Obi Felten

Igniting Innovation: Disruptive Ideas, Diverse Teams, and the Power of Collaboration

Many organizations yearn for innovation, yet often struggle to truly unlock its potential. They hire diverse individuals, but fail to create the environment where they can truly thrive. Obi Felten is a seasoned leader who has spent her career building high-performing teams in the face of uncertainty. Felten’s secret weapon? Embracing disruptive ideas and nurturing diverse talent.

With a career in leading teams through uncertainty, Felten credits her success to embracing disruptive ideas and diverse talent. She’ll share actionable insights from her experiences at startups and innovative companies on fostering teams that excel amidst uncertainty:

Key Takeaways: 

• The Key: Psychological Safety
• Leading with Humility: The Power of Questions
• Launch Early, Iterate Often
• The Symphony of Diversity: Respectful Disagreement

The Future is Now: Embrace AI or Be Left Behind

Obi Felten’s AI journey started in the 1990s at Oxford University, studying the link between minds and machines. She later joined Google, contributing to AI advancements in areas like machine translation and search optimization. At Google X, her projects spanned climate change to healthcare applications. Currently, her mental health startup leverages AI to enhance human well-being.

Felten shares how AI is becoming a powerful tool poised to revolutionize every aspect of our lives with the advent of large language models, including the way we do business and even write our holiday cards. She will start by debunking some myths about AI and addressing the elephant in the room – the fear and skepticism that often surrounds this technology: 

• Myth #1: “AI will kill us all/save us all.”
• Myth #2: “AI will eliminate jobs and increase wealth inequality.” 
• Myth #3: “AI is for tech companies, not businesses like mine.”

In the second part, Felten will help you dive into the exciting possibilities that AI holds for your business. She will guide you through practical steps you can take to leverage AI and gain a competitive edge:

• Identify areas where AI can add value
• Start small and experiment
• Use technology to augment your team, not replace them.
• Embrace transparency and ethics

The Healthcare Revolution: AI, Mental Health, and the Future of Patient Care

Imagine a healthcare system with 99% accurate diagnoses, personalized treatment plans, and accessible mental health support for all. This isn’t science fiction, but the future powered by AI and big data. Leading this charge is Obi Felten. Through her work at Google X (applying machine learning to mental health assessments), board roles at healthcare companies, and founding Flourish Labs (a mental health startup using AI to scale support), Obi exemplifies the passion and expertise driving the digital health revolution.

Key Takeaways Include:

• The Digital Health Revolution: Healthcare is rapidly adopting digital innovations through transformative advancements through AI and big data, which promise significant improvements in diagnosis, treatment, and care. However, challenges such as privacy and fairness present important hurdles.
• Curbing Healthcare Costs: Soaring healthcare costs in the US are unsustainable. Felten will explore how AI can be used to streamline processes, reduce errors, and ultimately bring down costs.
• AI and the Future of Doctors: AI won’t replace doctors; it will empower them. Doctors who leverage AI tools will offer better care and stay ahead of the curve.
• The Mental Health Crisis: Millions of Americans suffer from mental health issues, yet over half of those with a diagnosis lack access to proper care. Flourish Labs, Felten’s own venture, uses AI to increase provider productivity, ensure quality, manage risk and measure outcomes.