One week on and the dust has settled on our inaugural PeopleTech event. It was a great morning: full of excitement, inspiring and innovative technology, and lots of interesting conversations.
The event was held at the RSA and our day began with breakfast, giving our guests a chance to meet and mingle. This was swiftly followed by an introduction from our CEO, Aaron Alburey, who set the tone for the day. Through the use of Glisser (an interactive presentation software), Aaron was able to put his presentation in the hands of our guests, asking them questions assessing their views on everything from the use of chatbots in HR, to their level of excitement about the impact of technology on people. In fact, when asked, 91% of our guests rated their excitement as 4 or 5 stars out of 5. We then moved on to the networking portion of the morning, our guests were asked to introduce themselves and get to know each other.
After this, Katz Kiely, CEO of Beep, gave our keynote speech. This was a hugely inspiring talk, giving our guests a new perspective on technology, that: for the first time in history, technology can be used to assist people in overcoming cognitive bias and help them be the best they can be. When technology takes care of the boring stuff, it leaves us with more time to do the things we really care about.
Then we began our technology safari. This was a chance for our guests to see and experience hands-on demos from our 9 innovative technology partners. First up was Kazendi, an MR (mixed-reality) company offering clients a new way to work virtually. Headed up by CEO Max Doelle, Kazendi showcased their Hololens glasses on the main screen, demonstrating to our guests the disruptive ways in which MR can help their clients work together.
We then moved down to the Vaults for a series of quickfire demos, where our guests moved round the venue to different stations to see demos from the rest of our technology partners. First to showcase here was Motivii, a smart productivity tool for managers that allows them to track and support their teams. Then came the coachbot from Saberr, which helps measure engagement and drive action, though continuous, scalable, bite-sized coaching.
Moving on the next station saw guests receive demos from Midland HR’s PeopleFirst, an open people platform that aims to revolutionise work through cutting-edge human-centred technology and AI. Arctic Shores, who provide people insights using game technology through gamified assessment, followed them.
At the next station we saw Able, a skills marketplace app which matches gig economy workers. And ProFinda, a knowledge matching platform. At the next station was Emoquo, a digital coaching platform which democratises coaching at all levels, and Katz’s BEEP, a problem-solving platform for large companies.
After this whirlwind, whistle-stop tour of the best and brightest in disruptive HR tech, it was time for further networking over lunch. Aaron delivered a closing speech that really summed up the day – thank you all for coming, and we hope you left feeling inspired and positive about the future relationship between humans and technology – we certainly do.
