Dejan Milojicic
Keynote: AI breakthroughs, such as large language models and agentic AI, are accelerating technological innovations across all industries. Socio-political, economic, and ecological development trump technology advancements and form a complex net of interdependencies. Wars are waged using technology, as are battles in the market, and unfortunately, the impact on nature is not positive. The ability to predict trends, especially megatrends, is essential for business, technology, politics, and daily life. The IEEE Computer Society has been making annual technology predictions for over 25 years. The IEEE Future Directions Committee has been exploring megatrends and the IEEE Industry Engagement the Future of Workforce for over five years. These reports have made a tangible impact on world-wide businesses and education, and they are widely cited and used. In this talk, I will discuss the 2026 Technology Predictions, the 2030 Megatrends, and the Future of Workforce in Africa. I will make recommendations to industry, academia, governments, and professional organizations on how to handle this unprecedented pace of technology development to retain best possible outcomes on humanity.
Bio: Dejan Milojicic is an HPE Fellow and VP at Hewlett Packard Labs, Milpitas, CA [1998-present]. Previously, he worked at the OSF Research Institute, Cambridge, MA [1994-1998] and the Institute “Mihajlo Pupin”, Belgrade, Serbia [1983-1991]. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany (1993), and his MSc/BSc from Belgrade University, Serbia (1983/86). His research interests include systems software, distributed computing, systems management, and HPC. Dejan has over 300 papers, 2 books, and 100 granted and 75 pending patents. Dejan is an IEEE Life Fellow (Fellow since 2010), ACM Fellow (2025), and HKN and USENIX member. Dejan was on 9 Ph.D. thesis committees, and he mentored over 80 interns. Dejan was president of the IEEE Computer Society (2014), an IEEE presidential candidate in 2019, editor-in-chief of IEEE Computing Now and Distributed Systems Online, and he has served on many editorial boards and TPCs. Dejan led large industry-government-university collaborations, such as Open Cirrus (2007-2011) and New Operating System (2014-2017).