This year we unlocked impactful creativity through topics ranging from arts to technologies, from Design Thinking to NFTs. Specialists from various fields enriched us with the newest insights and trends. And the event attracted an even more diverse audience than last year. If you skipped the conference or could not see all the speakers, we got you covered! In this blog, we want to outline key insights from the annual BBinB conference.
Keynote: Paradoxical Leadership by Dr Steven Poelmans
Dr Steven Poelmans calls himself a behaviour anthropologist, and no wonder why. He is a Neuroscience and Strategic Leadership professor and a founder and director of the NeuroTrainingLab™, a leadership development methodology using competencies assessment and neurophysiologic indicators.
During his lecture, Dr Poelmans highlighted that organisations that are first to develop the capacity to collect, store, analyse and apply data for improving performance and well-being would be the strategic leaders of the future. The most important thing for leaders is metacognition, which is a leader's capability to think about their thinking and overlook prejudice and stereotypes. To be self-critical is to expose yourself to self-criticism and question how we make decisions. For that, leadership need to have a balance between stability and disruption, which might sound paradoxical.
Such paradoxical leadership is an advanced form of situational leadership to encourage both operational efficiency and innovation. In order to manage the multiple paradoxes, one has to become paradoxical. A paradoxical leader guides individuals and teams within and between the paradoxes to prevent destructive polarisation. The constant dynamic of two opposing forces enhances creativity within organisations.
Decoding Metaverse: Blockchain Gaming and NFTs by Benas Baltramiejūnas
Block Games CEO and Co-Founder Benas Baltramiejūnas spoke about NFTs and their impact on the gaming industry. Over the past months, all the talk of cryptocurrency in free fall has brought NFTs, decentralisation, and WEB3 blockchain technology under the spotlight for the leaders of numerous industries – but how does it apply to games?
Mass adoption of blockchain technology in the games industry brings revolution to the sector. Blockchain infrastructure makes it possible to create virtual game economies driven by players’ ownership with the help of such digital assets as non-fungible tokens or NFTs. In traditional games, all digital assets are owned by the game developers, even if the players pay real money to get access to those assets – if the server is turned down, the access to the digital game assets would be lost; where blockchain gaming gives players complete control over the digital assets gained through their playing.
Play-to-play model is being conquered by such models as play-to-own or even play-to-earn in the gaming industry, with the help of infrastructure that makes it possible. Evolving technologies and the internet are becoming the centre of our lives, and undoubtedly, the winners of the future will be the ones that embrace technologies.
Preparing Future Tech Leaders Today by Benas Šidlauskas
The story of Benas Šidlauskas entrepreneurial life started in 2016 when he did not get into a desirable university. Back then, he, with his close friends, organised various boot camps and TEDx type of events. However, they wanted more than that, they wanted to do real business. That is when their first entrepreneurial experience happened - Turing Society, a tech community educating school students. Since then, Benas story has had many ups and downs, but the ambition and determination to change the ed-tech world helped to go through all the downs.
Benas and his team saw a shortage of good talent in the IT sector. That is how their latest and most successful enterprise was born, Turing College. Since then, they got their first million in investment, became the first ever Lithuanian company to get into Y combinator, had more than 7000 registrations, learners from 17 countries and from which 100% of their students got hired.
Benas story teaches us that trusting your ambitions can lead to great things. But making a positive impact requires determination and stubbornness. Since 2016 Benas has had many ups and downs, but his determination to change the ed-tech world led him through all the downs. Today, he is one of the most impactful ed-tech change-makers in Lithuania. Without a little bit of stubbornness, he would not be where he is today. As I mentioned before, trusting your ambitions can indeed lead to great things.
Folded Stone Paper, Artificial Data Organs, Sensing CO2 and Urban Data Forest: Art-Driven Innovation in Practice by Lija Groenewoud van Vliet
A Creative Director and Co-founder of “In4Art”, Lija Groenewoud van Vliet shed light on the relationship between art and innovation science.
These two worlds are seemingly disconnected or—some would think—contrary to each other. But Lisa is arguing that art can play an integral part in scientific discovery: from NASA exploration journeys to cancer research. With well-founded examples, she proved that art-driven innovation is meant to be applied in fields with the most challenging questions.
In her work, Lisa brings together art and innovation, helping to develop out-of-the-box solutions for society and the economy. She brings people from diverse environments — research, business, and art — to create responsible innovations.
Design Thinking and Doing: How to Unlock Creativity and Innovation by Saulius Buivys
A leading lecturer at Rotterdam Business School Saulius Buivys shared his expert knowledge in Design Thinking: a tool initially developed for designers and architects but today widely applied in many other fields.
Saulius argued that Design Thinking could have a place even in our everyday life and be effectively used for agile problem-solving. The most significant advantage of this framework is that it applies a systematic approach to developing creative solutions that truly recognise human needs and pain points. Effective innovations require strong engagement with the surrounding environment: observing and listening to it and empathising with those who will be using your product. The ideas that the design thinking method leads to are inclusive, people-centred, and truly relevant.
Last Words from Organisers
Our organisation’s mission is to unite business professionals from the Baltics and Benelux countries. With this annual event, we were happy to come closer to our mission by connecting and celebrating the cooperation between these two regions.
We want to thank all the participants who were a part of our annual conference and made it truly unique. Also, thank you, Gintaras Palaima and Neilas Tankevicius , for your inspiring opening speeches! A very special thanks to our speakers Steven A.Y. Poelmans, Benas Baltramiejūnas, Benas Sidlauskas, Lija Groenewoud van Vliet, Saulius Buivys, and to our panellists' Artists Vilmantas M. & Pim Smit & conference moderator Jurgis Didžiulis.
Also, thanks to our sponsors and partners! Your contribution is vital to our work, and we are thrilled to work with you: BMI Executive Institute, Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania to the kingdom of the Netherlands, BlockGames, VindoSolar, and Globali Lietuva.
Your participation ensured the success of our event and energised us to organise bigger and better next year’s annual event of BBinB. We look forward to seeing you at the next event!
