Featured Speakers

Dr. Sanjay Gupta is the multiple Emmy award winning Chief Medical Correspondent for CNN. Gupta is also a practicing neurosurgeon at the Emory Clinic and the Associate Chief of Neurosurgery at Grady Memorial Hospital. Since 2001, Gupta has reported health and medical news for all of CNN’s shows domestically, internationally and digitally. His medical training, public policy experience and literary style have informed his reporting and made his dispatches some of the most distinctive on television. Since 2001, Gupta has reported from nearly every war zone and natural disaster in the world. From the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and the middle east to the earthquake in Haiti, Tsunami in Japan and Hurricane in Puerto Rico, to name just a few. As one of the first doctors to arrive in these disaster areas, Gupta is often asked to provide medical assistance, as he is done all over the world – including five battle field brain operations in Iraq.

Dr. Gupta was also the first western reporter to cover the Ebola outbreak in the west African country of Guinea in the throes of the outbreak. Gupta has hosted dozens of documentary films often presenting issues to the global public about topics such as concussions, opioids, climate change -- and medical marijuana, through his multiple part, DuPont Award winning series, Weed.
Over the years, Gupta has written three books, all of which were NYTimes best sellers. He is set to publish his fourth, a book around brain training and Alzheimer’s Disease, early next year.

This year, Gupta has released a new documentary film on HBO, called “One Nation, Under Stress.” Gupta also has a television show, called Chasing Life, where Gupta travels the globe looking for remarkable health practices around the world and bringing the remarkable and intimate stories to his viewers back home that airs every Saturday on CNN at 9pm.

Gupta is a proud Michigan Man, having completed his Medical School and 7 year Neurosurgical training program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He delivered commencement to an audience of 70,000 people in Michigan’s “Big House” in 2012. He worked in the Clinton White House as a White House Fellow, and served as a White House speech writer. Gupta also contributes to 60 Minutes on CBS, and serves as an executive producer for HBO.
Gupta was named one of People Magazine’s sexiest men alive, a pop culture icon by USA Today, and one of the ten most influential celebrities by Forbes Magazine.

Elliott Masie is a provocative, engaging and entertaining futurist, analyst and speaker - focused on the changing world of the workplace, learning and technology.

He is the editor of Learning TRENDS by Elliott Masie, an Internet newsletter read by over 57,000 business executives worldwide, and a regular columnist in professional publications, including CLO Magazine.  He is the author of a dozen books, and is the convener of Learning 2018.

He heads The MASIE Center, a Saratoga Springs, NY think tank focused on how organizations can support learning and knowledge within the workforce. He leads the Learning CONSORTIUM, a coalition of 200 global organizations cooperating on the evolution of learning strategies, including CNN, Walmart, American Express, Walmart, Emirates Airline, Starbucks, General Electric and Fidelity Investments.

Elliott's professional focus has been in the fields of corporate learning, organizational performance and emerging technology. He has developed models for accelerating the spread of knowledge, learning and collaboration throughout organizations. Elliott is acknowledged as the first analyst to use the term e-Learning and has advocated for a sane deployment of learning and collaboration technology as a means of supporting the effectiveness and profitability of enterprises.

Elliott serves as an adviser to a wide range of government, education and non-profit groups. His service has included Skidmore College Board of Trustees and as a Board member of FIRST Robotics, COSMOSid and the CIA University Board of Visitors. He has served as a pro-bono advisor to the Department of Defense and on the White House Advisory Council on Expanding Learning Opportunities.

Elliott is known as a highly approachable speaker and trainer, blending humor, applicable stories of best practice and high levels of audience involvement. Over the past thirty years, he has presented programs, courses and speeches to over 2,200,000 professionals around the world. He lives in Saratoga Springs, owns thoroughbred horses, is a producer/investor in Broadway shows including the TONY Award Winning Kinky Boots, as well as An American in Paris, Macbeth, Allegiance, Unknown Soldier, SpongeBob the Musical and more.

Lindsey Pollak is the leading expert on millennials and the multigenerational workplaceOften called a “translator,” Lindsey Pollak advises both young professionals looking to succeed in today’s work environment and the organizations that want to recruit, retain and market to them.

Her new book, THE REMIX: How to Lead and Succeed in the Multigenerational Workplace, is available now.
She is also the New York Times bestselling author of Becoming the Boss: New Rules for the Next Generation of Leaders and Getting from College to Career: Your Essential Guide to Succeeding in the Real World.
Her audiences and consulting clients have included over 250 corporations, law firms, conferences and universities, including Citi, Estee Lauder, GE, JP Morgan, LinkedIn, PwC, Shearman & Sterling, Yale, Harvard, Wharton and Stanford.
Lindsey also works with select brands as an influencer for media campaigns and social outreach, including Capital One, Hyatt Place, Levi’s and Sprint. As a LinkedIn Ambassador for six years, she created and delivered webinars that trained over 100,000 people to advance their careers using the platform. Lindsey also served for two years as chair of Cosmopolitan magazine’s Millennial Advisory Board.
Her advice and opinions have appeared in such media outlets as The TODAY Show, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC and NPR. She appears on several lists of Best People to Follow on Twitter, including Mashable’s list of top non-fiction authors. Forbes named her blog one of the Top 100 Websites for Your Career.
Lindsey’s passion for mentoring young people goes back to her student days as a dorm RA at Yale University. She is based in New York City.

Karl M. Kapp, Ed.D., is a professor of Instructional Technology at Bloomsburg University in Bloomsburg, PA. where he teaches instructional game design and gamification classes. He is the Director of Bloomsburg’s Institute for Interactive Technologies and is recognized internationally as one of the foremost experts in the application of games, game-thinking and gamification to learning. He has authored or co-authored seven books including The Gamification of Learning and Instruction, it’s accompanying fieldbook and the widely popular, Play to Learn. His latest co-authored book is titled: Microlearning: Short but Sweet.  He is author of eight LinkedIn Learning courses including “Gamification of Learning,” “Sales Gamification” and “Learning How to Increase Learner Engagement.” Karl’s work explores the research, theoretical foundations and application of gamification, game-thinking and game-based learning. He shares his expertise and knowledge through consulting, workshops and one-on-one mentoring with start-up firms, Fortune 100 companies and various governmental agencies. Karl speaks, consults and conducts workshops around the world always working to bring fun, play, learning and productivity together.

Donald H Taylor is a 30-year veteran of the learning, skills and human capital industries, with experience at every level from design and delivery to chairman of the board. He has been chairman of the Learning and Performance Institute since 2010. A recognised commentator and organiser in the fields of workplace learning and learning technologies, Donald is passionately committed to helping develop the learning and development profession.

His background ranges from training delivery to director and vice-president positions in software companies. Donald has been a company director and shareholder for three companies through start up, growth and acquisition. In 2017, Donald was appointed as a non-executive director to London-based learning technology start up Filtered, which uses patented algorithms to make intelligent learning recommendations. He is an influential writer and speaker in the fields of the professional development of L&D and of technology-supported learning.

He was the 2007 recipient of the Colin Corder award for services to training and has chaired the Learning Technologies Conference since 2000. He also chairs the Learning and Skills Group, hosting its bi-weekly webinar programme, and edits Inside Learning Technologies Magazine. He is a graduate of Oxford University and in 2016 was awarded an honorary doctorate by Middlesex University in recognition of his work developing the L&D profession.

Michelle R. Weise is Strada Education Network’s Senior Vice President of Workforce Strategies and serves as Chief Innovation Officer for the Strada Institute for the Future of Work, which is dedicated to advancing understanding of the future of learning and work to build the learning ecosystem of the future.

Weise’s research focuses on the future of the workforce and how to connect learners more directly to meaningful employment pathways throughout their working lives. She is a senior adviser to Entangled Solutions and serves on the Commission on Digital Innovation and Lifelong Learning for Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, the Commission on the Future of Higher Education for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the education advisory board for Village Capital.

Before joining Strada, she designed and led the Sandbox ColLABorative, the innovation lab of Southern New Hampshire University. Earlier in her career, Weise was the senior research fellow in higher education at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, vice president of academic affairs at Fidelis Education, and taught at Skidmore College and Stanford University.

Her book, Hire Education: Mastery, Modularization, and the Workforce Revolution, co-authored with Christensen, describes the disruptive potential of online competency-based education aligned to workforce needs. Weise’s commentaries and research have been featured in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Boston Globe, Inside HigherEd, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and PBS Newshour.

She is a former Fulbright Scholar and graduate of Harvard University and Stanford University.

 

Nigel Paine has been involved in corporate learning for over twenty-five years. He was appointed in April 2002 to head up the BBC’s Learning and Development operation. Under his leadership, his excellent team transformed the learning function and put it on the corporate map.

He left the BBC in September 2006 to start his own company that is focused on building great workplaces by promoting creativity, innovation, values based-leadership and learning and the link between them. He shares his insights with many companies around the world.

He teaches on the CLO Doctoral Program at the University of Pennsylvania. His first book is called, The Learning Challenge: Dealing with Technology, Innovation and Change in Learning and Development. His second book focusses on leadership development and came out in 2016. It is called Building Leadership Development Programmes That Work. His new book: Workplace Learning: How to Build a Culture of Continuous Employee Development was published in January 2019.

He presents a monthly TV programme (Learning Now TV), shares a weekly podcast (with Martin Couzins) called From Scratch. He regularly speaks at conferences, writes articles for magazines and journals about development, technology and leadership.

Richard Culatta is an internationally recognized leader in innovation and learning. His work has centered around using technology to accelerate innovation in education, corporate, and government settings. Culatta was the first Chief Innovation Officer for the State of Rhode Island and was appointed by President Obama as the Director of the Office of Educational Technology for the US Department of Education. In that capacity, he focused on expanding internet connectivity to schools across the country, promoting personalized learning, and developing a national ed tech plan. He also pioneered new ways to engage with citizens and policymakers to accelerate innovation in government.

Culatta is currently the CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and serves as an innovation fellow for the Masie Center and as a design resident for the San Francisco-based innovation and design firm IDEO.