Keynotes & Featured Presentations

Through powerful stories and practical insights, Jessica challenges leaders to stop playing it safe and start making it personal. Because innovation isn’t just a process—it’s a fight. And the person who wins isn’t always the one with the most resources, but the one who takes it personally.

About the Speaker:

Jessica O. Matthews of O. Labs, Innovator and Social Entrepreneur, Trailblazing Energy Advocate Innovation, entrepreneurship, and social responsibility have always been intrinsic to Jessica O. Matthews, even from a young age. At just 19, she invented an energy-generating soccer ball that reflects her vision for a better world. She turned that spark into a nearly two-decade career of creating category-defining technology across energy and infrastructure. In 2025, Jessica sold Uncharted Power, the sustainable infrastructure company she founded at age 22. Today, she is CEO of O. Labs, an invention studio helping more people especially people overlooked by traditional innovation spaces turn their ideas into inventions. Exclusively represented by Leading Authorities speakers bureau, Jessica is the holder of multiple patents that have influenced the energy and communications industries. Her work has been cited over 45 times by global technology leaders including Sony, Qualcomm, Intel, and Toshiba. In 2021, her work as a modern-day inventor was recognized by The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. A dual citizen of the United States and Nigeria, Jessica holds a degree in psychology and economics from Harvard University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Her accolades include Harvard University Scientist of the Year, Forbes 30 Under 30, and Fortune's Most Promising Women Entrepreneurs. Jessica has been featured on the cover of Forbes and Forbes Africa, and her insights on innovation have been profiled by several media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Bloomberg News, and The New York Times.

About the Speaker:

Nick Foster RDI is a Futures Designer based in Oakland, California. He has spent his career exploring the future for globally renowned technology companies including Google, Nokia, Sony and Dyson. As Head of Design at Google X, Nick led a team of designers, researchers and prototypers developing nascent technologies. Such include: brain-controlled computer interfaces, intelligent robotics, stratospheric internet balloons and neighborhood-scale nuclear fusion. Despite the ambitious nature of much of Nick’s work, he’s well known for his down-to-earth and occasionally irreverent approach to the future. In 2013, he coined the term Future Mundane. Fortune magazine described him as “one of the world’s foremost leaders in speculative design” in 2018. And in 2021, he received the title Royal Designer for Industry—the highest accolade for a British designer—in recognition of his significant contributions to the discipline. An accomplished writer and public speaker, Nick has produced multiple books and shares his thinking about the future with audiences across the globe. While his presentations often focus on the future, they reject the allure of predictions and forecasts, the formulaic comforts of methods and frameworks, and the hollow pomposity of buzzy, corporate jargon. Instead, Nick’s talks are intentionally provocative. He designs his talks to challenge assumptions and inspire people to truly reconsider how they think about the future. He proposes ways of thinking about the future as an extension of the present—a world shaped by human hands and inhabited by people much like ourselves. Nick encourages audiences to approach the future with greater rigor, tenacity, imagination and care. He empowers them to become more discerning consumers and critics of the endless stream of future propositions being presented to us all. Nick Foster was born in Derby—the birthplace of the industrial revolution, and a city once synonymous with innovation, manufacturing and technology. In 2001, he earned his masters degree from the Royal College of Art. In 2018, he became a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has lived in California since 2012 with his wife, Jayne.

In this keynote, David Shing (“Shingy”) explores how exponential technology and cultural acceleration are reshaping how people live, work, connect, and create, often faster than our organizations, spaces, and design systems can adapt.

This is not a talk about trends. It is a talk about preparedness. About how to design for change when change itself is constant. About why relevance today depends less on predicting the future and more on building creative, cultural, and organizational systems that can evolve with it.

Shingy challenges the NeoCon community to rethink not just what we design, but how we design, centering human adaptability, emotional resilience, and fluid identities as we design for an evolving world where yesterday’s breakthroughs quickly become baseline expectations.

About the Speaker:

David Shing, widely known as "Shingy," is a global storyteller, trendspotter, and cultural architect who challenges the status quo with creative foresight. With an illustrious career spanning marketing, digital transformation, and strategy, Shingy is a force who blends art, imagination, and business acumen to ignite change. Formerly AOL’s self-proclaimed “Digital Prophet,” Shingy has a storied track record of identifying emerging opportunities and shaping visionary futures for industry giants. From launching AOL in new European markets to steering the company’s strategic acquisitions under Verizon, his work has redefined what’s possible in digital innovation. A creative polymath and trusted advisor to cultural leaders and global brands like LVMH and Nike, Shingy transforms bold ideas into iconic identities that resonate across markets. His ability to blend creativity with strategy has earned him a unique place on stages around the world, from TED and SXSW to Cannes Lions, where he inspires audiences with mind-bending insights. Since launching his creative advisory in 2019, Shingy has the reputation as a "one-man cultural McKinsey," delivering transformative consulting, creative direction, and business strategy. He helps clients not only envision the future but implement it, offering actionable insights that bridge instinct and innovation. Shingy’s keynotes are known to challenge conventional thinking, making him an indispensable guide in navigating the intersection of art, culture, and commerce. Whether shaping global media strategies, reimagining brand identities, or counseling executives on enlightened futures, Shingy continues to revolutionize industries with an alchemy of imagination, instinct, and impact. His legacy is defined not by following trends but by creating them—turning ideas into world-shifting realities.