Dr. Tony O'Driscoll’s Keynote

Learning in Context:
How Emerging Technologies Will Change the Game in Generative Learning

As the world becomes increasingly connected, the rate of change itself is changing and the degree of complexity is compounding. In such an unpredictable context, the role of generative learning becomes paramount. As new waves of disruptive technologies come crashing down upon our educational shores, we must avoid falling prey to the “Routinization Trap" in which we use radically new technologies to accelerate the existing teaching model, where we fill classrooms to teach students what we know how to do.

To move beyond this trap, we must leverage the affordances inherent in these disruptive technologies to collectively figure out what to do next when faced with truly novel situational contexts. We need to evolve from the current practice of building individual competencies by closing individual skill gaps via productive learning to a new model of building collective capability. We can accomplish this by tuning human networks to help people make sense of the unfamiliar via generative learning. This session will explore what lies just beyond the horizon to unlock the power of generative learning to better prepare people to navigate an ever evolving and unpredictable world.

About Dr. Tony O'Driscoll

Tony O’Driscoll is a professor, speaker, author, and advisor whose engaging message emphasizes that the key digital-age differentiator is not technology, but people.

Tony has spent the bulk of his professional and academic career at the nexus of Business, Innovation, Technology and Learning, creating and implementing strategies that enable organizations to realize the full potential of their most valuable asset: Human Beings. 

Dr. O’Driscoll’s current appointments as Adjunct Professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the Pratt School of Engineering coupled with his role as Research Fellow at Duke Corporate Education afford him the unique opportunity to apply cutting-edge academic research to address increasingly complex business challenges. 

During his 18-year corporate career, Tony held several strategic leadership positions. At Duke Corporate Education, he launched the company’s Asian operation and led innovation at CE Labs. At IBM, he was a founding member of IBM Global Service’s Strategy and Change consulting practice where he consulted at the highest level with business executives on creating competitive advantage in increasingly complex environments. He also served as a member IBM’s Almaden Services Research Group where he investigated the changing roles of leadership, innovation, and collaboration as enterprises become more global, virtual, open and digitally mediated. At both IBM and Nortel Networks, Tony had strategic responsibility for crafting and implementing enterprise-level learning, transformation, and human performance improvement strategies.

Dr. O’Driscoll is a frequently invited speaker at both corporate and academic conferences. He has been a keynote speaker, workshop leader, moderator, speaker and panelist at over 130 national and international conferences. He has also provided expert analysis and interviews to media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Wired Magazine, The Financial Times, India Today, Chief Learning Officer Magazine, Training Magazine and for industry analysts such as Gartner and Forrester. 

Tony has authored and co-authored articles for business periodicals such as Harvard Business Review, The Financial Times, Strategy and Business, and Dialogue and writes a column for Training Magazine.  He has also published two books on Learning and Organization Performance: Learning in 3D: Adding a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning and Collaboration and Achieving Desired Business Performance.  His latest book, Everyday Superheroes, proposes a revolutionary People-Centered Transformation (PCT) approach to enable sustained and sustainable organization agility. 

Dr. O’Driscoll has contributed to science via publications in journals such as Management Information Sciences Quarterly, Journal of Management Information Systems, Performance Improvement Quarterly and the Journal of Product and Innovation Management. His current research and practice examines how rapidly emerging technologies are disrupting existing industry structures and business models. He specifically focuses on how to develop leadership systems that enable organizations to adapt and evolve in increasingly unpredictable and turbulent business environments.  

Along with his teaching, research and formal speaking engagements, Dr. O’Driscoll maintains an active consulting practice. His client list includes Fortune 500 companies across a broad range of industries including High-Technology, Banking, Biotechnology, Software Development, Gaming, Energy, Retail and Professional Services.  

Dr. O’Driscoll holds an Ed.D. in Organization Learning and an M.S. in Management from North Carolina State University. His B.S. in Electrical Engineering is from Virginia Tech. 

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