co-founder and CEO of Mars One. Lansdorp received his Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Twente in 2003. He worked for five years at Delft University of Technology and in 2008 founded Ampyx Power to develop a new, viable method of generating wind energy. In 2011, he sold part of his shares in Ampyx to launch Mars One. Lansdorp became determined to establish the first permanent human colony on Mars during his studies at the University of Twente. His primary focus was on the business model and finding technology partners that can supply the different components for the mission. Until 2013 he financed a significant part of the project himself. KEY SPEAKER

DR. JULIO MAYOL, MD, PhD. (born 1963) is Chief Innovation Officer of Madrid’s Hospital Clínico San Carlos, where he is also clinical chief of general surgery. He works as fully tenured surgery professor of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and as visiting professor of the Surgery Department of Wayne State University in Detroit (United States). Mayol has received specialist training from Hospital Clínico de Madrid and Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, then becoming Research Fellow in Surgery at Harvard Medical School. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (UCM-UPM) and also corresponding academician of the National Royal Academy of Medicine. He is a founding member of the iSURGITEC consortium (International Surgical Group for Innovation and Technology). Since 2012 Mayol has been co-director of M Visión Consortium, an alliance between the Regional Authority of Madrid and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to tap into the scientific-technical knowledge of Madrid and Boston, thus creating an innovation ecosystem and turning Madrid into a global hub of biomedical research. KEY SPEAKER.

EDUARD PUNSET (born 1936) is a Spanish lawyer, economist, and science popularizer. He holds a law degree from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and a Master’s in Economic Sciences from the University of London. He has been an economic writer for the BBC, economics director of the Latin American edition of the newsweekly The Economist, and an economist for the International Monetary Fund in the United States and Haiti. As a specialist on the impact of emerging technologies, Punset has been a consultant to COTEC, Advising Professor of International Marketing at ESADE, president of the Instituto Tecnológico Bull, Professor of Innovation and Technology at the IE Business School (formerly Instituto de Empresa) in Madrid, President of Enher, Deputy General Director of Economic and Financial Studies at the Banco Hispanoamericano, and Coordinator of the Strategic Plan for the Information Society in Catalonia. MODERATOR.