CeBIT opens with strident address from Guy Kawasaki

 

THE most significant business technology event in the Asia-Pacific region, CeBIT opened today to thousands of people with a charismatic welcome address by NSW Minister for Finance, Services and Property, Dominic Perrottet, who said CeBIT was well known for bringing together the best and brightest of the ICT industry.

Mr Perrottet said, however, more than a great exhibition and conference, CeBIT "is a time for Australians to think about the future challenges to society and how technology can help us face those challenges". 

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, in his video address welcomed local, Australian and international visitors to Sydney to CeBIT, calling it: “The most significant ICT showcase in our region. It’s become the place to connect with global leaders, visionaries, start-ups and multinationals.”

Kicking off day one of the three-day event, chief evangelist of Canva and former evangelist of Apple, Guy Kawasaki shared with the CeBIT audience the lessons he learned from working with Steve Jobs.

“Innovators ignore naysayers,” Mr Kawasaki said. “Can you imagine if Steve Jobs came to a show like CeBIT and told someone that he had an idea to dramatically change computing, and they said, nay, it can’t be done? If Steve had listened to that, we never would have had one of the most successful profitable companies in the world today."

With 400 exhibitors across the two halls of The Dome at Sydney Olympic Park, a fantastic conference line-up and a very strong attendance, managing director of Hannover Fairs Australia, Harvey Stockbridge said he was delighted with the energy on the exhibition floor and how the show has begun.

“We have experienced unparalleled interest from academia, industry, media and government this year and the atmosphere on the show floor demonstrates that," Mr Stockbridge said.

“Already our exhibitors are reporting great leads from discussions on the show floor, and we look forward to another two days of great ideas, business deals and education."

CeBIT’s day one conferences covered the topics of Social Business, Mobile Engagement and Big Data and Analytics.

Speaking in the social business stream, Sarah Bernhardi, Digital Transformation Centre, Telstra shared her experience of how to foster engagement and collaboration through digital transformation.

Under the Mobile Engagement stream, George Lawson, the head of emerging products and innovation for Visa, shared the journey on making the vision of a mobile wallet a reality.

David Boloker, chief technology officer, from IBM’s Emerging Internet Technology Group gave his keynote about his perspectives on Big Data 3.0.

David Shing, the 'digital prophet' for AOL (US) gave the closing keynote today on Recalibrating Digital Conversations.

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