Jolene Creighton, Founding Editor of Futurism.com, joins Travel Tech Con 2018
We’re happy to announce Jolene joining us — Futurism has been a personal favorite source of future tech news & futuristic inspiration for us for a long time!
Jolene is the Founding Editor of Futurism, a media publication that covers the science and technology that is transforming our future. She is a public speaker, writer, and STEM advocate with 7+ years experience communicating science across digital, print, and video. In addition to her work as a science communicator, she has taught over two dozen university courses on writing and communication.
Learn more about Jolene: LinkedIn | Facebook
Our team had a chance to learn more about Jolene’s personal perspective on technology:
Jolene, what in your opinion drives innovation and leaps forward in most prominent industries today and how is it different from say 10 years ago?
This may be an unconventional answer, but I think that a lot of the biggest breakthroughs still happen when people make mistakes or have those random “ah ha!” moments. In this respect, leaps in progress happen today in ways that are pretty similar to what we saw ten — or even fifty — years ago. That said, across industries, technology is increasing in power and decreasing in price. This has dramatically lowered barriers to entry, so competitors and innovators are able to enter industries much easier, and breakthroughs are happening much faster than ever before.
What do startups building next generation products need to understand about technology evolution nowadays?
It doesn’t matter what field you are in, you need to be prepared for change — for dramatic change that happens on an absurdly short timescale. The number of breakthroughs being made in science and technology, and the rate at which they are happening, is unprecedented. But that’s one of the great things about startups; they are able to more easily adapt to new and disruptive advances.
What are some of your favorite tech breakthroughs in the last couple of years?
Reusable rockets, no questions asked. For the first time ever, space travel is actually affordable. Sadly, I haven’t had the chance to ride in one (yet), but space tourism is no longer just a distant dream. It’s something that we will see in the next few years. reusable rockets also make it far easier for small companies and startups to get their technologies into space. This is great for research and innovation. Because of these advances, we finally have a viable space industry.
We’re absolutely stoked to have Jolene share her expertise and perspective with our travel tech community — join her talk at Travel Tech Con 2018.
