As business lead for the transformation programs of TomorrowLab, Karen Sprengers, is an empowered strategist and passionate about innovation and technology. With an extensive track record spanning over 15 years across diverse industries including mobility and aviation, healthcare, industry, and smart cities—both in B2C and B2B capacities—Karen brings a wealth of experience and expertise.
As director of the Living Tomorrow Innovation Missions, she brings networks together, to explore innovative technologies and future concepts abroad. Through immersive visits to pioneering entities in Europe, Dubai and Silicon Valley such as NASA Ames Research Center, Google, Google Wing, HP, and numerous groundbreaking startups, she makes the future tangible, stimulates debates and enhance collaboration.
Her expertise lies in foresight and scenario thinking, strategy, transformation, stakeholder management, business model innovation, design thinking and innovation excellence.
Topic:
Speed of change and how future foresight enables companies and organizations to be more resilient
Innovation without a future strategy is merely daydreaming:
Strategy is about doing the right things first, before doing things right. But the speed of change is accelerating. How can we better understand which evolutions will impact or perhaps even disrupt our industry? Which technologies will be important? How do we define a futureproof vision and strategy based on all these uncertainties? How do we involve and engage the people in our organization in these transformations? How do we create future proof ecosystems?
By exploring different scenarios for the future, we avoid dwelling only on wishful thinking in a strategic exercise. Working with scenarios helps us imagine what the world might look like and prepare for the unexpected.
We cannot predict the future, but we can explore and imagine it.
Scenarios look at the broader context of an industry, because usually change comes from outside the industry. Future exploration makes organizations resilient and agile. Scenarios provide a shared vision of possible futures. They are not limited to wishful thinking or to one dominant vision of the future. They cover key uncertainties about the future.
Karen provides inspiring cases of how scenario planning has guided companies and organizations through the speed of change.
Other topics:
- The future of healthcare
- The future of mobility
- Advanced Air mobility: the opportunities of drones now and tomorrow
- Innovation excellence: a robust basis for innovation
- Business model innovation: from an idea to a plan that might actually work
Languages in which the keynote can be given are Dutch & English.
Astrid Bastiaens is an empowered strategist and passionate speaker with over 15 years of experience across diverse sectors, including energy, IT, construction, telecom, smart cities, and media. With a proven track record in both B2C and B2B aspects of business, Astrid brings a wealth of expertise to the table.
Ehsan Karimi Rad Domain Lead Innovation and Strategy at TomorrowLab
With over 15 years of experience at the intersection of innovation, strategy, technology, and business development, Ehsan brings a wealth of knowledge and practical insights to the forefront of discussions surrounding the future of work.
Marijke Verhavert, director of TomorrowLab, is an empowered strategist and passionated speaker with a proven track record of more than 20 years of experience in government, business, digitalisation and innovation.
Living Tomorrow is a versatile event venue with various rooms and facilities. We are located amidst a lush green landscape yet close to the Brussels ring road.
We offer the auditorium and event hall for larger-scale events.
Living Tomorrow's vast grounds also offer plenty of opportunities for open-air events. And there is plenty of parking space.
Moreover, the voco™ catering professionals will help you make it an event you won't soon forget.