Announcing Postback Keynote Speaker Ray Kurzweil

Postback registration is now open and we have our first big secret to reveal.

We are excited to have one of the world’s leading inventor, thinker, and futurist Ray Kurzweil hit the stage as our first keynote speaker for Postback. Ray, in an onstage interview with TUNE’s CEO Peter Hamilton, will share his latest thoughts on where we are in reaching the tipping point of singularity.

Ray Kurzweil has an incredible thirty-year track record of accurate predictions. It’s no surprise he is also a Director of Engineering at Google heading up a team developing machine intelligence and natural language understanding. I wonder what he has to say about the future of mobile. 😉

Called “the restless genius” by The Wall Street Journal and “the ultimate thinking machine” by Forbes magazine, Kurzweil was selected as one of the top entrepreneurs by Inc. magazine, which described him as the “rightful heir to Thomas Edison.” PBS selected him as one of the “sixteen revolutionaries who made America.”

Kurzweil was the principal inventor of the first CCD flat-bed scanner, the first omni-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition.

Among Kurzweil’s many honors, he recently received the 2015 Technical Grammy Award for outstanding achievements in the field of music technology; he is the recipient of the National Medal of Technology, was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, holds twenty one honorary Doctorates, and received honors from three U.S. presidents.

Ray has also written five national best-selling books, including New York Times bestsellers The Singularity Is Near (2005) and How To Create A Mind (2012). If you haven’t read, The Singularity is Near, I’ll mail you a copy if you register for a ticket using this code “Kurzweil.” Hurry and get your ticket, I only have 20 books to give away.

Why Is THE FUTURE Interesting to People in Mobile?

Take this example from Craig Weinberg, VP Mobile Strategy at 3Q Digital, “Last year, I started running. A LOT. Like 15-20 miles a week. I’ve tried every run tracking app there is. You name it, I can give a detailed breakdown of its functionality and a rating on a scale of A-F (most are closer to Fs). Without revealing which one I prefer, I will say that I’m now experiencing a bit of a “what if” moment during each run. When the little voice tells me my time, distance, pace and current pace, I think about how basic that is and how “20th Century” this mechanism sounds. If X running app is supposed to be my dedicated, mobile/digital/virtual running companion, how come it doesn’t know more about me? Why can’t it coach me in a personalized way? Why isn’t it nudging me every night before a run to get out my clothes, untie my shoes and to never, ever ever forget my trusted, sweaty hat? We’re only in the 1st inning (at best) with automated human-to-digital transference. Having Ray knowledge-share and blow our minds may get me one step closer to the REAL virtual running companion! ”

People that love being in mobile, love being ahead of the curve. Postback is all about bringing together the insiders of the industry. It’s boring to talk about what happened, we talk about what will happen and make plans to get there.

“The future is approaching faster and faster,” says our Mobile Economist, John Koetsier “Few people understand what’s coming as well as Ray, and I can’t wait to hear from him on the future of mobile, the future of tech, and the future of what it means to be human.”

But first, what’s Postback?

Postback is the ‘burning man’ of mobile conferences. At least that’s what past attendees have said about their experience.

Postback was first launched to educate, inform, and inspire the insiders of the mobile community. There is incredible content from leaders in mobile and also keynote highlights from marketing heroes like Malcolm Gladwell.

The most memorable parts of events often come from the people you meet and the connections that you take with you. While we aim to deliver the best content, we also have plenty of time to make those lasting memories. In fact, many of the highlights were share all across social media. Relive the best moments here.

Who attends Postback?

Last year we had 30 attendees from Google advertising and analytics, 39 from Amazon, 6 from Apple, 21 from Twitter, as well as advertisers like Expedia, Spotify, Nordstrom, Supercell, Sephora, Disney, Macy’s, and Experian.

Purchase your ticket today to join the all-stars of mobile this summer in Seattle. Here is a peek at a few companies that attended last year. Want to learn more? Send me an email: [email protected].

 

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