Test Leadership Congress 2020

The Lion and the Lioness have several differences between them, including their physical characteristics, their role within the social structure, or the paths they take during their lives.  The Lioness does more hunting and the Lion defends the territory.  Their roles have cross-over, but - like the Fuzzy and Techie people often assume the opposite for their roles in the wild.  

As artificial intelligence and machine learning take increasingly more tasks that humans once performed, we need more than ever to understand the vital and critical skills of humans in our new world. Some of the skills needed now are not ones we have historically placed a high value on as technical professionals. If you majored in the humanities or social sciences, you were a fuzzy. If you majored in the computer sciences, you were a techie. This informal division has quietly found its way into a default assumption that has misled the business world for decades: that it's the techies who drive innovation.

But recently we've seen the counterintuitive reality of business today: it's actually the fuzzies - not the techies - who are playing the key roles in developing the most creative and successful new business ideas. They are often the ones who understand the life issues that need solving and offer the best approaches for doing so. It is they who are bringing context to code and ethics to algorithms. They also bring the management and communication skills - the soft skills that are so vital to spurring growth.

We will discuss the skill sets that really matter for technical teams. Let's explore some of today's most dynamic new companies, reveal breakthrough fuzzy-techie collaborations, and explore how such collaborations are at the center of innovation in business, education, and government - as well as why liberal arts are more relevant than ever in our techie world.

Learn how to embrace the fuzzy and techie in all of us, humanize our technology, empathize with our customers, and build world class software. As we move to a world driven by big data and powered by algorithms, techies (those who have studied engineering and computer sciences) are of great importance. However, as we prioritize Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) subjects, we must also consider the overlooked but valuable role that the Liberal Arts play in our technological world.

Fuzzies help us apply our new tools with context, consideration, and relevance to the greatest human problems. Moreover, as machines take on more routine tasks within our jobs, what's left are those human skills honed and refined through broad educations.

A new generation of entrepreneurs, those who are both fuzzy and techie, is fast emerging, and will be at the center of our future economy. Learn how to be among the leaders embracing both your fuzzy and techie self and thrive in this new world.