Ideagen Global - Catalyze Magazine - Spring 2024

B Y I D E A G E N 

CATALYZE. 

Spring 2024 

Miami 

Summit 

Edition 

PLUS 

APAF’s Mental 

Healthcare 

Works 

Chetna Singh 

Global Head of Total Rewards 

SAP


CATALYZE. 


Miami 

Summit 

Edition 

PLUS 


Healthcare 

Works 

BJ Moore 

CIO & EVP of Real Estate Strategy & Operations 

Providence


CATALYZE. 


Miami 

Summit 

Edition 

PLUS 


Healthcare 

Works 

Ruth Hunter 

Senior Director of Team Development 

Miami Heat


CATALYZE. 


Miami 

Summit 

Edition 

PLUS 


Healthcare 

Works 

David Lloyd 

Solutions Architect Team Lead 

Amazon Web Services


CATALYZE. 


Miami 

Summit 

Edition 

PLUS 


Healthcare 

Works 

Manoli Lagos 

Co-Founder & CEO 

The Living Fuel Consulting


CATALYZE. 


Miami 

Summit 

Edition 

PLUS 


Healthcare 

Works 

Nicole Lagos 

Co-Founder 

The Living Fuel Consulting


CATALYZE. 


Miami 

Summit 

Edition 

PLUS 


Healthcare 

Works 

Bill Novelli 

Professor Emeritus & Founder, Georgetown Business For Impact 

Center & Co-Chair, Coalition For Trust in Health & Science


CATALYZE. 


Miami 

Summit 

Edition 

PLUS 


Healthcare 

Works 

César Lara M.D. 

Owner, César A. Lara, M.D. | Center For Weight 

Management & Fire and Stone Shamanic Healing


CATALYZE. 


Miami 

Summit 

Edition 

PLUS 


Healthcare 

Works 

Donna Bungard 

Sr. Marketing Accessibility Program Manager 

Indeed


CATALYZE. 


Miami 

Summit 

Edition 

PLUS 


Healthcare 

Works 

Conor Walsh 

Co-Founder & Principal 

Decentralized Labs


CATALYZE. 


Miami 

Summit 

Edition 

PLUS 


Healthcare 

Works 

Brian Hecker 

Senior Director of Basketball Analytics and Innovation 

Miami Heat


CATALYZE. 


Miami 

Summit 

Edition 

PLUS 


Healthcare 

Works 

Andrew Leedham 

Author & Performance Coach 

Unstoppable Self Confidence

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

01 

02 

03 

04 

05 

06 

07 

08 

09 

10 

11 

Chetna Singh 

Global Head of Total Rewards, SAP 

BJ Moore 

CIO & EVP of Real Estate Strategy & Operations, Providence 

Ruth Hunter 

Senior Director of Team Development, Miami Heat 

David Lloyd 

S o l u t i o n s A r c h i t e c t T e a m L e a d , A m a z o n W e b 

S e r v i c e s 

Manoli & Nicole Lagos 

Founders & Operators, The Living Fuel Consulting 

Bill Novelli 

Professor Emeritus & Founder, Georgetown Business For Impact Center 

& Co-Chair, Coalition For Trust in Health & Science 

César Lara M.D. 

Owner, César A. Lara, M.D. | Center For Weight Management & Fire 

and Stone Shamanic Healing 

Donna Bungard 

Sr. Marketing Accessibility Program Manager, Indeed 

Conor Walsh 

Co-Founder & Partner, Decentralized Labs 

Brian Hecker 

Senior Director of Basketball Analytics and Innovation, Miami Heat 


Author & Performance Coach, Unstoppable Self Confidence

2 0 2 4 A I , H E A L T H , T E C H , & F I N A N C E S U M M I T 

Trends in Total 

Rewards and Advice to 

Today’s Youth 

With Chetna Singh 

Global Head of Total Rewards 

SAP 

Chetna Singh of SAP 

SAP 

George Sifakis: I'd like to zoom in on your role as global head of SAP's Total 

Rewards, and specifically, what are the trends coming in 2024 for total rewards 

that you'd like to share and that you're implementing at SAP? 

Chetna Singh: I would say the topic of skill is a topic that's already here, but it's 

still coming like a tsunami. I say this because it's about relevance, it's about staying 

agile, and it's about pre-empting what's coming. That's the power of skill. Skill is 

not only about doing what is needed today; it's about preparing you for tomorrow. 

That's one of the biggest trends, I'd say: The skills framework. Staying relevant for 

today and tomorrow, and how the pay models will change to reward you for having 

the right skills so that you are creating the right impact and contribution for the 

organization. 

The second one is about pay equity and transparency; this is a no-brainer, and it 

will be a big one. Nobody wants to work for a company where the fundamental 

rights of humans are not met, and again, I'm super proud to work with a company 

like SAP, which is leading practices in pay equity and pay transparency. Josh 

Bersin has published our research, and we've been acknowledged as a leader in pay 

transparency and equity. We use technology to create the right fundamental system 

where you're able to have a fair and inclusive culture and a system for your 

workforce because it matters. 

CATALYZE MAGAZINE | 1

T R E N D S I N T O T A L R E W A R D S A N D A D V I C E 

T O T O D A Y ’ S Y O U T H 

Chetna: Furthermore, as I was talking about staying relevant, I think this 

disruption happening in the technology space is asking us to reset or reimagine 

employee value proposition. A lot of things have been done in the past, like altering 

power structure and huge perks for employees; we need to reimagine those spaces 

and channelize in a way that creates a compelling value proposition for our people 

and our talent. I believe that these three trends will touch everyone. 

Lastly, as I said, transformation is the new norm. You will have to transform your 

pay model, your incentives, your pay framework, and your skill framework to 

ensure that your business is going in the right direction and that your people and 

reward strategy are all intertwined. 

George: It's remarkable what you're doing on every level at SAP, and to hear about 

your unrelenting focus on the workforce, the employees that are the lifeblood of 

SAP is phenomenal. To juxtapose all of these efficiencies with AI, it has become 

such a powerful moment, and I think that a healthy, productive workforce is 

critical. 

I'd like to ask you a question relating to the future and something that I know you're 

passionate about, and that is youth. Chetna, what advice do you have for all of the 

future global leaders on this planet? The young folks that are maybe still in high 

school, and they're looking to you saying, 'Where would I go? What would I want 

to do? What does the world look like?' What is the advice you have for them? 


T R E N D S I N T O T A L R E W A R D S A N D A D V I C E 

T O T O D A Y ’ S Y O U T H 

Chetna: Yes, and I will use an example of something we all use, which is our 

mobile phones. I know that for digital nomads, this is as important as air and water. 

Take an iPhone or any other phone, and a few years back, it was the iPhone 4 or 5. 

Now, it's the iPhone 14, I think; I don't even know; I've lost count of where we are 

now, but I know that they are constantly upgrading to the next level. 

And the essence I'm trying to bring is that we should always strive to reach the next 

version of ourselves. No success or failure is permanent. You always have to have 

the agility to reset and restart your life. I believe in that because I have done it 

many times in my life. I've moved countries, started from scratch, and I have again 

built on that. I think this will be key: becoming the better version of yourself. Chase 

progress, not perfection. And whatever you do today, give your 200% because your 

tomorrow will come from what you do today. 


T R E N D S O F A I I N 

H E A L T H C A R E 

WITH BJ MOORE 

CIO & EVP OF REAL ESTATE STRATEGY & 

OPERATIONS 

PROVIDENCE HEALTH 

Providence 

BJ Moore, Providence Health 

George Sifakis: As we look at examples of developments and trends in the healthcare industry, 

and this is a loaded question with AI looming over us all, what do you think is most relevant to 

the youth of today? 

BJ Moore: Well, we've delivered health care very similarly for hundreds of years; it's very 

episodic. You, as a patient, feel bad. I feel bad as a patient, but I never go to the doctor. Some 

people go to the doctor episodically. I think that the message to kids or the youth is that health 

care is going to change, and that journey begins very early on. With these advances in artificial 

intelligence and large data models, what we're going to be able to do as a health system, the way 

youth today manage their health, and the life cycle of that health, that's going to change. 

What's great is that youth is probably the quickest to embrace technology. Where we're going 

with the digital transformation of healthcare, having it identify, choose, and help to manage 

your health more proactively, I think there's a nice alignment there 


T R E N D S O F A I I N H E A L T H C A R E 

George: And that's what we do here at Ideagen: shine a non-filtered light on all of these 

issues so that folks can come together and bring solutions to the table. That's what we're 

always talking about, whether it's at Gates Laboratory, Microsoft, the United Nations, here, or 

across the world; we're always talking about bringing solutions to the table. BJ, what you're 

doing to transform the entire industry is not a small task. I'd like to ask you if you have one 

example of a partnership that you really look to as the model or why you believe in 

collaboration; what would it be? 

BJ: Before I make this plug, I want to make sure it's known that we've got 5-10 really deep 

partnerships, but I'm picking Microsoft. You know I'm biased from working at Microsoft, but 

it's really been a long-term partnership. I joined Providence five years ago, and Microsoft has 

been with me on that journey the entire time. 

It isn't about small transformations. We've been investing for five years, incrementally 

improving their products, improving Providence's products, and it's just a great example of 

partnership. Microsoft brings its technical expertise and its technical tools, Providence brings 

its clinical expertise and its clinical data, and really, that collaboration uniquely allows us to 

advance healthcare. While these are companies, the partnership and the advancements we're 

doing are for all humanity. It's really a worldwide effort; it isn't just about health. 


2 0 2 4 A I , H E A L T H , T E C H , & F I N A N C E S U M M I T 

Giving Back to the 

Community and 

Positioning the Heat for 

Success 

With Ruth Hunter, Senior Director of 

Team Development for The Miami Heat 

Ruth Hunter, Miami Heat 

Heat 

George Sifakis: Community engagement is a very significant aspect of many 

professional sports teams. How does the Miami Heat team development 

department impact and contribute to players' involvement in community outreach, 

in addition to the philanthropic efforts made by the team? 

Ruth Hunter: I think there are three ways in which we do that here with the Heat. 

We have our own pillars that, organizationally, are important to us in the 

community: education, social justice, and wellness, with a strong focus on mental 

wellness and mental well-being and then a new pillar of ours is sustainability. For 

the Heat organization, we have these strong pillars to make sure we're impacting 

the community, but we also recognize that our players have different interests and 

initiatives personally within the community. We want to make sure that we're 

supporting and amplifying what they're doing as well. Things that are important to 

them are important to us. Then our Miami Heat Charitable Fund is another arm of 

of our organization and another way by which we're able to give back. 

George Sifakis: Well, giving back is in your DNA. That's what you do, Ruth, and 

I've seen it. You've given your time, talent, and treasure on so many levels because 

that's who you are as a leader. I'd like to ask you, how do you combine this 

incredible personal and professional knowledge as a player with what is a more 

data-driven analytics approach to positioning the Miami Heat for ultimate success? 


G I V I N G B A C K T O T H E C O M M U N I T Y A N D 

P O S I T I O N I N G T H E H E A T F O R S U C C E S S 

Ruth: I wish we had the data that they have now when I was playing. I feel like I 

would be a much better player than I was. As you know by my personality, I am 

analytically wired. I like to understand and make informed decisions, and I think 

that's where you're seeing sports really capitalize on this new information and data 

that's available to them. 

You hear analytics in both positive and negative ways because there's a lot of data 

that people are wrestling with how to utilize. Data has to be used by your coaching 

staff and your front office, so making sure that you're aligned with providing the 

information they're looking for to make their decisions is important. So I love it 

because it's the way that I'm wired, but also a way that is helping our organization 

as they make decisions on a daily basis. 


U T I L I Z I N G A I T O O L S 

W I T H I N H E A L T H C A R E 

WITH DAVID LLOYD 

SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT TEAM LEAD 

AMAZON WEB SERVICES 

AWS 

David Lloyd, AWS 

George Sifakis: AI is an effective tool for health care and the industry as a whole; it's 

happening already. In your eyes, does the implementation help the end user, the patients? 

David Lloyd: Absolutely, and it goes back to your earlier questions. We're working in a 

regulatory environment, so we have to put the patient and patient safety first. There's so much 

opportunity to improve the patient experience, but what we're really doing is launching it 

incrementally to be responsible. In terms of patient-facing, what I see with my customers is that 

they start by dipping their toes in the water, and there are some simple approaches to patient 

education. 

Take insurance benefits, for example; they're not simple. If you can ask AI a question and get an 

answerback, then that's kind of nice, right? These are complex data sets. Another example might 

be a procedure that you're going to have. You can just ask a chatbot and they'll come back with 

an answer. Those types of things are efficient and simple. At AWS, we look to invent and 

simplify. Our vision for healthcare is that if we can get to the point where clinicians have more 

time, it's also going to impact our patients. 


U T I L I Z I N G A I T O O L S W I T H I N H E A L T H C A R E 

David: Hopefully, we'll get to the point where you can have a same-day appointment with your 

doctor online and then have your medication delivered to you within a few hours via Amazon. 

Maybe it can't all be done virtually, but the majority of the time, it could be; then, for the 

exception, you'd go into the office. Another interesting area that I believe is going to impact 

patients is drug discovery, and AI is playing a large role in this. We are working with nine of the 

top ten pharmaceutical companies, and I expect some major breakthroughs to happen in the near 

future, which will benefit all of us. 

I've got a lot of use cases, but one of my favorites of AI in our work was from a customer who 

was inspired by the Amazon.com reviews. In reviews, we launched a generative AI offering 

where you can go to a product that has thousands of reviews, and the AI will summarize it and 

inform you of all the key points of these reviews. One of our customers was looking at that and 

thought, 'Well, what about the patient experience?' Why can't I take my journey map, which is 

when I book my appointment, go to a specialist, and then go into the hospital, and then I'm 

discharged? 

There's all this data from the interactions, phone calls, notes, and surveys; pull that all together, 

and this was their experience. This was good, this wasn't great; then do that for all the patients. 

Now you're getting to the point where you think, 'Ok, I can actually affect change for my 

patients and give them a positive experience.' 


Learn more about how the APAF 

can help here: 


How The Living Fuel 

Can Help You 

With Manoli & Nicole Lagos, Founders and Operators of The Living 

Fuel Consulting 

Watch their interview here: 

View their site here: 

TLF.com 

George Sifakis: How do you help people 

at The Living Fuel? 

Manoli Lagos: Well, it comes in our two 

approaches. The first is we help people 

one-on-one who are sick and tired of 

being sick and tired. Whether they're 

CEOs, athletes, or just regular people 

who want to perform better, we help 

people achieve their full optimal health by 

utilizing all of the tools, programs, and 

coaches on our team. 

George: So, when you're looking at each 

client, how do you customize and tailor 

the approach? 

Nicole Lagos: I think everyone is so bioindividual 

and so different. What one 

person can eat or do may make someone 

else not feel so great, so we really try to 

take that approach. I also feel we're a 

little bit different in this space, because we 

take an Eastern and Western approach, 

more of an integrative, holistic look. 

Then on a larger scale, we work with 

businesses just like the business that I 

came from and that Nicole came from. 

We're working with Deloitte, Slack, and 

Free People, massive companies that are 

facing the same issues. Their employees 

are burnt out and they don't know where 

to turn for very customized health advice, 

and that's what we do. We come in and 

build these custom programs for their 

employees. 


How The Living Fuel Can Help You 

Nicole: We're not anti-medication if that's where a client needs to go, but we'll 

always try to look at the body as a whole and take that holistic approach first, 

which I think we didn't find too much of on our own health journeys. We wanted 

to fill in the gap there and just give people that well-rounded look at what was 

going on. 

George: So you found that generally, what was available to you was more of one or 

the other? A holistic or not type of approach? 

Manoli: Yes, and it's very cookie-cutter. It wasn't customized, so you couldn't 

really find anything specific to you. That same approach that Nicole mentioned is 

what we do with businesses. We look at them as individuals. What kind of 

problems are their employees facing? Is it productivity? Is it working late hours? 

Putting out fires? Is it burnout? Then, we customize programs for those specific 

employees, and that's where we've seen real success. 

George: How do you deliver the program? 

Manoli: We use a team of coaches that implement and deliver. We do it in group 

settings and one-on-one settings. We have technology that pushes material out to 

the corporations, so it's kind of a bottom up approach, but the companies that 

believe in it from the top, the CEOs, those are the ones that have the most success. 

Manoli Lagos, The Living Fuel 

Nicole Lagos, The Living Fuel 


H O W T H E L I V I N G F U E L C A N H E L P Y O U 

George: Why is that? 

Manoli: Because they practice what they preach. When the employees see that their CEO 

or C-suite is doing these things, making good choices, and actually prioritizing their sleep, 

not sacrificing it, they start to do the same thing and, in return, start performing better. 

George: Wow. It's incredibly exciting to hear from you directly about how you're helping 

people and companies, but what's next? What's on the horizon for The Living Fuel? 

Manoli: We're working on a lot. We want to continue scaling, helping more businesses, 

and creating the technology behind our platform to help so many more people. Our reach is 

our biggest thing, and our social media has been growing. That's another avenue in which 

we can reach people, and we have a podcast platform and series titled "The Living Fuel 

Podcast." 

Interested in a consultation? Click the link below to learn more! 


The Effects of 

Caregiving For 

Millennials and Gen 

Xers In The Workplace 

With Bill Novelli, Professor Emeritus 

& Founder, Georgetown Business For 

Impact Center & Co-Chair, Coalition 

For Trust in Health & Science 

Site 

Bill Novelli 

George Sifakis: You recently wrote a Fortune article addressing the effects of 

caregiving for millennials and Gen Xers within the workplace. Bill, can you kindly 

outline your takeaways from this incredible article for our global audience? 

Bill Novelli: This is a very important subject. We know that the American 

population is aging very rapidly, and we have more and more older adults with 

disabilities and chronic illnesses. 1 in 6 full-time workers in our country is a 

caregiver, and this is happening across the world. The whole world is aging, except 

perhaps for Africa. Many of these caregivers are millennials, Gen Xers, or 

experienced workers, and the majority of them are women. These people, these 

caregivers, are more likely to report being stressed, working while feeling unwell, 

having financial hardship, and they're really suffering in terms of work-life balance 

pressures. 

They miss work, reduce their work hours, refuse promotions, and even quit the 

workforce in order to be caregivers for their family members. They don't feel like 

their employers see them. One caregiver we heard from said, "I feel like a hidden 

warrior," and that's what they are. They often don't even believe that their 

employers have services to support them. I'm part of something called the 

Coalition to Transform Advanced Care, or C-TAC, and The Cigna Foundation, and 

we studied this to find out how serious the problem is. 


T H E E F F E C T S O F C A R E G I V I N G F O R 

M I L L E N N I A L S A N D G E N X E R S I N T H E 

W O R K P L A C E 

Bill Novelli: These caregivers struggle with a lack of knowledge about diseases. 

They really are at a loss in terms of how to cope in general with the demands of 

caregiving. What we have to do is help companies respond positively to this crisis. 

Companies need to know what services they have available because caregivers 

often don't know them. They have to offer flexible working arrangements, flex 

time, alternative shifts, job sharing, that kind of thing. 

They need help with the specifics of retirement, including the likelihood of 

caregiving expenses. Then a big one, if caregivers quit the workforce to take care of 

aging relatives, whenever that is over, the companies ought to consider bringing 

them back. If we can do these things, if we can get companies to really understand 

this, I think we can cope with this problem. 


DR. CÉSAR LARA’S WEIGHT 

MANAGEMENT & SHAMANIC 

HEALING 

With César Lara, Owner, César A. Lara, M.D. | Center For 

Weight Management & Fire and Stone Shamanic Healing 

Site 

Manoli Lagos: For someone curious about what you do, what does it look like? What kind 

of services do you offer, and what do you help people with? 

Dr. César Lara: So for the lifestyle medicine perspective, because that's what I've come to 

call it, people come in with 10lbs of excess weight, 20lbs of excess weight. At first, it's 

easy for us to assume that the reason this person is that way is because they eat too much or 

they don't exercise, and unfortunately, that's a dysfunctional way of looking at things. 

You're blaming somebody for a condition that they have. I help clients appreciate how they 

can change their lives and understand how they can talk to themselves and begin to release 

that excess weight. You don't lose it; you release it because anything you lose, you end up 

eventually coming to find it, or it finds you. That's one of the primary focuses, which is the 

ability to help someone achieve their healthy weight. 

Dr. César Lara 


DR. CÉSAR LARA’S WEIGHT MANAGEMENT 

& SHAMANIC HEALING 

Dr. Lara: The other aspect is that as we age, all these conditions appear, so how do we 

prevent the conditions of aging? From that perspective, my age management program 

focuses on individuals to help them empower their bodies so that they can heal themselves 

as they age, maintaining that youthful attitude. Then my most prominent and most 

passionate aspect is shamanic healings. 

At that level, we're really dealing with energy. We are energy beings at the core of 

everything. There's electrons, there's atoms circulating, and so it's in the context of 

understanding energy, the chakras, and the understanding of how they work in terms of 

creating the reality that we live, where we can begin to shift that energy and subsequently 

shift the way we respond. 

Manoli: Have you found a way to blend the three of those modalities when you help your 

patients? 


DR. CÉSAR LARA’S WEIGHT MANAGEMENT 

& SHAMANIC HEALING 

Dr. Lara: Yes, because I've come to appreciate that I'm only one, and I'm the same one, 

and my primary focus is to really bring that element of light. In the past, when I saw a 

patient, I only saw the problem of that individual. Today, when I see an individual who 

comes as a patient, I see the opportunities, and I see the light that lives through them. I 

remember that what you feed is what grows, and I can see the beauty and healthiness in 

them. 

From that perspective, I'm a shaman first in terms of my ability to perceive, help, guide, 

and, more importantly, listen because people tell you their story. Within the context of that 

story is the understanding of why they are the way they are. If we need to shift how we 

are, then we need to shift that story. So, for me, it's critically important to always bring the 

energetics into whatever facilities or tools I bring to the forefront, whether it's nutrition, it's 

not just eating the right stuff, it's being able to put your hands over it and energizing that 

food so that it can actually connect with our divine cells and begin to give us what we 

really want from it. 

The Future of Health Panel 

Dr. Lara Addressing The Future of Health Panel 


A C C U R A T E L Y 

R E P R E S E N T I N G T H O S E 

W I T H D I S A B I L I T I E S 

W I T H D O N N A B U N G A R D , 

S R . M A R K E T I N G A C C E S S I B I L I T Y 

P R O G R A M M A N A G E R , I N D E E D 

Indeed 

George Sifakis: Do you think that the way 

disabled people are portrayed every day has a role 

in the challenges that we're facing? 

Donna Bungard: Absolutely. Here in the US, 

there used to be beautification laws, meaning if 

your relative wasn't sightly, you would keep them 

hidden. This has shown up in a lot of our 

advertising, but it's changing. For a lot of 

companies, if you look on their websites, you're 

going to see people with disabilities represented 

by what they actually do. We had this beautiful 

piece recently put out about a phlebotomist named 

Lexi. The story is not about her disability; it's 

about her journey as somebody in health care. We 

need to see more people showing up doing what 

they do. 

Donna Bungard, Indeed 

George: So you have a mountain of data, 

and data is gold. Data today is a 

commodity, and it's becoming more so 

every day with ChatGPT and all the areas 

in which data is being utilized. What are 

the industries lacking here? We talked 

about Hollywood and knew there could be 

more done to make it more inclusive, and 

it paints a different picture of the inclusion 

that should be. But what are other 

industries that are ripe for change? Is it 

every industry? 

People with disabilities should not just be experts 

on disability. I always joke that we'll know we've 

done well when a quarter of the pictures we see of 

people buying socks, car insurance, or other really 

boring things include them. This should not only 

apply when you're talking about retirement funds 

because we do have an aging workforce. We have 

an incredible talent pool there, and according to 

the statistics, most of us, as we age, will acquire 

some disability if we don't already have one. 


A C C U R A T E L Y R E P R E S E N T I N G T H O S E 

W I T H D I S A B I L I T I E S 

Donna: It kind of depends. We're talking about disability as a big group, but there is a great 

deal of diversity and intersectionality within that, and I would argue that some industries are 

probably further along for some types of disabilities than others. For example, in the US, there 

are a lot of barriers for people with intellectual disabilities to get more senior roles, and while 

I'm saying that generally, there is data out there. Whereas what we see in Spain, they just 

elected the first Parliamentarian with Down syndrome, and she's remarkable. She's not 

remarkable because of her disability; she's a remarkable woman, and it's remarkable that 

society has allowed her to elevate to that place. 

A disability is a character trait, just as any other character trait. The fact that the barriers were 

broken down for her to be able to rise to that level is what makes the story so incredible, not 

necessarily about her overcoming. People don't overcome these things; this is part of who we 

are. I didn't overcome being a woman in tech. I haven't overcome anything, but people can 

have various breakdowns in those pathways. I'd argue that some industries are going to be 

much more inclusive of certain kinds of disabilities than others, and what we need to do is just 

level the playing field. 

Donna Bungard, & George Sifakis 


2024 Global 

Partnership Summit 

“Identifying Solutions A Sector Away” 

Streaming Now On Ideagen Global 


I N N O V A T I N G W I T H A I 

A T D E C E N T R A L I Z E D 

L A B S 

W I T H C O N O R W A L S H , C O - F O U N D E R & 

P A R T N E R A T D E C E N T R A L I Z E D L A B S 

Site 

Manoli Lagos: You mentioned AI, and I 

know it's a hot topic that we've spoken a lot 

about today. I'm curious: are you guys 

implementing it in your personal life, is it a 

part of your business, and how is it shaping 

what you do at Decentralized Labs? 

Conor Walsh: We pride ourselves in 

having the best team with the most 

experience in certain sectors across AI, 

blockchain, cybersecurity and within our 

research. We've got a team purely focused 

on innovating, finding problems to solve, 

and seeing if we can use those solutions to 

solve a problem internally or implement it 

into our system. Then, if it works for us, 

we see if we can use those solutions for 

any customers that come to us. 

Conor Walsh 

Conor: We're great because we have a 

really inquisitive team behind us, but 

we're also on the front lines. We serve 

companies from pre-seed to seed startups 

and all the way to large enterprises. With 

the constant stream of inbound calls, 

different problems, and all different use 

cases for the technology itself, we're able 

to take in that information, put it into our 

development lab, and come up with some 

cool solutions. 

So, we're not only using it for ourselves 

internally, but we're on the front line and 

we can see a lot of these problems, 

conversations, and issues coming in that 

we can adapt. I think that's why we offer 

such a great service particularly on our 

development and research side. 

CATALYZE MAGAZINE |22

I N N O V A T I N G W I T H A I A T 

D E C E N T R A L I Z E D L A B S 

Manoli: It's a huge advantage to you to have all these people coming to you saying, 

'Hey, I have a problem; help me fix this. Then you build something out based on that; 

you're getting feedback every day. 

Conor Walsh: It's a constant feedback loop, even if it's a CTO or a business 

development guy just wanting to have a chat and feel out where the market is. That's 

information and data for us that we can use. Then we're actually able to be an actual 

client who needs us to build something for them. 


OPTIMIZING BASKETBALL 

PERFORMANCE THROUGH AI 

INTEGRATION 

WITH SENIOR DIRECTOR OF BASKETBALL ANALYTICS 

AND INNOVATION WITH THE MIAMI HEAT 

Heat 

George Sifakis: AI has transformed the world and accelerated the pace of innovation on 

every level. How do you see AI and Generative AI impacting the work that you're doing? 

Brian Hecker: AI is a really large sector, and I think there's been a misunderstanding in its 

uses. Specific to sports, we're very fortunate to work for an organization like the NBA, and 

we've actually been using AI technology for over a decade in many ways. If you were to go to 

our website, you'd see simple things that may talk about how if two players come together, 

did they cross each other, was it a pick and roll, was it a screen, and they're creating artificial 

intelligence that can do that for every single game. 

Ten years ago, and right up until this year, and this is the innovation aspect of it, we've been 

using products that allow us to know where every player is on the court, their center mass, 30 

times per second. We have a team that looks into that, but we also use AI to make decisions 

for us and put what we call markings on the data, helping us look at it differently. 


OPTIMIZING BASKETBALL PERFORMANCE 

THROUGH AI INTEGRATION 

Brian: In the innovation of the NBA, we've now moved and continued to progress in that 

particular landscape. Now, with the new technology that we're still working through, we 

have 30 points per player, 50 times per second. We know where appendages are and 

different parts of the body, and that will lead to increased performance. So, innovation in 

the AI aspect is definitely already at the league level for us, and we continue to utilize it. 

Then we take subsets of that, which would be machine learning, and make predictive 

models on different things that I can't really go into because we've got to have our own 

secret sauce, but those are the types of things that we're able to do. I'm fortunate to have a 

good team below me that's able to look at different things and create machine learning 

models. You're always trying to stay ahead because the rules are such, and at the end of 

the day, it's about winning. You can only win between the margins, so the more we can 

investigate those margins, the more we can compete. 


OPTIMIZING BASKETBALL PERFORMANCE 

THROUGH AI INTEGRATION 

George: Are those margins becoming smaller and smaller? 

Brian: They are. 

George: So those 50 points per second tracking everything happening on the court, is it 

becoming that detailed? 

Brian: It's available to us. The conversation that always comes up in our world is, 'When is 

there too much data?' I will be honest: five-six years ago, there was a hard discussion of, 

'Are we getting too many data sources?' That was where this analytics team came from 

because now there is no such thing as too much because we can weed out and work 

through that information. However, there was definitely a time when we thought, 'Are we 

getting pulled in too many directions?' Now, because we can take all of that information 

and put it into machine learning models, it only makes it better. The more data we get, the 

better it becomes. 


T H E P O W E R W I T H I N : 

S T A R T I N G Y O U R 

C O N F I D E N C E J O U R N E Y 

W I T H A N D R E W L E E D H A M , A U T H O R 

A N D H I G H P E R F O R M A N C E C O A C H , 

U N S T O P P A B L E S E L F C O N F I D E N C E 

Site 

George Sifakis: Looking back on your 

career so far, how would you describe the 

evolution of your work and its impact on 

both your personal growth and, perhaps 

more importantly, on all of those that you 

aimed to help? 

Andrew Leedham: I think the evolution in 

my own understanding as I uncovered 

these secrets was that most selfdevelopment 

was filled with lots of good 

information but started in the wrong place. 

Fundamentally, most self-help and selfdevelopment 

starts with the idea that there's 

something fundamentally wrong with you 

that you need to change in order to become 

one of those special, amazing people. 

Whereas what I learned was that actually, 

the opposite is true. 

We are born naturally confident and 

successful, but as we grow up, we get 

taught a whole series of ways of thinking 

that limit us, or that cause us to play down 

to a tiny fraction of our true potential. 


Andrew: When you start to see that 

journey differently, you realize why 

people can change very, very fast. A lot 

of people that I've worked with have 

expressed this same experience. In the 

past, every course, every book, and every 

program that I took always made it feel 

like the ultimate destination was further 

away because here's another thing that 

I've got to change, or here's another thing 

I've got to watch. 

Whereas when you see the truth, which 

is: No, you're already one of those people 

you've just got to let go of those limiting 

beliefs, programs, and ways of thinking 

that hold us back, then suddenly the 

journey feels very different. You're not 

changing away from who you are, you're 

reconnecting back to who you always 

were underneath this unhelpful 

programming. 

CATALYZE MAGAZINE |27

T H E P O W E R W I T H I N : S T A R T I N G 

Y O U R C O N F I D E N C E J O U R N E Y 

Andrew: Now, when I share that with people there's a number of structured, detailed 

processes that we take people through to get there. Then, suddenly, their whole sense of 

who they are shifts. The real shift is recognizing that all of our behaviors, all the ways 

that we operate, flow directly from our sense of our own identity as we are. 

I always say we cannot create a level of confidence or success that's misaligned with 

who we understand ourselves to be. When we understand the truth that we're already 

one of those successful people, that's when people can change really quickly. As I've 

shared that journey with people that shift, that profound shift in that understanding, then 

you see them transform very, very quickly, no matter where they started. 

O R D E R U N S T O P P A B L E S E L F 

C O N F I D E N C E T O D A Y ! 


IDEAGEN’S 2023 GLOBAL 

GOALS SUMMIT 

16 

17 

1 

2 

15 

3 

14 

4 

13 

12 

6 

5 

11 

7 

10 

9 

8 

FROM THE NASDAQ GLOBAL HEADQUARTERS, NYC 

STREAMING NOW ON IDEAGEN TV 


Editor's Note 

Dear Friends and Colleagues, it is already another #Epic year for Ideagen 

Global as we convene to develop Global Partnerships for World Change. 

We are seeing incredible trends and advancements, from breakthroughs 

in technology to inspiring advancements in sustainability; it's an exciting 

time. The world continues to evolve, with AI and virtual experiences 

becoming increasingly accessible and diverse, including the latest from 

ChatGPT and OpenAI. 

Looking ahead, we are excited to convene our Ideagen Global "Future of 

(...) Summit," Powered by the APAF in Washington, DC, on May 15, 

2024! Catalyze Magazine, by Ideagen Global, is also impacting the 

awareness of the Global Goals and connecting the dots across sectors as 

we highlight all the exciting developments with our readers as we prepare 

for 2025! 

The Best is Indeed Yet To Be! 

GEORGE SIFAKIS 

GEORGE SIFAKIS 

Editor-in-Chief & CEO 

-Ideagen 

CATALYZE MAGAZINE | 30 

DANIEL KERNS 

Senior Editor 

ALEXA SIFAKIS 

Publication Co-Editor 

Pictured Top to Bottom 

Phyllis Ferrell, DAC 

The Daughters of Penelope 

Jeff Terry, GAF

Ideagen Global - Catalyze Magazine - Spring 2024

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?