Back a decade or so ago in Israel, I attended my first UnConference as a curious attendee. It was hosted by none other than Yossi Vardi, one of the most inspiring entrepreneurs and serial investors. For those unfamiliar, the UnConference model is built on the principle that all attendees can become active contributors to an event. Rather than a fully set agenda with a pre-determined line-up of themes and speakers, where you sit back just absorbing the content often in a very one-dimensional way, in this engaging format, you can wake up that same morning and find yourself leading a session on a topic, whether as a domain expert or just the result of being energised enough to propose a well received suggestion.
Participatory, Purposeful and Productive
We can all agree that while water events bring passionate people together, you often see many of the same speakers or case studies presented on stage. These events all mean well, but the sessions are often limited in both time and scope to be most effective. The UnConference, when curated in a way that enables participatory, purposeful and productive engagement, fosters collaboration amongst attendees, inviting both introverts and extroverts, those with rudimentary knowledge and seasoned domain experts, to contribute in a meaningful way towards collective outputs.
Let’s examine these pillars from the context of a particular group session I was involved in during the recent SWAN Conference in Vancouver, Canada (shoutout to the workshop sponsor Schneider Electric), where we brought this UnConference Model to the global smart water community.
Following an interactive ‘big brain’ session where workshop attendees were invited to suggest and then vote on their favourite topics for deeper discussion, we all gravitated towards a particular theme (think of this as choosing your own smart water adventure for the day) for group work broken down into different sessions, as described below.
Session One: Unpacking Challenges & Opportunities
In this session, our group (it was a pleasure collaborating with SWAN ecosystem members Kedar Dabhadkar (Lam Research), Miller Truby (Turing), Ganesh Hegde (KETOS), Kaushal Trivedi (Teledyne Isco) and Don Soriano (Eramosa, a CIMA+ brand) focused on narrowing down the actual problem into a particular challenge statement stemming from one of the most exciting and perhaps more controversial topics – “Not AI: False Promises of Mislabelling Smart Systems”. This topic encouraged us to think creatively, while also motivating us to compartmentalise the problem to drive towards a helpful output.
Essentially, with the absence of a set agenda, it was up to us to maximise our time together. Through group facilitation work navigating through a problem tree, openly debating cause and effect, we eventually came up with the following problem statement which guided us throughout the rest of the UnConference session: “AI in the water sector has been widely mislabelled and misunderstood both in its current and future state”.
Sessions Two and Three: The Power of Brainstorming & Ideation
After we were aligned as a group on the specific problem we were looking to address, we immediately noticed the potential to demystify this space (i.e. purposeful undertaking) by creating a visual framework and accompanying flow process chart (i.e. essentially crafting a beta AI assessment tool) that could guide industry stakeholders along their ‘AI Journey’ – see the collective outputs below:
Session Four: Rapid-Fire Presentations
Finally, in the rapid-fire presentation session, Kedar helped summarise our group’s findings and frameworks and how they can contribute to mapping out the extent to which an organisation could (and potentially should) engage with AI (in all its formats, dimensions, etc.), determined first by establishing a baseline of data collection and analysis. Users can leverage this type of framework to assess where they are along the path to address their current problems/needs, pinpointing where there are faster paths towards problem solving via other interventions, whether mathematical, machine learning, or AI related.
Unwrapping the UnConference
The 1st SWAN UnConference enabled much-needed collaboration across the water sector, bringing in global utilities, technology vendors of all sizes, engineering firms, market researchers, and young professionals to proactively contribute to smart water knowledge and outcomes. We hope all attendees and curators felt inspired, realising that collaboration is not just a buzzword, but a matter of business continuity.
Feeling the UnConference wave coming in? Come join us in London on November 13th for the 2nd SWAN UnConference Workshop, hosted by EY. If you are interested in bringing SWAN’s take on the UnConference Model to your organisation, please email shirley@swan-forum.com.
Lastly, to learn more about unpacking AI benefits, both in current and future state, check out SWAN’s newly launched AI Community of Practice co-led by Natasha Papsoueva (Seattle Public Utilities) and Prof. Edward Keedwell (University of Exeter).
