Location

Napa Valley, CA

Description

The reThink Food Annual Leadership Conference brings together a diverse group of thought leaders and innovators at the intersection of technology, behavior, design, and food. Our assembled speakers, experts, and provocateurs will spotlight areas of innovation all along the food industry’s chain of supply and demand—from agriculture to the consumer food experience—and offer solutions for rethinking the future of food amid radically changing food markets around the globe.
Continuing on the path set during the inaugural reThink Food event in 2014, the 2015 program will focus on three overlapping areas of discovery: trust, transparency, and trajectory. Keeping in mind the questions and issues that are crucial to the work of today’s chefs, foodservice operators, retailers, and innovators in all sectors of the food industry, sessions will examine the need to rebuild trust between the technology and food communities, the decisions that investors make when looking at innovative companies, the impact that personalized and digital healthcare will likely have on our food decisions, next-generation strategies that companies should use to communicate with their customers, and the role of robots in our food future—among other thought-provoking presentations and breakouts.
Professor Nicholas Negroponte, MIT Media Lab co-founder and angel investor to many companies in the tech and other sectors, will share with the audience the boldest of his ideas for the future of food. Restaurant designer Mark Stech-Novak will talk about what we know and don’t know about the restaurant space. Sessions by legendary design firm IDEO, the Institute for the Future, the Food Business School, and Compass Lab will feature presentations about epicenters of innovation, entrepreneurship, supply chain re-invention, and design thinking. Some of the country’s most creative chefs will share their visions for the future, which sometimes imply looking far back, and will include demonstrations, tastings, and sensory evaluations.
A unique collaboration between The Culinary Institute of America and the MIT Media Lab, the three-day conference invites food industry leaders, academics and innovators in R&D, technology, consumer package goods, marketing, and related fields to join us for networking opportunities, cutting-edge research that will widen perspectives, and business-friendly solutions for the challenges and imperatives that face us.
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