The World Trade Center Las Vegas hosted a special innovation-focused networking breakfast on Thursday, January 11, 2018 that featured a unique panel discussion on entrepreneurship and the tech trends the panelists are seeing on the CES show floor. Jeff Bercovici, Inc. Magazine’s San Francisco Bureau Chief, moderated the panel before a standing-room only audience. Panel participants were investor Kevin O’Leary (“Mr. Wonderful”) of the U.S. television program Shark Tank; Sarah Kunst, 2015 Forbes 30 Under 30 Award Winner, Founder of Proday and Contributing Editor at Marie Claire Magazine; and Yves Béhar, founder and principal designer of Fuseproject, an award-winning industrial design and brand development firm.

Panelists discussed many of the breakthrough technology trends that were playing out during CES. Technological transformations are materializing around smart cities, self-driving vehicles, 5G connectivity, drones, Internet of Things, virtual reality, augmented reality, wearables, robotics, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. The panelists discussed how these breakthroughs will have massive ramifications on real sectors of the economy and individuals across the globe in the coming years.

The World Trade Center Las Vegas networking breakfast coincided with CES® 2018, the world’s gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies. CES is the largest hands-on showcase of emerging innovation, uniting more than 175,000 professionals from more than 150 countries to witness the latest consumer electronics technologies and services from more than 4,400 exhibiting companies.

Amongst the thousands of trends that are on display each year at CES, four megatrends left an undeniable footprint on CES 2018. First, artificial intelligence (AI) is influencing both hardware and services across not only technology but a wide swath of industries. Secondly, voice is the next major computing interface and it is being embedded in far more places than most of us ever envisioned. Thirdly, a number of innovations are combining to drastically change the landscape of cities and how individuals perceive and experience mobility. And finally, transportation is being transformed in ways that will forever change how society lives. These core themes interact, overlap and use common building blocks, and CES is the only place where they all come together to tell the story of our future.