Signal and Cipher

Signal and Cipher is the Future Decoded. We are an innovation and change management firm dedicated to helping the most impactful companies in the world navigate, operationalize, and monetize the impact of AI to drive the future of work.

From Hollywood studios to tech darlings and CPG, our clients are looking for ways to build the future today.

Keynote Speaker

I speak frequently on the future of work and the impact of rapid change on enterprises, employees, consumers, and the global economy.

Keynote Platforms: 
Billion Dollar Teams: The Future of an AI-Powered Workforce
Future Forward: Navigating Exponential Change
Creative Machines: AI and the Future of Creativity

Recent keynotes include Deloitte, Microsoft, Synchrony, Puig, SXSW, Adobe, Febraban, Icatu, Totvs, and Itau.

I have also given guest lectures on leadership and AI at several universities, including the University of Chicago, Northwestern, Loyola, DePaul, UIC, and IIT.

International Keynote Speaker

DeFiance Media

I write and produce the Future Report segment as a part of Defiance Daily on the Defiance Media Network, using Hour One's powerful synthetic media platform. Each news segment is delivered by an AI version of me - a Deepfake.
You can catch the segment at https://defiance.media or streaming on over 100MM devices and smart TVs worldwide.

AI Correspondent - Synthetic Host of "Future Report"

Coastal Spritz

Interim Fractional CMO

Update Beverage

Caffeine is obsolete. It’s time for an Update. Crush procrastination with a smart energy drink that's more advanced than caffeine. Now available at www.drinkupdate.com

* Rebuilt the brand from the ground up after two prior agencies failed to design a distinctive brand for this new beverage category
* Built a nimble team of freelancers to establish a visual identity, brand guidelines and design system, including an extensive library of 3D assets, and feature animations
* Defined core value propositions and key demographics for launch
* Lead launch strategy and execution 
* Worked with bleeding-edge tech platforms like Unreal Engine 5 and LightTwist to develop immersive brand experiences

Head Of Brand + Futurist in Residence

Cocktails For Hope

•  Successfully lobbied for the legalized sale of Cocktails-to-go in Illinois - providing bars and 
    restaurants a revenue lifeline during Covid
•  Built a team of 50+ volunteers, including some of the world's biggest names in hospitality
•  Co-wrote legislation that received overwhelming bi-partisan support 

Cocktails For Hope is an initiative that advocates for the temporary sale of pre-mixed cocktails in containers sealed by on-premise license holding establishments in the State of Illinois. Cocktails For Hope is committed to creating necessary cash flow to bars and restaurants throughout the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic to allow them to remain in business. The initiative also seeks to create an open line of communication with lawmakers for continued conversations as the hospitality landscape evolves over time.               Visit us at: www.cocktailsforhope.org

Co-Founder

SWAPP PROTOCOL (NFT Marketplace, Decentralized Exchange, Data Monetization)

Advising Swapp on 
- Implementation of structure and process needed to scale effectively
- Marketing and communications strategy

NFT Marketing and Operations Advisor

XR Founders

We are a collective of over 15,000+ interdisciplinary voices sharing ideas to shape the future of XR. Together we explore new capabilities, diversity, ethical design, accessibility, sustainability, and social impact within the industry. 

Join us on Clubhouse every Thursday and Sunday at  5PM ET.

Cohost

Hawkeye

Epsilon agency is now part of Hawkeye!

We’re a one-of-a-kind human experience agency.

We orchestrate experiences for people across their customer journey— leveraging human insight, the world’s best data, empathic creativity and the most powerful technology available. We do all this to deliver business results for our clients and to create more meaningful connections between humans and brands.

We call these Connections Designed to Matter™.

VP, Group Director: Digital Strategy + Innovation

Epsilon

Established the Creative Technology group to explore, prototype, and deploy new technologies in service of solving client business challenges.

Digital Strategy Practice Lead
Executive Development Program Graduate

Vice President, Digital Strategy

Decoding the future of work with the technologies of tomorrow | Futurist | Speaker

I help executives (including C-Suite and NEDs), and marketing teams understand the impact of AI on their organizations and augment the power of their teams with AI and reimagined workflows. 

For over a decade I've helped companies do mind-bending things with new and emerging technologies by showing them how to create, monetize and scale with bleeding-edge tech when few best practices and instruction manuals exist. At Signal and Cipher, we're focused on decoding the future of work for our clients.

My mission as a futurist and speaker is to inspire people to take ownership of their role in shaping the future, participate in building the world they want to see, be the wrong person asking the right questions, and approach the future with wonder, curiosity, and hope, not fear and confusion. The future is ours to shape, but you don't win by being as a spectator. 


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Considered one of the top voices in AI and the future of work, Ian is a trusted advisor to the world's most innovative companies. His firm Signal and Cipher transforms companies into AI-ready organizations with training, workforce reengineering, design, and development, resulting in meaningful routes to innovation that impact the bottom line, inspire cultural change, and create new products and ways of working.

Previously responsible for P&Ls and innovation departments at the largest agencies in the world, Ian is known for making bleeding-edge technology understandable and monetizable. Brands he has advised over the last decade include Samsung, Intel, Coca-Cola, Google, Microsoft, Nike, and dozens more.

Ian has pioneered a digitally immersive presentation style that brings artificial intelligence and extended reality to life so audiences can understand the future of technology in actionable ways. Ian is also the co-owner of a production studio designing virtual worlds and the first person ever to host a news segment as a synthetic human, streaming to over 100 million devices around the world.

A classically trained musician, Ian understands the magnitude of AI's coming impact on human creativity. As a strategist and speaker, he strives to educate stakeholders on the real-world implications of emerging technologies so they can make informed decisions that positively shape our world and advance humanity. In a rapidly evolving world that some consider dystopian, Ian remains a steadfast optimist and offers what everyone needs now: hope.

Specialties:  AI • Machine Vision • Emerging Technology • Digital Strategy • Process Engineering • Prototyping • Systems Thinking • Team Leadership

Ian Beacraft

Redding Futures

Connecting the emerging possible with the immediately practical in service of holistic brand and business value. 

This is the Near Future.

Founder & CEO

ON_Discourse

ON_Discourse is a membership based global community of C-suite leaders, investors, and innovators focused on driving business transformation through the discipline of discourse.

Member

Tomorrow Mornings

The future is coming at us so fast that traditional foresight and innovation practices are no longer enough. There’s an unprecedented opportunity to intelligently evolve at high velocity—and lead with integrity and with authenticity.

How do we evolve our businesses, leveraging constantly emerging possibilities while maintaining a practical, principled focus on the present?

Tune in to find out.

sparks & honey

Advisory Board Member

Unreasonable

Unreasonable Group builds community between entrepreneurs, institutions, and investors to profitably solve pressing global problems. As an Unreasonable Mentor, I’m part of an international network that is dedicated to leveraging business to solving the seemingly intractable societal and environmental challenges of our time.

Mentor

Auki Labs

Worked with a world-class spatial computing team to create the foundation for shared reality — starting with Convergent Commerce.

Head of Product

Friends With Holograms

Advisor

AV&C

Holistic consultative guidance on digital/spatial experience work. Grounded in technology approach, aligned with business and brand strategy, designed for optimal user experience.

Technology / Strategy / Experience Consultant

Eight Inc.

Bitreel 

UX/CX leadership for Bitreel's groundbreaking 3D photoreal shopping platform.

Advisor / CXO

With the future coming at us faster than ever, there’s an unprecedented opportunity to evolve at high velocity; yet we need to move beyond traditional foresight and existing design practices to do so.

I’ve called myself a Near Futurist since 2019. This practice requires a passion for what’s newly possible, the instinctive drive to discover, imagine, and articulate patterns, and a technologist’s ability to make sense of it all. Through nuanced, transformative work, I connect the emerging possible with the immediately practical — unlocking the possibilities of AI, spatial computing, and other emerging technologies to activate value for audiences, brands, and teams.

As a sought-after keynote speaker at venues including SXSW, Dubai Future Forum, and Building the Future, and corporate events at Meta, Microsoft, and more, I translate these technological capabilities into a visionary orientation toward connectedness and possibility, from sustainable growth and operational efficiency to customer acquisition and retention. Each talk provides audiences with actionable insights into emerging technologies and the co-creation of the near future. My work as CEO & Founder of Redding Futures, a boutique consultancy, leverages my 30+ years in innovation and computer science to deliver strategies for world-class companies including Visa, Nike, Apple, and Verizon.

“Currently, lectures on artificial intelligence have taken over our timelines and events. As one of the keynote speakers, Neil brought to the audience a depth that is not only technological, but also questions the way we understand what our reality is, what our main challenges and opportunities may be in this journey of integration and evolution of humans and of technologies. If you don't know him, as I didn't, here's my tip: Mind blowing.” — CRISTIANE CAMARGO, CEO, IAB BRAZIL

“We sponsored Neil’s keynote opening the annual IAB Brazil’s event in São Paulo in early Sep’24. The presentation brought intriguing perspectives on emerging technologies that engaged the audience and triggered tons of positive feedback about his session. Always easy to communicate and flexible, Neil is great to partner with.” — LAURA CHIAVONE, HEAD OF AGENCY, META

"This session was truly remarkable, we had the presence of Neil Redding, a Near Futurist, who took us on an exciting journey about AI, SpatialComputing and co-creation of reality and challenged us to rethink concepts, and to a deep reflection on the transformative potential of AI in our organizations and in our lives!" 
— MANUEL DIAS, EXECUTIVE BOARD MEMBER, MICROSOFT

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Ian Beacraft

Neil Redding

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