FutureScope, billed as Ireland's number one innovation event, is returning to the Covention Centre Dublin on April 1, 2020.

Content at FutureScope is delivered across four stages, each with a specific purpose:

• Insights Stage: Provides attendees with insightful perspectives on emerging technologies and how they will shape our future world.
• Collaboration Stage: Showcases examples of collaboration within the tech, business and research communities and identifies new opportunities for business growth through collaboration.
• Innovation Stage: Showcases and promotes the smartest innovations and how they are being applied to fuel business growth.
• Entrepreneurship Stage: Identifies business opportunities and funding options, shares knowledge, insights, tools and techniques to empower entrepreneurs to start and scale. Features the FutureScope One2Watch 2019 pitch battle.

According to Michael Culligan, CEO of Dublin BIC, which organises FutureScope: “When you get 1,600 engaged and purposeful business owners and innovators in a room, conversations are enabled, contacts are made, insights are gleaned, and together these can lead to significant business impact."

The event’s keynote speaker will be Edward F. Crawford (pictured), US Ambassador to Ireland and serial entrepreneur. He will share insights on his entrepreneurial journey, the traits necessary for high-level success, and how to take success from rejection.

Crawford grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Irish immigrants from Cork and Monaghan. A self-taught entrepreneur, he went on to found a $2 billion business with 7,500 employees worldwide.  “His ‘Aspire’ story is one of resilience and resourcefulness and his talk is not to be missed by anyone hoping to emulate this level of success,” said Culligan.

In Association with

FutureScope 2020 Hot Topics

• The Future of Connectivity: 5G will enable an era of connectivity like never before from autonomous driving, tactile internet, immersive technologies and next-generation IoT applications.

• A Future Shaped by Climate: Addressing the big challenges, from climate to carbon. The role of technology in reaching a low carbon economy: renewables, cleantech, electric vehicles, carbon capture and storage.

• The Business of Health: From hospital to home – how technology can enable that shift. We look at rapid advancements in MedTech and wearable technology and the role of AI and IoT in healthcare.

• The Reality of an AI Future: AI is promised to touch all aspects of humanity. How much of the hype is based in reality and how can we expect AI to impact on work, play, healthcare delivery, mobility, cyber security.

• A Secure Future: Information, misinformation and disinformation. How can technology help us be smart about big data? How can we be secure when technology is evolving faster than our understanding of it?

• Future Business: Innovation, disruption and the response to disruption. How to start in Ireland and scale internationally, and what are investors really looking for?

The FutureScope One2Watch 2020 competition is accepting applications from scalable startups ahead of the closing date on February 17.

Dublin BIC says participants have raised a combined €12m in funding over three years. They include Hexafly, Proverum Medical, Change Donations, WeSavvy, Output Sports and Skytango.

Super Early Bird tickets are priced at €139 and available here.