Future Forward on November 20th: We hope you'll join us

(From left: Colin Angle of iRobot, Michael Greeley of Foundation Medical, Dan Bricklin of Alpha Software, Rodney Brooks of Rethink Robotics, and Mick Mountz of Kiva/Amazon. At Future Forward 2013.)

The annual Future Forward gathering takes place Thursday, November 20th at the Harvard Innovation Lab. It has two goals:

1.  Discuss as a group some of the trends, technologies, usage patterns, and market shifts that will matter in a big way in the year ahead.
2.  Connect you with some of the most interesting entrepreneurs, investors, technologists, and big company leaders in town.

That's it. There are 10-minute talks, followed by Q&A. There are lunch table discussions at the end. It's a half-day event (8 AM - 1 PM), and everyone there attends free, courtesy of our sponsors. But it's invite-only, so if you'd like to be there you need to tell us a bit about yourself (we tend to filter out multiple attendees from one company, since space is limited. Here's the list of companies represented last year.)

Our topics and speakers in 2014 will include:

GIANT ROBOTS: Gui Cavalcanti, Founder, Imagination Fabrication

ENERGY TECH: Rob Day, Partner, Black Coral Capital

CONSUMER HARDWARE: Ben Einstein, Managing Director, Bolt

PLATFORMS & NETWORKS: Tom Eisenmann, Co-Chair of the HBS Rock Center for Entrepreneurship

WHAT I'M SEEING AT BLADE: Paul English, CEO and Cofounder, Blade

THE FUTURE OF VENTURE CAPITAL: Michael Greeley, General Partner, Foundation Medical Partners

TAKING TO THE SKIES: Helen Greiner, CEO and Founder, CyPhy Works

MONITORING THE HOME: Michael Phillips, CEO, Sense

THE MAKER MOVEMENT: Jules Pieri, Co-founder and CEO, The Grommet

We'll also be joined by several Harvard students demoing their startup ventures.

And if you're interested in demoing a not-yet-launched product or leading a lunch table discussion on a topic that *you* think will be a big deal in 2015 (these aren't company pitches, but rather they focus on important shifts and emerging technologies), drop us a note.

For photos of last year's event, see Dan Bricklin's Flickr set.