From security to sustainability to safety, technology can impact the way we see the world, each other, and the future. This article highlights expert insights about technology and innovation from CES 2024's Greats Minds sessions, including from Panasonic's own Megan Lee. 

As The Beatles famously sang, “we all wanna change the world.” In a Great Minds session from CES 2024, Garry Jacobs, president and CEO World Academy of Art and Sciences, Amandeep Singh Gill, under-secretary-general, United Nations, and Megan Lee, chairwoman and CEO of Panasonic, questioned exactly how we can think like an innovator and change the world.

Technology is making dreams a reality – it educates, entertains, and helps heal. It is also moving faster than ever before and, in doing so, changes how we see the world, each other, and the future. We now have the tools to makes changes in security, sustainability, health, and more. The more critical the issue, the more need for innovative technology. The panel and CES celebrated all that tech offers the future of humanity.

Singh Gill is an electronics engineer himself and was part of a technology envoy created at the Unite Nations. Its mission is to leverage technology responsibility and to advance the UN mandates, specifically the sustainability goals, global security, and human rights. Technology impacts all of the UN’s mandates today, whether it is peace keeping or complex issues around geopolitics. Government state members need a point of contact to talk about technology pillars, and Singh Gill’s envoy establishes that.

Perhaps most importantly, there is no other option but to think of the impact of technology and the response to it in global terms. Even the most capable nations can’t handle it on the national level. We have seen this be true in areas like cryptocurrency, AI, and across the many media platforms. The UN has a foundation of norms, values, and commitment to help frame the discussions to bring nations together.

Everyone is looking for purpose. International frameworks bring this purpose.

Lee closed the panel with a very important message. Panasonic was founded 105 years ago with what Lee called a 250-year vision. That’s very forward thinking. 

While the company has the Panasonic Foundation focusing on STEM and educating today’s youth for a future in a highly technological world, Lee – a former art major – reminded us all of the key to innovation. “Sometimes you just stop and daydream about everything,” she said. “Not everything is a mathematics equation.”