There’s no denying that the face of business is changing. Digital technologies are disrupting the value propositions of businesses, as well as the goods and services they offer to their customers.

Jesse Rodgers, VP of Business Development at Boltmade, joined iF on September 15 to lead a Lunch ‘n Learn session on “Digital Disruption”, speaking on the digital revolution and how we can be a part of the disruption.

Jesse began the session by defining what the term “digital disruption” actually refers to: changes enabled by digital technologies occurring at a pace and magnitude that disrupt established ways of value creation, social interactions, doing business and more generally – our thinking. Basically, a technology that rapidly turns something on its head.

He also explained that innovation is often mistaken for disruption. Though similar in that they’re both change agents, disruption goes further and literally uproots things, changing how we think, behave, do business, learn and go about our day-to-day. It displaces an existing market, industry, or technology and produces something new and more efficient.

Jesse then spent some time speaking broadly about the rise of artificial intelligence and the strides being made in the machine learning space – trends in the digital space that have the potential to be tremendously disruptive.

Lastly, Jesse talked about the ways that many new startups and modern workers are shifting business processes and employment. Companies like Uber are displacing established practices; more fluid, contract work is becoming the norm; and lean startups are toppling the big players.

You can view Jesse’s full slide deck here and photos from the event here.

At each month’s Lunch ‘n Learn we also feature an interesting iF client to share a 5-minute highlight of their business. This month’s Factory 5 was Simon Woodside of MedStack, a developer platform for healthcare-targeted applications.

Thanks to both Jesse and Simon for sharing your stories with us!

Our Lunch ‘n Learn events are a great way to get out and network while enjoying a free lunch and learning something new! Make sure to keep checking our event calendar for upcoming Lunch ‘n Learns and other events in the ecosystem.