Disruptive ideas aired at Pivot Summit

DISRUPTION was the order of the day at the 2017 Pivot Summit, with several of the speakers praising the virtues of transformative change.

The annual technology, startup and social enterprise event drew a crowd of about 700 people to the Federal Mills in North Geelong.

Deakin University chief digital officer and vice president William Confalonieri set the tone early with his talk “Get ready for a smart new world”, which noted that the university had more than 57,000 students and 25 per cent studied solely in the cloud, reflecting the rapid acceleration and take-up of technology.

“With exponential change, we cannot focus to respond to the present – we must look to the future and focus on that.”

Xchange chief executive officer Caitlin Iles said there was a clear difference between disruption, such as Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone; and innovation, such as the constant evolution of the iPhone.

Talking about her venture capital fund for female-founded companies, Capital xx, Ms Iles said women had been undervalued but represented “the greatest commercial opportunity of our lifetime”, with the lack of female participation in senior levels of business and leadership costing the economy about $20 trillion.

PricewaterhouseCoopers Australia head of innovation Kate Eriksson said everyone had “the choice to do the incremental thing, or the crazy thing, the significantly different thing”.

“One of the things I want you to take away is that the pace of change is much greater than the decisions that we are currently making.”

Other speakers at Pivot Summit included Centre for the Digital Future director and chief executive officer Jeffery Cole, YGAP co-founder and chief executive officer Elliot Costello, BioMelbourne Network chief executive officer Dr Krystal Evans, and Weploy head of talent acquisition Marissa Senzaki.