IT conference addresses tech trend impact

Technological innovations that seem unrelated to a business or industry actually could have a profound, disruptive impact, an information technology expert told area business leaders on Wednesday.

For example, Google’s self-driving cars could eliminate crashes, which might spell the end for the $170 billion auto insurance industry, said Erik van Ommeren, director of innovation for Dayton-based Sogeti USA. The emerging technology also could reduce the need for truck, taxi and bus drivers, he said.

Business leaders should “reason through” seemingly inapplicable tech innovations to find tangents “that may be relevant for you as a company or an industry,” van Ommeren said at the fourth annual Technology Innovation Conference at the Sinclair Community College Ponitz Center in Dayton.

The half-day conference was intended to inspire IT professionals from about 50 southwest Ohio businesses and organizations to “think more strategically into the future about where things are headed,” said Ann Gallaher, chief operating officer of Technology First, the regional IT trade association that hosted the event.

The conference also featured speakers from Microsoft, Google and Tableau Software, who addressed trending technologies including “big data,” data visualization and mobile device management.

The conference is an opportunity for area businesses to learn about new tech trends and standards that they might be able to capitalize on, said Jon Lind, a business development manager for IO, a Phoenix-based data center technology and services company that in March opened a new facility in Springboro.

“They get a chance to hear what is changing the market space and (consider) early adoption of those opportunities to better improve their business,” Lind said.

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