Jehiel Oliver on disrupting farming practices across Africa with Hello Tractor. Oliver also discusses combining innovation with social impact.

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Jehiel is responsible for the overall management of the Hello Tractor team, strategy, and partnerships. He is an Echoing Green Global Fellow and has been honored with numerous awards for his work in social entrepreneurship and poverty alleviation. Prior to Hello Tractor, Jehiel founded Aya Consulting, a boutique consulting and advisory firm. At Aya he was involved in over a half billion dollars in impact investment transactions across ten countries, including conflict zones. Outside of work, Jehiel remains active serving on the board of Shared Interest (treasurer) and H4H, both impact investment funds focused in sub-­‐Saharan Africa. Jehiel began his career in the US investment banking and private equity industries. Jehiel studied economics at both the undergraduate and graduate levels at Florida A&M University and Cornell University, respectively.

Innovating IT. Jill Dyché explains how to align the goals of IT with the rest of your business.

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Jill Dyché has been thinking, writing, and speaking about business-IT alignment for over two decades. In her career as a consultant and advisor to executives across industries, she’s seen technology organizations deliver strategic change, and has worked with managers across IT and business organizations to make it stick.

Jill has lived in far-flung locales including Paris, London, and Sydney, lecturing at industry conferences, tech events, and leading business schools, and blogging on the topic of why corporate technologies are—or, at least should be—business-driven. She is the author of e-Data(Addison Wesley, 2000), The CRM Handbook (Addison Wesley, 2002), and, with co-author Evan Levy, Customer Data Integration (Wiley, 2007). Her work has been featured in numerous magazines and journals including Newsweek.com, HBR.org, Information Week, Computerworld, and Forbes.com.

Her latest book—The New IT: How Technology Leaders are Enabling Business Strategy in the Digital Age—offers fresh frameworks for transforming enterprise IT organizations. It also features case studies of executive change agents across the technology and business divide, all profiled in Jill’s irreverent voice.

Jill worked for a variety of high-technology companies before co-founding Baseline Consulting, a management consulting firm that was acquired by SAS in 2011. She lives in Los Angeles, where she samples fringe Cabernets, rescues shelter dogs, and writes the occasional haiku.

Entrepreneur and innovation expert Jay Samit discusses his new book, Disrupt You! Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation.

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Jay Alan Samit is a dynamic entrepreneur and intrepreneur who is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on disruption and innovation. He launches billion dollar businesses, transforms entire industries, revamps government institutions, and for over three decades continues to be at the forefront of global trends.

Everyone from the Pope to the President calls on Samit to orchestrate positive change in this era of endless innovation. Samit helped grow pre-IPO companies such as Linkedin and eBay, held senior management roles at Sony and Universal Studios, pioneered breakthrough advancements in mobile video, internet advertising, ecommerce, social networks, ebooks, and digital music that are used by billions of consumers every day. Combining innovation with commercial success, Samit is the consummate dealmaker; his list of partners and associates reads like a who’s who list of innovators, including: Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Steve Jobs, Reid Hoffman, David Geffen, Richard Branson, Paul Allen, and Pierre Omidyar. A proven trend spotter, Samit accurately predicts the future because he is constantly working with those who create it.

An adjunct professor at USC, Samit teaches innovation at America’s largest engineering school and is author of the forth coming book Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation. He is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and host of its documentary series WSJ Startup of the Year. Samit frequently appears on ABC, Bloomberg, CBS, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, NBC and tweets daily motivation to the over 100,000 business professionals who follow him on twitter @jaysamit. An expert on transformational corporate change, Samit has been quoted in The New York Times, The Economist, Businessweek, Forbes, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Fast Company and TechCrunch.

Samit is a change agent, who combines his bold vision and humor, to motivate audiences to become disruptors within their organizations. Samit gets people passionate about innovation, overcoming obstacles, and teaches them how to think bigger and embrace change. Samit motivates and delights audiences from Moscow to Mumbai, London to Las Vegas, Phoenix to Philadelphia, Berlin to Beverly Hills, Toronto to Tokyo, Seoul to San Francisco, with compelling keynotes that leave the crowd wanting more. Samit provides disruptive solutions for such corporate clients as American Express, AT&T, Best Buy, Clinique, Coca Cola, Disney, Ford, GE, Intel, Linkedin, McDonalds, Microsoft, Proctor & Gamble, Starbucks, Unilever, Zynga and dozens more.

Yoni Argaman discusses how web-based innovations have transformed publishing.

Yoni leads all product marketing, marketing and business strategy activities at Inneractive. Prior to joining us, he held product and marketing positions at Yahoo and Amazon in the US and worked as a tech attorney in one of Israel’s leading law firms.

Sanjay Arora talks search engine innovation and his new venture, Million Short.

Sanjay Arora is the Founder and CEO of two Internet companies both with a focus on a field in which is he truly passionate about: Search Engines.

Sanjay founded his first search company Nextopia in 1999, which is dedicated to growing eCommerce businesses with advanced site search solutions. He has grown the company into a global leader in the industry.

Most recently, Sanjay founded Million Short – a revolutionary Internet search engine. Probing users with the question, “What haven’t you found?,” Million Short allows users to filter search results in ways previously unavailable, allowing them to remove up to the top million websites on the Internet from their search results and enabling them to find unique and relevant content. Million Short’s mission is to guide people on the road less traveled by providing alternate methods of organizing, accessing, and discovering the vast web of information that is the Internet. Million Short has been covered in publications such as Wired, Techcrunch and the New York Times.

The history of Xbox. Former Microsoft president Robbie Bach discusses the development of the Xbox and its successor product, Xbox 360. He also talks about his new book, Xbox Revisited: A Game Plan for Corporate and Civic Renewal.

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Robbie Bach, author of Xbox Revisited: A Game Plan for Corporate and Civic Renewal, joined Microsoft in 1988 and over the next twenty-two years worked in various marketing, general management, and business leadership roles, including working on the successful launch and expansion of Microsoft Office. As Chief Xbox Officer, he led the creation and development of the Xbox business, including the launch of the Xbox and the highly popular successor product, Xbox 360. He retired from Microsoft in 2010 as the President of the Entertainment and Devices Division.

In his new role as civic engineer, Robbie currently serves on the national board of governors for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and was the chairman of the board from 2009-10. He is also a board member of the United States Olympic Committee, Sonos Inc, Brooks Running Clubs, the Space Needle Inc., and local chapters of Boys and Girls Clubs and Year Up. Robbie is a regular guest lecturer at universities across the country and frequently writes on business and civic issues. All profits from his writing and speaking activities are donated to charity. (See www.RobbieBach.com for more information.)

Robbie received an MBA from Stanford University and his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of North Carolina where he was a Morehead Scholar and named a first team Academic All-American on Tar Heel’s tennis team.

He currently resides in Medina, Washington with his wife, Pauline, and their three children.

For more information please visit http://www.robbiebach.com and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.

In this excerpt from the show on August 30, 2016, Ron describes how the Microsoft Hololens could be helpful in the classroom:

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Hear this story and many more in the Innovation Navigation Podcast!

Ron has a degree in Mass Communications from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. After a stint in the textile industry, he re-invented himself as an information technology professional where he has pursued a career in data warehousing and business intelligence. Ron has held a number of roles at Fortune 500 companies, mid-size enterprises and consulting and contracting positions. He is married, has two sons and lives in Chicago’s northern suburbs. He enjoys road cycling, downhill and cross country skiing, kayaking and racket sports.

Simple, elegant solutions often paradoxically mask the complexity and hard work that lies behind them. Dan Ward talks with Dave about how to make good decisions about complexity.

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Dan Ward is the author of F.I.R.E.: How Fast, Inexpensive, Restrained and Elegant Methods Ignite Innovation (HarperBusiness, 2014) and The Simplicity Cycle: A Field Guide To Making Things Better Without Making Them Worse (HarperBusiness, 2015). Prior to launching Dan Ward Consulting, he served for more than 20 years as an acquisition officer in the US Air Force, where he specialized in leading high-speed, low-cost technology development programs and retired at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

Pinnacle Vodka’s flavors include cucumber, mimosa, habanero, and ruby red grapefruit. Brand directors Jason Dolenga and Marguerite Allolding talk about where they find inspiration for new flavors.

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Jason Dolenga is currently the Senior Brand Director of Vodka at Beam Suntory. In this role, he is responsible for all aspects of the Pinnacle® Vodka, EFFEN® Vodka, and Pucker® Vodka brands. Prior to his current role, Jason has served in a variety of brand management and innovation roles on iconic brands including Ford Motor Company, Cap’n Crunch, Gatorade, Odwalla, and Maker’s Mark® Bourbon.

Marguerite Allolding is a talented and highly experienced brand builder, developer and innovator, with over 12 years of experience leading strategy and marketing for some of the industry’s fastest growing spirits brands. She has over 3 years’ experience at Beam Suntory as the Brand Innovation Director managing a complex portfolio of brands including Skinnygirl, Pinnacle and EFFEN Vodkas, Cruzan Rum, and Sauza and Hornitos tequilas, delivering over $75million in NSV during her leadership. She was responsible for strategy and execution of Pinnacle’s first ever national TV campaign, as well as the development of several new brands and over 25 new flavor innovations for Pinnacle, including Whipped, which drove brand sales from 150K cases to almost 2.7million cases during her tenure.

Small teams are 40% more likely to create a breakthrough than an individual genius. Forbes publisher Rich Kaarlgard talks about how small, diverse teams are essential for innovation.

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Rich Karlgaard is the publisher of Forbes magazine, where he writes a featured column, Innovation Rules, on technology, business and leadership issues. Karlgaard has been a regular panelist on cable news’ most popular business show, Forbes on FOX, since the show’s inception in 2001. He is a co-founder of Upside magazine, Garage Technology Partners (with Guy Kawasaki) and Silicon Valley’s premier public business forum, the 7,500-member Churchill Club. Karlgaard’s 2004 book, Life 2.0, was a Wall Street Journal business bestseller. Karlgaard’s 2014 book, The Soft Edge: Where Great Companies Find Lasting Success, made the lists of top business books of 2014 for Inc., Value Walk, 800-CEO-READ, Huffington Post, and Forbes India.