Thursday October 26, 2017 at 5:30 p.m. Ken Bousfield, Partner at Bereskin & Parr LLP, will be presenting “History of Technological Innovation: The First Revolution in Information Technology”.
Day & Time: Thursday October 26, 2017
5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Speaker: Ken Bousfield, B.A.Sc., LL.B
Partner at Bereskin & Parr LLP
Location: Sidney Smith Hall, Room 1074
University of Toronto
100 St. George Street, Toronto, M5S 3G3
Contact: Emanuel Istrate
Organizers: IEEE Toronto Engineering and Human Environment Chapter in collaboration with the Impact Centre at the University of Toronto
Abstract: Using the invention of the printing press as a starting point, this fast-paced presentation traces technological developments in the spread of information, and the larger economic consequences flowing from that development.
More than five hundred years ago, an inventor in the information technology sector saw a business opportunity in an unmet economic need. The IT start-up he founded became an agent of profound change. The obstacles encountered by the inventor continue to face IT start-up ventures today.
The rapid spread of printing transformed the process of accumulation, organisation, preservation and dissemination of knowledge. It had, and still has, effects on every field of human endeavour, whether in commerce, education, science and engineering, or arts and literature. This presentation discusses the pre-existing technology, the change in technology, the further changes driven by the original innovation, and the effects of that technological change.
Join us for an entertaining, thought-provoking presentation that identifies important lessons for innovation in a knowledge-based society.
Biography: Ken Bousfield, P.Eng., LL.B (Toronto); B.A. Sc. (Mech. Eng., Waterloo) is a partner at Bereskin & Parr, a firm specializing in Intellectual Property Law. He has been a patent lawyer for 23 years. He has had a life-long interest in the history of technological innovation.