On the 2nd of October, SCDI through the House of Innovation participated in the national effort, Digital@Idag, in hosting a conference that brought together visionary experts to reflect on how new digital technologies are impacting organizational and societal innovation and sustainability.

The conference was focused on the prospects of digital innovation for citizens, organizations, and society, which have become more visible, vivid, salient, and far-reaching over just a few years. The disruptive consequences, the challenges, and the opportunities for societies, organizations, and individuals, have also become more articulated.

In our conference, a central theme was that opportunities and challenges related to digital innovation and AI increasingly require thinking broadly, engaging and collaborating across societal sectors, and developing a vision that prioritizes long-term resilience and prosperity for society, firms, and other organizations, and citizens. Attention to social and societal aspects, including sustainability, are inherent in this view. We highlighted the subtle but fundamental importance of attending to the social aspects of technological change through the theme, from connectivity – what technology provides – to connectedness. Specifically, we explored this in three intertwined themes. The word “smart” denotes the attention to meaningful and responsible change that we want to highlight: Smart regions, Smart global knowledge networks, and Smart organizations.

At the conference, we explored insights from path-breaking initiatives that can help build better living conditions (in rural India as well as in high-tech regions); accelerate innovation, learning, and responsiveness on a global scale (with particular focus on global knowledge networks in healthcare), and build augmented organizations that leverage AI by working, and leading, differently.

This conference was organized in collaboration with the Wallenberg Foundations and Digital@Idag, a nation-wide initiative with more than 300 actors and 111 locations and events highlighting digital innovation on 2 October. The conference was also part of the outreach program of the Jacob and Marcus Wallenberg Center for Innovative and Sustainable Business Development, and the Scania Center of Innovation and Operational Excellence, at the SSE House of Innovation. The SSE House of Innovation is co-funded by the Erling Persson Foundation.

More information is available here:

https://www.hhs.se/en/research/research-houses/house-of-innovation/outreach/events/digital-day-2020/