The Port Authority of NY & NJ is amid a three-year Digital Transformation Program, with the overall objective of connecting the sum of its parts to not just deliver world class service but reimagine the workplace of the future. We have has four strategic themes:
1) Digitization and automation
2) Controlling our projects
3) Improving working relationships and
4) A culture of continuous improvement.
However, developing a lasting legacy of change cannot be achieved without the collective endorsement of people, from senior leadership to early career professionals. We explore some of the ways we are delivering this program from “quick wins” to long term and sustainable improvement in performance.

Technology leaders are under increasing pressure to become more responsive to changing customer needs amid growing competition in the digital experience. They have big decisions around what foundation to build from and what design approach would enable the kind of agility that is required to compete. This conversation considers the role of cloud and blockchain in innovation while exploring the growing use of composability in design thinking to create effective interfaces.

1.How would you describe your modernization journey, be it cloud-driven or otherwise? What have been your challenges and successes? (Possible follow up: how did you develop the necessary infrastructure to support this journey and your organizational needs?)
2.A key component of transformation has been a keen eye on the customer, in whatever capacity that customer may be – B2C or B2B. User interface and experience systems are at the core, here: if you have a customer, you’re trying to “deliver experience.” With that being said, what are you doing to drive customer engagement and responsiveness?
3.With the customer/consumer in mind, let’s tackle what will be a massive buzzword in 2023, if it isn’t already: Composability. How does your current design and infrastructure support composability? What’s working and what’s missing?
4.Every great transformation starts, or SHOULD start, with a solid foundation. What foundational technology are you using to drive innovation and business initiatives? Furthermore, how did you decide where to start? Lastly, what advice would you give in this space based on your experiences?
5.What role is automation/AI/ML playing in your cloud and/or modernization journey?
6.How does sustainability play a part in your cloud/modernization initiatives?
7.What are your goals and priorities in this space moving into 2023 and beyond?

Securing capabilities to deliver new business models should be top of mind for any IT leader. The talent shortage facing CIO’s is well known along with the need to scale automation effectively. These two sources of capabilities have their own challenges in isolation, yet they have to be developed in harmony as they rely on one other as much as they can be in competition.
A Korn Ferry study suggests that the biggest issue isn’t in fact that 'robots are taking all the jobs' – it’s that there aren’t enough humans to take them. The study finds that by 2030, there will be a global human talent shortage of more than 85 million people.
Finding the balance between the reskilling the workforce and scaling automation is one of biggest strategic challenges facing IT leaders as it impacts long term innovation capability, employee engagement, ESG credentials and overall digital transformation efforts.

This roundtable will explore questions including:
•What does the future of work and the automation innovation landscape look like so that CIO’s can developing empowering narratives?
•How do CIO’s need to nurture their IT and wider company cultures to drive the collaboration and embrace cooperation with AI and machine learning?
•How can emerging technologies remove friction for both customers and employees?
•What leadership innovation needs to take place to ensure successful integration of emerging technologies whilst ensuring attraction, retention, digital empathy, and employee engagement?

While some of us are still coming to terms with the idea, companies are already scrambling to define the space, carve out their niche, and even snap up virtual real estate. The metaverse will infiltrate every sector in the coming years, culminating in a market opportunity worth more than $1 trillion in annual revenues, according to JP Morgan. 42% of respondents as part of an Accenture survey say it will be breakthrough and transformational. While society is effectively in the early days of the metaverse, it will advance very quickly. If companies don’t act now, they’ll find themselves operating in worlds designed by, and for, someone else. Within all this potential where do CIO’s start staking their claim within this new virtual reality?

This roundtable will explore questions including:
•What is the metaverse - and are we there yet?
•What technologies are powering the metaverse?
•Why CIOs might consider putting the metaverse on their tech roadmap?
•Why companies need CIOs to lead metaverse development?

The abundance of data has transformed the way organizations conduct business in today’s digital world. Harnessing information so that you can become data-driven is no simple task. To capitalize on the true potential of data at our fingertips, organizations must fundamentally change how they view and use data. We sit on mounds of customer information, which is often siloed, and whilst many have worked hard to break down these silos, the ever-increasing surge of data in our modern world will create them all over again, unless your environment is prepared to cope with it.
Democratizing data starts at the top and unlocking its power requires elevating it to the status of a strategic asset. There are still many challenges that organizations face here, including unclear rules of engagement among key technology leaders, data fluency, lengthy data curation cycles, and complex system architectures across organizations.

This roundtable will explore questions including:
• How is technology enabling companies to overcome silo, data quality and enablement issues?
• How do you create frictionless collaboration within your data ecosystem - people, tools, and data?
• Ensuring every business decision is data-driven - how do we enable data as a service?
• Where can the use of AI and machine automation help with cutting costs?
• How can you embed a data and analytics culture across the entire organization?
• How can you better manage providers and make data actionable?
• How do you streamline cloud decisions while saving money?

New application architectures, DevOps, DORA metrics, CX data platforms... all amazing partners to help you deliver more value, more iteration, and more quickly. But testing is always in the way! We believe testing -- when conceived of differently through a DevOps toolchain lens -- can be a massive accelerator for organizations moving from older development methodologies to newer ones.

The Department of Defense CIO, Honorable John Sherman, talks about the Department’s imperative to modernize in the face of continuous advancements in technology and evolving adversaries. In order to stay ahead of pacing challenges, the Department must chart a course that takes into account uncertain resources and a federated group of highly autonomous stakeholders with their own unique priorities. Honorable Sherman discusses how you successfully manage these competing challenges without loosing sight of strategic enterprise wide priorities and initiatives.

Security is becoming a key selling point for digital products while investors are starting to see security capabilities as a key competitive advantage of companies. Cyber Security is now even a major governance requirement of ESG where boards are asking bigger questions of technology leaders! Amidst all these big changes this panel asks if there needs to be a new collaboration model between IT and Security whereby security is built into the innovation process.

With automation being relied on to deliver critical capabilities the key question for technology leaders is where does the human need to fit in the loop. With perspectives from high stakes areas such as healthcare and 911 first responders, we explore where technologies need to place their thinking when relying on automation to provide customer centric and personalized services to their customers.