TED@BCG 2019 - Unlocking the Human Potential

Ted@BCG 2019: Unlocking human potential
TED@BCG 2019 explores unlocking the human potential to access the intelligence, imagination, and invention we need to solve business and society’s greatest challenges.
TED@BCG Mumbai—2019
Humans are creatures of profound potential. But how do we access the intelligence, imagination, and invention we need to solve business and society’s greatest challenges? How do we hack away at the structures and complacency that hold us back from turning potential into reality? To succeed in the next decade, and beyond, we can’t simply optimize what we know. We need to continuously learn. We must engage with ideas from distributed and diverse sources of information. In the face of constant change, we must unlock our full potential–human, technological, and natural–to accomplish things we never thought possible.
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Watch the Talks

Management Lessons from Chinese Business and Philosophy
Fang Ruan shares that business management in China is changing and Chinese entrepreneurs are exploring the Taoist philosophy for a new leadership style.
  • Management Lessons from Chinese Business and Philosophy
    Management Lessons from Chinese Business and Philosophy
    Management Lessons from Chinese Business and Philosophy
    Fang Ruan shares that business management in China is changing and Chinese entrepreneurs are exploring the Taoist philosophy for a new leadership style.
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    How Online Marketplaces Can Help Local Economies, Not Hurt Them
    How Online Marketplaces Can Help Local Economies, Not Hurt Them
    Amane Dannouni demonstrates how online marketplaces can make strategic trade-offs to include, rather than replace, existing players in local economies -- benefiting everyone in the long run.
  • sylvain-duranton-how-humans-ai-can-work-together-to-create-better-businesses-tcm9-238487.jpg
    How Humans and AI Can Work Together to Create Better Businesses
    How Humans and AI Can Work Together to Create Better Businesses
    Companies are increasingly using artificial intelligence to make critical decisions, but are they inadvertently making themselves less efficient? Business technologist Sylvain Duranton advocates for implementing AI systems alongside human judgement.
  • markus-mutz-how-supply-chain-transparency-can-help-planet-tcm9-237784.jpg
    How Supply Chain Transparency Can Help the Planet
    How Supply Chain Transparency Can Help the Planet
    Supply chain innovator Markus Mutz explores how blockchain technology can be used to track where goods are sourced from, providing a trustworthy final product that aligns with consumers' values.
  • ipsita-dasgupta-challenge-status-quo-find-co-conspirator-tcm9-237168.jpg
    To Challenge the Status Quo, Find a “Co-conspirator”
    To Challenge the Status Quo, Find a “Co-conspirator”
    How do we make sure workers with unconventional ideas thrive? Business executive Ipsita Dasgupta explores the concept of "co-conspirators"—people willing to stand together in breaking the rules and challenging the status quo.
  • lorna-davis-a-guide-to-collaborative-leadership-tcm9-235910.jpg
    A Guide to Collaborative Leadership
    A Guide to Collaborative Leadership
    What is the difference between a hero and a leader? Lorna Davis explores how idolizing heroes holds us back from solving big problems—and why "radical interdependence" is necessary for real change.
  • sougwen-chung-on-why-i-draw-with-robots-tcm9-234907.jpg
    Why I Draw With Robots
    Why I Draw With Robots
    Artist Sougwen Chung taught her style to artificial intelligence before making new art through human-robot collaboration. She has found that embracing their inherent, shared fallibility has allowed for unexpected discoveries.
  • what-if-world-used-one-currency-kavita-gupta-tcm9-234610.jpg
    What If the World Used One Currency?
    What If the World Used One Currency?
    Currency globalist Kavita Gupta shares how a decentralized global currency could lead to true economic inclusivity.
  • search-for-truth-age-social-media-chris-kutarna-tcm9-234611.jpg
    The Search for Truth in the Age of Social Media
    The Search for Truth in the Age of Social Media
    Writer and philosopher Chris Kutarna explores a tough choice in the age of social media: Declare that truth is dead or resurrect stronger truths together?
  • power-of-invisibility-akiko-busch-tcm9-234612.jpg
    The Power of Invisibility
    The Power of Invisibility
    While visibility is the rule of the day, does the act of invisibility allow us to directly connect with our most creative selves? Writer Akiko Busch looks to the power of being alone in our ever-connected world.

Speaker Lineup for TED@BCG Unlock

Our speakers will explore what it means to unlock human potential, examining this idea through the lenses of science, technology, social impact, media, business, and more.

Speaker Lineup for TED@BCG Unlock

Speakers

Gaby Barrios | Partner & Associate Director, BCG Paris
Gaby Barrios is the associate director of the Center for Customer Insight at BCG, based in Paris. She holds a master of science degree in management sciences and industrial engineering from Northwestern University and a bachelor of science degree in industrial engineering from Universidad Simón Bolívar.

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Akiko Busch | Author, How to Disappear
Akiko Busch is the author of the 2019 book How to Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency. Her previous essay collections include Nine Ways to Cross a River and The Incidental Steward, which won an honorable mention in the 2013 National Outdoor Book Awards. She was a contributing editor at Metropolis magazine for 20 years and her work has appeared in numerous national magazines, newspapers and exhibition catalogs. She is on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
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Sougwen Chung | Artist & Researcher
Sougwen 愫君 Chung is an artist and researcher whose work explores the dynamics between humans and systems. She is a former research fellow at MIT’s Media Lab and a pioneer in the field of human-machine collaboration. In 2019, she was selected as the Woman of the Year in Monaco for achievement in the arts and sciences.
sougwen-chung-ted-unlock-tcm9-225135.jpg
Amane Dannouni | Partner, BCG Casablanca
Amane Dannouni is a partner in BCG’s Casablanca office and a core member of the Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) practice. He’s worked in the BCG Paris, Singapore and Casablanca offices and has clients in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Africa. During his time in Singapore, he cofounded and led BCG’s Digital Transformation Enablement Center for Asia-Pacific. Dannouni has a deep interest in exploring how technology impacts established business models, and how digital can unlock greater economic and social value. He holds a master’s degree in engineering from École Centrale Paris.
Ipsita Dasgupta | Media and Sports Executive
Ipsita Dasgupta is a senior executive in digital media and sports, currently focused on growing an international digital app for entertainment and sports. She has spent her career working in multiple sectors, including technology, manufacturing and consulting, between the U.S. and emerging markets like China, India and South-East Asia. She’s held leadership roles in American multinationals GE, Cisco, and IBM, focusing on growing their businesses across Asia. She holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics from Columbia University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
ipsita-dasgupta-ted-unlock-bio-tcm9-225129.jpg
Lorna Davis | Global Ambassador, B Corporation
For more than 20 years, Lorna Davis served as the president of multinational consumer goods companies in Danone, Kraft and Mondelez. As CEO and chairwoman of Danone North America, she led the company to achieve B Corp status in 2018, making it the largest B Corp in the world. She is a global ambassador for the B Corp movement and is a member of the Social Mission Board of Seventh Generation. She has lived and led businesses in seven countries, including the UK, US, France and China.
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Slyvain Duranton |Managing Director & Senior Partner, BCG Paris
Sylvain Duranton is the global leader of BCG GAMMA, a unit dedicated to applying data science and advanced analytics to business. He manages a team of 800 data scientists and has implemented more than 50 custom AI and analytics solutions for companies across the globe. Duranton has degrees from the French engineering schools Polytechnique and Mines Paris and holds an MBA degree from INSEAD. He is also an executive board member for Aurore, one of France’s largest NGOs, which aims to alleviate poverty and improve access to housing.
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Abhishek Gopalka | Managing Director & Partner, BCG New Delhi
Based in BCG’s New Delhi office, managing director and partner Abhishek Gopalka is a core member of the Social Impact and Public Sector practices. He has deep expertise in large-scale transformation of public delivery systems to drive citizen outcomes, with a focus on education and public health. Gopalka holds a BE from RV College of Engineering and an MBA from the University of Michigan.
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Kavita Gopalka | Visiting Scholar, Stanford University
Kavita Gupta is a visiting scholar and founding member of the Distributed Trust Initiative at Stanford University, currently teaching Beyond Bitcoin and Ethics for Engineers. Previously, Gupta was the Founding Managing Partner of the VC-hedge fund at ConsenSys, investing in next-gen blockchain technologies. In 2015, she received the UN Social Finance Innovator Award for helping found the green bond team at The World Bank. She’s set up innovative investment funds across East Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and the US for the past 16 years, and advises the Vatican impact investing community, MIT Solve and the Mandela Trust, among others.
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Jean-Manuel Izaret | Managing Director & Senior Partner, BCG San Francisco
Jean-Manuel Izaret is a managing director and senior partner in BCG’s San Francisco office. He is the global leader of BCG’s Pricing practice and believes best-in-class pricing means much more than setting prices at an optimum level. Izaret holds a PhD in marketing and a master’s in engineering from École Centrale Paris, and a master’s in economics from the Paris Political Science Institute.
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Toby Kiers | University Research Chair & Professor, VU Amsterdam
Toby Kiers is an evolutionary biologist studying cooperation between species. Her recent work focuses on resource trading in nature and how complex “biological markets” can emerge among plants and microbes. She is interested in when and why organisms defect from cooperation, and how cheating strategies emerge in nature. Kiers received her doctoral degree from the University of California, Davis, and is now a university research chair and professor of evolutionary biology at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.
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Chris Kutarna | Fellow, Oxford Martin School
Dr. Chris Kutarna is an entrepreneur, writer and former BCG consultant. He's the bestselling co-author of Age of Discovery: Navigating the Storms of our Second Renaissance, and he holds a doctorate in politics from the University of Oxford. He’s lived in New Zealand and spent several years in China, where he built and sold his first business. His Mandarin is still passable.
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Markus Mutz | CEO, Opensc & Venture Architect Director, BCGDV
Markus Mutz is the CEO of OpenSC, a social venture cofounded by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and BCG Digital Ventures. Prior to launching OpenSC, he was a director at BCG Digital Ventures in Sydney and a founding member of Digital Ventures Asia. Mutz previously worked with an early-stage VC in China on emerging technologies, with BCG on retail supply chains and with the World Food Programme in Laos on their school feeding program.
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Fang Ruan | Managing Director & Partner, BCG Hong Kong
Fang Ruan is the regional leader of the People and Organization practice in Asia-Pacific, based in BCG’s Hong Kong office. Her work focuses on corporate reorganization, corporate governance, leadership and talent management. She holds an MBA from the Wharton School and a degree in English from Beijing Foreign Studies University.
fang-ruan-ted-unlock-bio-tcm9-225126.jpg
Gaby Barrios | Partner & Associate Director, BCG Paris

Headshot for Gaby Barrios - TED@BCG 2019: Unlock

Gaby Barrios is the associate director of the Center for Customer Insight at BCG, based in Paris.  She holds a master of science degree in management sciences and industrial engineering from Northwestern University and a bachelor of science degree in industrial engineering from Universidad Simón Bolívar.

Akiko Busch | Author, How to Disappear

Headshot for Akiko Busch - TED@BCG 2019: Unlock

Akiko Busch is the author of the 2019 book How to Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency. Her previous essay collections include Nine Ways to Cross a River and The Incidental Steward, which won an honorable mention in the 2013 National Outdoor Book Awards. She was a contributing editor at Metropolis magazine for 20 years and her work has appeared in numerous national magazines, newspapers and exhibition catalogs. She is on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Sougwen Chung | Artist & Researcher

Headshot for Sougwen Chung - TED@BCG 2019: Unlock

Sougwen 愫君 Chung is an artist and researcher whose work explores the dynamics between humans and systems. She is a former research fellow at MIT’s Media Lab and a pioneer in the field of human-machine collaboration. In 2019, she was selected as the Woman of the Year in Monaco for achievement in the arts and sciences.

Amane Dannouni | Partner, BCG Casablanca

Headshot for Amane Dannouni - TED@BCG 2019: Unlock

Amane Dannouni is a partner in BCG’s Casablanca office and a core member of the Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) practice. He’s worked in the BCG Paris, Singapore and Casablanca offices and has clients in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Africa. During his time in Singapore, he cofounded and led BCG’s Digital Transformation Enablement Center for Asia-Pacific. Dannouni has a deep interest in exploring how technology impacts established business models, and how digital can unlock greater economic and social value. He holds a master’s degree in engineering from École Centrale Paris.

Ipsita Dasgupta | Media and Sports Executive

Headshot for Ipsita Dasguptai - TED@BCG 2019: Unlock

Ipsita Dasgupta is a senior executive in digital media and sports, currently focused on growing an international digital app for entertainment and sports. She has spent her career working in multiple sectors, including technology, manufacturing and consulting, between the U.S. and emerging markets like China, India and South-East Asia. She’s held leadership roles in American multinationals GE, Cisco, and IBM, focusing on growing their businesses across Asia. She holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics from Columbia University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Lorna Davis | Global Ambassador, B Corporation

Headshot for Lorna Davis - TED@BCG 2019: Unlock

For more than 20 years, Lorna Davis served as the president of multinational consumer goods companies in Danone, Kraft and Mondelez. As CEO and chairwoman of Danone North America, she led the company to achieve B Corp status in 2018, making it the largest B Corp in the world. She is a global ambassador for the B Corp movement and is a member of the Social Mission Board of Seventh Generation. She has lived and led businesses in seven countries, including the UK, US, France and China.

Sylvain Duranton | Managing Director & Senior Partner, BCG Paris

Headshot for Sylvain Duranton - TED@BCG 2019: Unlock

Sylvain Duranton is the global leader of BCG GAMMA, a unit dedicated to applying data science and advanced analytics to business. He manages a team of 800 data scientists and has implemented more than 50 custom AI and analytics solutions for companies across the globe. Duranton has degrees from the French engineering schools Polytechnique and Mines Paris and holds an MBA degree from INSEAD. He is also an executive board member for Aurore, one of France’s largest NGOs, which aims to alleviate poverty and improve access to housing.

Abhishek Gopalka | Managing Director & Partner, BCG New Delhi

Headshot for Abhishek Gopalka - TED@BCG 2019: Unlock

Based in BCG’s New Delhi office, managing director and partner Abhishek Gopalka is a core member of the Social Impact and Public Sector practices. He has deep expertise in large-scale transformation of public delivery systems to drive citizen outcomes, with a focus on education and public health. Gopalka holds a BE from RV College of Engineering and an MBA from the University of Michigan.

Kavita Gupta | Visiting Scholar, Stanford University

Headshot for Kavita Gupta - TED@BCG 2019: Unlock

Kavita Gupta is a visiting scholar and founding member of the Distributed Trust Initiative at Stanford University, currently teaching Beyond Bitcoin and Ethics for Engineers. Previously, Gupta was the Founding Managing Partner of the VC-hedge fund at ConsenSys, investing in next-gen blockchain technologies. In 2015, she received the UN Social Finance Innovator Award for helping found the green bond team at The World Bank. She’s set up innovative investment funds across East Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and the US for the past 16 years, and advises the Vatican impact investing community, MIT Solve and the Mandela Trust, among others.

Jean-Manuel Izaret | Managing Director & Senior Partner, BCG San Francisco

Headshot for Jean-Manuel Izaret - TED@BCG 2019: Unlock

Jean-Manuel Izaret is a managing director and senior partner in BCG’s San Francisco office. He is the global leader of BCG’s Pricing practice and believes best-in-class pricing means much more than setting prices at an optimum level. Izaret holds a PhD in marketing and a master’s in engineering from École Centrale Paris, and a master’s in economics from the Paris Political Science Institute.

Toby Kiers | University Research Chair & Professor, VU Amsterdam

Headshot for Toby Kiers - TED@BCG 2019: Unlock

Toby Kiers is an evolutionary biologist studying cooperation between species. Her recent work focuses on resource trading in nature and how complex “biological markets” can emerge among plants and microbes. She is interested in when and why organisms defect from cooperation, and how cheating strategies emerge in nature. Kiers received her doctoral degree from the University of California, Davis, and is now a university research chair and professor of evolutionary biology at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

Chris Kutarna | Fellow, Oxford Martin School

Headshot for Chris Kutarna - TED@BCG 2019: Unlock

Dr. Chris Kutarna is an entrepreneur, writer and former BCG consultant. He's the bestselling co-author of Age of Discovery: Navigating the Storms of our Second Renaissance, and he holds a doctorate in politics from the University of Oxford. He’s lived in New Zealand and spent several years in China, where he built and sold his first business. His Mandarin is still passable.

Markus Mutz | CEO, OpenSC & Venture Architect Director, BCGDV

Headshot for Markus Mutz - TED@BCG 2019: Unlock

Markus Mutz is the CEO of OpenSC, a social venture cofounded by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and BCG Digital Ventures. Prior to launching OpenSC, he was a director at BCG Digital Ventures in Sydney and a founding member of Digital Ventures Asia. Mutz previously worked with an early-stage VC in China on emerging technologies, with BCG on retail supply chains and with the World Food Programme in Laos on their school feeding program.

Fang Ruan | Managing Director & Partner, BCG Hong Kong

Headshot for Fang Ruan - TED@BCG 2019: Unlock

Fang Ruan is the regional leader of the People and Organization practice in Asia-Pacific, based in BCG’s Hong Kong office. Her work focuses on corporate reorganization, corporate governance, leadership and talent management. She holds an MBA from the Wharton School and a degree in English from Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Performers

Dee MC | Rapper & Singer-Songwriter
Deepa Unnikrishnan, known by her stage name Dee MC, is a 25-year-old rapper and singer-songwriter from Mumbai. She started her journey into hip hop through dance, fell in love with the genre's music and began writing her own raps in 2012. Today, Dee MC is a renowned voice in Indian hip hop, and her music has been featured in the films Gully Boy, URI and Article 15. She is also editor-in-chief of DesiHip Hop, the leading South Asian hip hop digital media platform.
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Gingger Shankar | Musician, Composer, Activist
Gingger Shankar is a musician, composer and activist. Her most recent projects include the original motion picture soundtracks for Heartbeats, featuring Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, and for We Will Rise, which highlights former American First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let Girls Learn” initiative. She is currently working on the documentary and album Nari, which follows the untold story of her mother and grandmother, Lakshmi and Viji Shankar, as they brought Indian music to the West with Ravi Shankar and George Harrison. She is also the producer of Akicita: The Battle of Standing Rock, directed by Cody Lucich.
gingger-shankar-ted-unlock-performer-bio-tcm9-225128.jpg
Pirashanna Thevarajah | Percussionist
Pirashanna Thevarajah is a world-renowned percussionist, specializing in instruments including the mridangam, kanjira, ghatam and morsing, and is equally versed in the art of Konnakol (Indian spoken rhythm). He will perform alongside Gingger Shankar at TED@BCG.
pirashanna-thevarajah-ted-unlock-bio-tcm9-225134.jpg
Dee MC | Rapper & Singer-Songwriter

Headshot for Dee MC - TED@BCG 2019: Unlock

Deepa Unnikrishnan, known by her stage name Dee MC, is a 25-year-old rapper and singer-songwriter from Mumbai. She started her journey into hip hop through dance, fell in love with the genre's music and began writing her own raps in 2012. Today, Dee MC is a renowned voice in Indian hip hop, and her music has been featured in the films Gully Boy, URI and Article 15. She is also editor-in-chief of Desi Hip Hop, the leading South Asian hip hop digital media platform.

Gingger Shankar | Musician, Composer, Activist

Headshot for Gingger Shankar - TED@BCG 2019: Unlock

Gingger Shankar is a musician, composer and activist. Her most recent projects include the original motion picture soundtracks for Heartbeats, featuring Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, and for We Will Rise, which highlights former American First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let Girls Learn” initiative. She is currently working on the documentary and album Nari, which follows the untold story of her mother and grandmother, Lakshmi and Viji Shankar, as they brought Indian music to the West with Ravi Shankar and George Harrison. She is also the producer of Akicita: The Battle of Standing Rock, directed by Cody Lucich.

Pirashanna Thevarajah | Percussionist

Headshot for Pirashanna Thevarajah - TED@BCG 2019: Unlock

Pirashanna Thevarajah is a world-renowned percussionist, specializing in instruments including the mridangam, kanjira, ghatam and morsing, and is equally versed in the art of Konnakol (Indian spoken rhythm). He will perform alongside Gingger Shankar at TED@BCG.

Behind the Scenes at TED

The TED Talk Journey
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The TED Talk Journey

Past TED@BCG Events

Explore the thoughts and perspectives from our most recent TED@BCG events in Toronto and Milan.

In 2017, more than 500 executives, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders gathered in Milan to explore the theme "Break the Mold."
In 2018, speakers and leaders from around the world congregated in Toronto to “Reboot” and find a new definition for the bottom line.

TED@BCG Talk Collection

Each year, new ideas abound. Past speakers extract meaning out of everything from natural disasters to the Super Bowl.