The 48^th St. Gallen Symposium focused on the future of work and what lies beyond a jobless society. The three intense days revealed that each individuals has its own definition of work as well as its idea of what the future of work looks like. The Leaders of Tomorrow and Leaders of Today engaged in lively and fascinating debates, all defending their visions but allowing to be inspired by each other experiences. 

The knowledge pool candidates of the 48^th St. Gallen Symposium were selected based on their innovative ideas related to work. All of them future-oriented, some of those young talents have found solutions whereas other are already influencing the labour market with their disruptive ideas. Find below a selection of some of the most promising young talents and the one to closely watch in the future.  

Boudewijn Wijnands (NE), CEO and Founder of Deedmob – The future of volunteering and solving society’s social issues

Society is facing many social issues and some institutions fail at finding quick solution. While studying at the University of Oxford, Boudewijn Wijnands and his peer founded a volunteering platform, Deedmob, after discovering that it held the most potential to solve pressing social issues. By connecting volunteers to charities, companies and government institutions, they maximized the impact and the reach of the volunteering effort proving the efficiency of social business to solve many different types of social issue difficult to address while maintaining profitability.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied (AU/SD), Founder of Mumtaza – Women in the future

The debates around women’s right has never been as hot as it is today. We however still see fewer women in top executive position, special rule have to be put into place in order to ensure women representation it being in board of director, in government or at convention. Yassmin Abdel-Magied, a mechanical engineer, has made her voice heard around the globe by becoming one of the first woman to work on an offshore gas rigs but also for her advocacy for all sort of cause related to women’s right. She founded Mumtaza Bureau’s to tackle the underrepresentation of women of colour speakers. While knowing inequalities will not be solve by tomorrow, Mumtaza is slowly paving a bright future for women speakers and raising awareness on the importance of listening to the stories women have to tell.

Florent Malbranche (FR), Co-Founder and CEO of Brigad – The case of the gig economy

Increasing demand for flexibility has made the gig economy much more attractive in the past few years. Employers have also fallen for the idea especially in part of the service sector. Florent Malbranche along with Alexndre Rovetto and Jean Lebrument founded Brigad to answer the growing demand for on demand staff for the hospitality industry around Paris. Using algorithms, every efforts are put towards matching both party in the best way possible. The start-up has found ways of regulating the on-demand market, underregulated to this point and providing its members with some security. 

Matthew Zeiler (US), Founder and CEO of Carifai – The future of business in the AI age

In the current debate, AI is either deemed as ally or as enemy. Its impact on the business sphere is becoming increasingly important and companies are starting to understand the influence using the technology could have on their viability. Matthew Zeiler has understood the importance of the new technology and Carifai is the result. He is putting his unique skills in machine learning to the service of company providing them with the latest visual recognition technologies able to solve real world problems for business. Clarifai has become the leading independent AI Company and is widely seen as one of the most promising start-ups in the crowded, buzzy field of machine learning.