Last week, I spent an evening speaking to a graduate class at the University of Colorado in Denver. The class is part of the international business school and focused on Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain. It was super fun to re-purpose a presentation I created for ARE Day, that was never delivered in its entirety.

The talk of the presentation was titled, Mobilizing the (next) Greatest Generation for Smart Disruption and the description is this…

The energy sector is ripe for a revolution. It hasn’t changed in over a 100-years and is functioning on a brittle architecture, delivery system and business model. That’s now being challenged. Blockchain startups and some progressive incumbents are pressuring the system from the bottom up with renewable, distributed energy resources and reimagined customer experiences.

Another change pushing in on the industry are the demands of the "Millennial” generation. Their spending power just overtook Gen-X and they are now officially the largest generation on the planet. Their buying power and market impact will fundamentally change how businesses design products and services. Join me to explore where I see signs of intelligent change happening that signal how the next 5-years might transform energy from an abstract concept to a high-touch, consumer shopping experience.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I noticed that the class seemed to be split 50-50 between non-US and US citizens. Everyone’s questions were smart and demonstrated a curiosity that I loved! Listening to the non-US citizens relating of their home-country experiences was super cool and confirmed my research on utility and infrastructure technologies in other parts of the world, like India and Nigeria. In essence, this is that many countries skip certain technology stages moving directly to the latest infrastructure. This is often seen in telecommunications (land lines vs. cellular) and utilities (national/regional grid power vs. local power production).

A country’s history has an impact on the design of new products and services. It requires a U.S.-based designer to deeply understand how the cultural setting & communal behaviors differ, if they intend to build something of value.

Special thanks to Julie Tracy Lockwood, their professor, for inviting me and for letting me view the class syllabus. I purchased one of the required book titles and have loved reading, LikeWar, about the weaponization of technology and in particular, social media.

Thanks, Julie!