Disruption rules in the era of deep technology' 

The conference featured all-star speakers: the founder of Google X and the Google Self-Driving Car project, Sebastien Thrun; godfather of Artificial Intelligence and founder of Coursera, Andrew Ng; founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin; and even NBA superstar turned tech investor, Kevin Durant. To top it off, the conference showcased revolutionary start-ups and game-changing technology from around the world. Definitely a Disneyland for technology enthusiasts!
One clear theme emerging from the conference was that the era of "deep-technology", disruptive solutions built around unique, protected, or hard-to-reproduce technology, has arrived. Whether augmented reality, virtual reality, machine learning, artificial intelligence or even recent hot topics blockchain and initial coin offering, the moment of deep technology is now.
The future of transportation was one topic that attracted much hype. The godfather of the self-driving car, Sebastien Thrun, sees a future with flying cars. With recent advancements in artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, and drones, the possibility of a flying car seems more credible than ever. Thrun believes that current restriction of transportation to a two-dimensional plane is outmoded. With the air being free space and underutilised compared to the ground, the future of transportation lies in making use of a three-dimensional plane with its advantages of increased flexibility and space.
Thrun's is a different school of thought than that of Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, whose new Boring Company focuses on digging numerous layers of tunnels to create more roads for cars. Whether the future of transportation will be free-flying in the sky or layered underground, this is definitely an exciting future to look forward to.
Initial coin offering (ICO), a new tech buzzword, was another controversial topic. ICO is a recent phenomenon that allows start-ups to raise money through crowdsourced fundraising, using cryptocurrencies and bypassing the traditional venture capital world. In short, it makes fundraising much easier for start-ups, allowing them to circumvent the traditional regulated and cumbersome capital-raising process.
Given the recent hype that drove up the price of ICOs, the conference debate was on whether ICO has true potential or is just a bubble waiting to burst. Several renowned investors even went so far as comparing the ICO market to the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s. According to Sam Altman, the president of renowned Y Combinator, ICOs are definitely a bubble right now, but there is underlying value and benefit if it were used in the right way. 
With the recent shift toward deep technology powered by advanced solutions such as AI, virtual reality and machine learning, there is still a lot to catch up on for the Thai tech community if we wish to be competitive in the world arena
In order to close the gap, education is extremely crucial in building the tech talents required to spawn deep-technology innovations that can move our nation forward.

Aukrit Unahalekhaka is the co-founder and CEO (Thailand) of Ricult, data Accelerate Batch 5.