DTU invites you to High Tech Summit—Denmark’s university-driven technology summit, opened by Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen.
On 10 October, DTU opens the doors for the second High Tech Summit.
The summit takes place at DTU Lyngby Campus, which will be transformed into a high-tech conference and exhibition hall with more than 50 professional tracks where companies, start-ups, researchers, and students meet, discuss, and set the agenda for digital development.
“This year, the summit focuses on convergence—how new technologies can be integrated into production and converge with other technologies. Our focus is particularly on digital technologies within domains such as health, food, and biotech, where Denmark holds a strong international position, and where we have many examples of introduction of new technology,” says Project Director of DTU High Tech Summit Bjarke Bak Christensen, Head of Department at DTU Bioengineering.
DTU has extended the programme at High Tech Summit, so this year, there will be 200 presentations from leading experts from academia and the business sector, who will debate, inspire, and explain their views on the digitization agenda. In the exhibition hall, 70 companies present tangible examples of the development in the form of projects and innovation within digitization, big data, and artificial intelligence.
"This year, the summit focuses on convergence—how new technologies can be integrated into production and converge with other technologies."
Bjarke Bak Christensen, Head of DTU Bioengineering
Four thousand visitors are expected at this year’s High Tech Summit.
DTU also strengthens the matchmaking events at High Tech Summit with support from the government-appointed Digital Hub Denmark and continues the activities with a special start-up fair with participation from 50 entrepreneurial companies.
The innovation hub DTU Skylab presents innovation and pitch competitions such as Open Innovation X and Hardtech Entrepreneurship, which may result in more permanent collaborations between participating companies. In connection with the University Startup World Cup, Venture Cup has additionally invited 60 start-ups from all over the world to make exhibitions at High Tech Summit.
Five trends at High Tech Summit
The academic content of High Tech Summit 2018 spans everything from digitization themes within Industry 4.0 and Robotics, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, and Internet of Things, to a broad range of issues within the themes Smart Health Care and Food, Business Inside Technology, Entrepreneurship, and to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Across the themes, High Tech Summit is expected to be characterized by five digital trends:
1: Technology convergence
This is the main theme of High Tech Summit, where integration of new technology in industries within health, food, and biotech is expected to inspire many participants. Integrating new technology may for instance involve how data on traceability can be used in production processes, and how they can be used to improve quality and safety, or to develop new treatments. The first keynote speaker at the summit, Dr. Jun Wang, and his company IcarbonX is an example of a company that integrates digital technologies and environmental and genome data in order to create knowledge that can be used for making personal decisions on diet, health, and physical activity among others.
2: Democratization of digitization
Danish society faces a major task in spreading digitization to the general population. The digital solutions must be specific and accessible to the public, and it must be easier for small and medium-sized companies to introduce and use digital technologies. The digital development must be steered towards a democratic process for the majority and not for the minority, and technology must be developed to fill the needs of people.
3: Safe use of artificial intelligence
Digital technology opens the door to new ethical issues on an individual and a societal level. For instance, digitization provides easy access to health data, but in order to leverage the technology, clear rules for data security must be in place—also in the public sector. We need to program more secure and open solutions that minimize the risk of leaks and misuse.
4: Personalized medicine
DNA research and mapping of the human genome has paved the way for new types of diagnostics and treatment at individual level. At High Tech Summit, DTU researchers present new projects that combine genome data with behavioural data. Another development trend is to optimize the effect of treatment of disease by exploiting the knowledge of the individual’s DNA and active ingredients in medicine.
5: Sustainability
Digitization, robot technology, and artificial intelligence can solve major societal problems. It may for instance improve the watering of crops in developing countries or reduce the consumption of energy in production. High Tech Summit focuses on how Denmark can contribute to filling the UN’s 17 global goals for sustainable development in several areas—also within more effective medicine and better food safety.