I would like to invite you to the T-Summit event at IBM Research – Almaden, San Jose, CA on March 24-25, 2014.

Register your interest here (space is very limited, preference to true T-shaped enthusiasts): http://www.tsummit2014.org

The focus is T-shaped professionals (with depth and breadth), and their talents (competences, skills, and attitudes) that enable them to be better adaptive innovators and lifelong learners than I-shaped professionals.

Every participant will get a copy of the soon to be released book “The Era of Cognitive Computing” (see http://cup.columbia.edu/static/cognitive) and be provided with a vision of T-shaped professionals innovating healthcare, education, finance, retail, transportation, communications, government, buildings, energy, utilities, and more (what the National Science Foundation calls “smart service systems”).

As the pace of innovation accelerates, leading companies, universities, professional associations, and many others have become strong advocates for the need for more T-shaped professionals who have both depth and breadth (see examples and sidebars below).

The T-Summit will convene industry, academic, government, and foundation leaders in a “trading zone” to take the concept of T-shaped people to the next level, and advance our thinking about the competences, skills, and attitudes of future adaptive innovators and life-long learners.

How might academia, industry, and others collaborate in new ways to co-create and co-elevate more T-shaped graduates, and sustain lifelong learners throughout their careers?

I hope you can make it, but if you cannot, please feel free to recommend a colleague to this invitation-only event.

The welcome dinner on the evening of the 24th will be followed by all day workshop on the 25th, closing shortly after a university presidents’ panel in the afternoon.

I would very much value your thoughts and participation in the event.

Here are some suggested pre-reading materials about T-shaped Talent and blog-posts about T-Summit goals and outcomes…

Some Suggested Pre-Reading Materials About T-shape Talent

IDEO CEO Tim Brown describes T-shaped designers here…
http://chiefexecutive.net/ideo-ceo-tim-brown-t-shaped-stars-the-backbone-of-ideoae%E2%84%A2s-collaborative-culture

Prof. Henry Chesbrough (Berkeley, Open Innovation) describes T-shaped managers here…
http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrychesbrough/2011/04/28/the-war-for-talent-and-open-innovation/

INFORMS description of T-shaped certified analytics professionals (CAP for big data scientists) here…
https://www.informs.org/ORMS-Today/Public-Articles/February-Volume-39-Number-1/The-shape-of-analytics-certification

Nicholas Donofrio (IBM Fellow Emeritus) describes T-shaped innovators here…
http://www.kauffman.org/advancing-innovation/innovation-that-matters.aspx

Business Higher Education Forum describes T-shaped and deeper learning skill needs
http://www.bhef.com/publications/promoting-effective-dialogue-between-business-and-education-around-need-deeper-learning

Dr. Phil Gardner (MSU, Collegiate Employment Research Institute) describes T-shaped graduates and professionals here…
http://www.ceri.msu.edu/t-shaped-professionals/

Blog Posts about Possible T-Summit Goals and Outcomes

Mentorships are one way to help students become more T-shaped
Proposed goal “10x mentorships, 2x internships”
https://service-science.info/archives/3235

A logic for future talent, professional work, and higher education
Proposed goal “Towards A Moore’s Law for Higher Education”
https://service-science.info/archives/3225

Please send links to your blog-posts

We invite participants to send us links to blog-posts about T-shape Talent to add to the lists above…

Again space is very limited (register at http://tsummit2014.org) and preference will be given to true T-shape Talent enthusiasts who have spoken, written, blogged about T-shape Talent in the context of future of innovation leadership in an era of accelerating change.