Autonomous Innovation and Product Development

Explore how AI Agents will result in an explosion of new products and services. Many of them will not be for humans. Traditionally, innovation and product development have been viewed as deeply human activities. We have to understand customer needs, goals, and constraints. We must craft the customer experience, solve scientific and engineering problems, sell the product or service to humans, and demonstrate value from usage by humans. But what if humans are not the users, nor the buyers?  And what if we do not merely use AI agents to automate parts of innovation and product development, but put them in charge of the process itself, with humans as intellectual contributors instead of bosses? In this session we will explore what the near future of innovation and product development might look like, discuss open problems and solutions, and chart a roadmap for what lies ahead. Confirmed Speakers: Dr. Zafer Sahinoglu, VP of Innovation, Mitsubishi ElectricFrode L. Odegard, Founder, Post-Industrial InstituteSubhash Kodnad, SVP of Engineering, Palo Alto Networks Additional speakers TBA Who should attend This event is aimed at enterprise leaders engaged in organizational transformation and AI founders. Seating is strictly limited and subject to approval. Agenda 5:00 pm Networking and refreshments 6:00 pm Welcome to the Post-Industrial Forum 6:10 pm Presentations Frode L. Odegard, Founder, Post-Industrial Institute Dr. Zafer Sahinoglu, GM, Mitsubishi Electric Innovation Center Subhash Kodnad, SVP of Engineering, Palo Alto Networks 7:00 pm Roundtable discussion 7:45 pm Networking and refreshments 8:30 pm Close Note: This event will be livestreamed on Zoom for members who cannot attend in person. In-person attendance is free for members, please register with your code. Speaker bios Frode OdegardCEO, Post-Industrial Institute Frode is the founder of the Post-Industrial Institute, an independent research organization developing strategy and tools for the organizations of the future. Frode founded his first startup in high school in Norway, M2CS, which built a next-generation development environment for embedded systems programming. Frode immigrated to Silicon Valley in the early 1990s and founded an independent R&D lab, Odegard Labs, which worked with enterprise customers to solve difficult problems in software architecture, quality, and reengineering. Odegard Labs also did pathbreaking work in formal methods and language design. In 2004 Frode founded the Post-Industrial Institute, with the mission to develop a new school of management science for the post-industrial era. In 2019 he also founded the Post-Industrial Forum, a community for visionary leaders building the organizations of the future. Dr. Zafer SahinogluVP of Engineering and General ManagerMitsubishi Electric Innovation Center (MELIC Ventures) Dr. Zafer Sahinoglu is currently the General Manager of Mitsubishi Electric Innovation Center (MELIC Ventures), which was launched in April 2020 as the innovation and investment arm of Mitsubishi Electric in North America. He is also serving as VP Innovation at Mitsubishi Electric US (MEUS). In MEUS, he has developed and launched SaaS businesses and new products in the fields of energy management, infrastructure monitoring, touchless interfaces, connected vehicles. He has led and managed product design and agile product development, built new business models, developed technology strategies, and bundled these steps into customized processes with continuous innovation. Zafer received his M.Sc. degree in Biomedical Engineering, Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, in years 2002 and 1998, respectively; and M.B.A. degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013. Subhash KodnadSVP Engineering Network SecurityPalo Alto Networks Subhash Kodnad is the Senior Vice President of Engineering, Network Security at Palo Alto Networks, leading a global organization that is securing the world’s most complex environments. He drives thevision and execution for the company’s Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) portfolio, leveraging thecommon PAN-OS platform to protect users, applications, and infrastructure from advanced cyberthreats. At Palo Alto Networks, his teams are redefining Network Security by scaling the PAN-OS platform for the Cloud/AI era and integrating future-proof technologies like Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC). They deliver flagship Hardware NGFWs for diverse environments, including datacenters, campus, branch/IoT, and remote rugged use cases with 5G and SDWAN. Additionally, his teams are spearheading Software NGFWs like VM/Containers and Managed Cloud NGFW as a service, recently building the foundation for the Prisma AI Runtime Security (AIRS) platform. Focusing his mission on technical strategy, Subhash has a laser focus on AI/agentic challenges, fostering a culture of innovation, inclusion, and diversity, and ensuring that Engineering organization is ready for the hyper-dynamic cybersecurity landscape. Prior to joining Palo Alto Networks, Subhash was Senior Director of Engineering in Cisco’s Enterprise Switching Group. There, he led the development of its enterprise switching portfolio, spanning Catalyst 9000 and Catalyst 3K. Subhash also led the convergence of Cisco’s Enterprise Networking OS (IOSXE) across Switching, Routing, Wireless and IOT product lines. He previously held leadership positions at Ericsson Silicon Valley, Kineto Wireless (Fixed-Mobile convergence), Beamreach Networks (Fixed Wireless) and Siemens Communication Software. Subhash holds a bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Telecommunication from Vivekanand Education Society’s Institute of Technology (VESIT), University of Mumbai, India.