Alain Sylvain | Founder & CEO of Sylvain Labs, a strategy and design consultancy provoking progress for companies, people and society at large.

Alain Sylvain

Founder & CEO of Sylvain Labs, a strategy and design consultancy provoking progress for companies, people and society at large.

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Alain Sylvain
Biography

Alain is the Founder and CEO of Sylvain Labs, a strategy and design consultancy that provokes progress for companies, people, and society at large. Clients include Google, American Express, Airbnb, Spotify, BlackRock, Samsung, Pepsico, Diageo, Hilton, AB InBev, IKEA, GM, Sonos, the NBA, and others. Founded in 2010, the company is headquartered in NYC, with offices in Amsterdam and Richmond, VA, and is a Certified B-Corporation.

Alain is a partner and investor in several ventures, including Master + Dynamic, a design-driven, premium audio brand, So Choice Softworks, a mobile gaming company, Lilo, an acai bowl company, and PetMio, a smart pet food startup. He is on the board of Plus Pool, an ambitious project to build the world's first floating, filtering swimming pool in NYC harbor, a founding member of Kindred, and a member of the New York City Mayor's Creative Council. Alain is also an active contributor to various non-profit initiatives around the world including the Lower East Side Girls Club, The Bowery Mission, and Anseye Pou Haiti.

Alain is a seasoned strategist, entrepreneur, and speaker that provokes audiences to think about the issues facing businesses, people, and society at large. Having spoken at some of the largest in-person and virtual conferences in business and tech around the world, including Collision Conference, Fast Company Innovation Festival, The Atlantic's Power of Purpose, The Next Web, and the 99U Conference, he's known for his provocative points of view and not letting anyone off easy. Alain has a vast knowledge of history, pop culture, branding, innovation, consumer insight, leadership, and business strategy, and builds his thinking around the unrelenting belief that when culture and commerce unite, real progress is possible.

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What Matters More - the innovation or the context?

We live in a world where AI, VR and the connected home are becoming a way of life, but why now? Iterations of these technologies have been surfacing since the 1950s, yet it’s only now that we are really seeing them become a standard of modern living. Alain Sylvain, CEO of Sylvain Labs explores the critical factor influencing tech success today: Optimus Time.

Optimus Time is the window when forces are aligned for the ideal introduction of a new behaviour, product, or idea. It's the reason why incredible products fly or fail. So much of the conversation around innovation and invention has been invested in questions of ingenuity and creativity, but what about time?

Ultimately, Optimus Time is a way for us to wrap our minds around the ripeness of ideas – products, brand experiences, or even pop culture phenomena. A framework for us to build stories against, to test within our gut whether an idea feels like it is right or not. And in this instance, a way to ask if the realities of a technologically advanced world jibes with life as we see it.

In his presentation Alain will explore the relevance of Optimus Time in the tech evolution, its impact on some of the most exciting brands today - Spotify, Google, Netflix among others - and how brands can harness the theory of Optimus Time for tomorrow’s innovations.

The Power of PolyCulture in Innovation.

There are more than 1,000 types of bananas in the world, subdivided into 50 groups, but more than 95% of the bananas sold in the U.S. are Cavendish. As perfect as the Cavendish is, a single disease could wipe them all out. As humans, we are hardwired for sameness, which means that diverse teams need to work harder. But that same friction creates the perfect conditions for innovation.

From Waze to the Beyhive
The Power of the Collective Ego

How technology has the power to nurture a sense of trust amongst users, creating a hive-like mindset that provides real value.

Technology is helping to create a collective mindset, where masses of people are sharing observations, instincts and power. It’s a connection amongst strangers that is rooted in trust and ultimately creates collective value and power. Drawing from the story of Waze and other sources of inspiration like science and pop culture, Erin Clift, Global Marketing and Partnerships at Waze, and Alain Sylvain, founder and CEO of Sylvain Labs, will discuss how technology has the power to unite individuals into a collective ego

Wellbeing 2.0

First, we wanted brands that raised our social cachet. Then, we looked to brands that profiled our personalities. So what’s next? In this thought-provoking keynote, Alain Sylvain, Founder and CEO of Sylvain Labs, will look at how future consumers will want brands that make us feel good about ourselves because they do good for the world. Through a series of examples, he will explore how brands can connect with their customers on a personal and emotional level to inspire a new sense of well being.

Alain Sylvain
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