Shawn DuBravac

Shawn DuBravac spent more than a dozen years as the Chief Economist for the Consumer Technology Association, the trade organization that owns and produces CES — the world’s largest technology conference, attended by more than 150,000 people annually. In that role, he built some of the most widely cited technology forecasting models in the industry and developed consumer confidence indexes used by CTA and NASDAQ. Today, as founder of Avrio Institute and author of the New York Times bestseller Digital Destiny, DuBravac is one of the most trusted voices on where technology is going and what it means for every business. He speaks on digital transformation, the future of AI, consumer technology trends, and strategic foresight.

Digital Destiny and the Quantified Consumer
DuBravac’s keynote frameworks help leaders see past the noise of individual technology releases and understand the structural forces reshaping entire industries. His five pillars of digital destiny — proliferation, connectivity, sensorization, miniaturization, and intelligence — provide executives with a durable lens for long-range planning. He has been named to Dealerscope’s 40 Under 40 in consumer technology and listed among the top 50 futurist speakers.

Where He Speaks
DuBravac has taught in MBA programs at George Washington University, George Mason, and Marymount University, and serves as President of the Conference of Business Economists.

Shawn DuBravac delivers keynotes on technology trends, digital transformation, the economics of AI, and strategic foresight for organizations navigating rapid change.

Digital Destiny: How Innovation Will Affect Your Industry

In 1980, McKinsey predicted that there would be 300,000 mobile phones in use by 2000. Today, there are 330 million in the US alone. DuBravac outlines the “5 pillars of our digital destiny,” which includes among other things the continued proliferation of digital devices, increased connectivity, and the “sensorization” of consumer goods, and illustrates what the business world of the future will look like. DuBravac predicts which experimental technologies will stick and disrupt business models, paints the picture of a continued shift from an analog to a digital world, and customizes his talk to showcase how business innovation has and will continue to affect the client at hand personally. For example, a talk with an insurance company looked at the past effects of online reviews on client relations and then mapped out the associated risks and rewards of the likely roll-out of autonomous cars into 2021.

Artificial Intelligence

Elon Musk argues artificial intelligence (AI) poses a greater threat to humanity than nuclear weapons while Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes AI will save lives. This juxtaposition reveals the existential threat and potential AI possesses. From accelerating information flow on major weather events to writing sophisticated texts, spreading fake news and undermining public trust, AI is ushering in a new digital paradigm. What’s clear is that AI is going to change all that we know about the digital world and in turn, have massive ramifications on the physical world.

Digital Objects: People & The Future in a World of IoT

Ten years ago, the number of “things” connected to the Internet surpassed the number of people on the planet and this technological tsunami continues to escalate. As objects add capabilities such as context awareness, processing power, energy independence the Internet of Things will grow exponentially. Ilion’s or even trillions of connections becomes a network of networks and create boundless opportunities for businesses, individuals and countries. There is a tremendous amount of experimentation taking place today that will redefine our future and influence how we work, communicate and live. The fuel of the next industrial revolution is upon us but it will not be mechanical inventions as it has been through all the ages of history.

The Connected Consumer of Tomorrow

According to Dr. DuBravac, the consumer of tomorrow will use “the internet of me,” rely heavily on predictive customization, and live in a digital world that provides updates on their lives in real time. Dr. DuBravac looks at the rise of wearables and micro-customization, and breaks down how businesses will need to interact with their consumers as the social experiences of things like meetings, shopping, driving, and interacting change, altering with them formerly tried-and-true methods of advertising, marketing, and selling to clients. This talk provides answers to questions such as:

• How will businesses adopt the “insider dialogue” (think emojis, pop culture references) increasingly used by consumers?
• Just how far will consumers want predictive analytics to go?
• How is technology reformatting society?