Iconic talk show host and Beverly Hills resident helmed a symposium at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on April 26. 
Entitled “Beverly Hills Tomorrow,” the annual event was presented by the City of Beverly Hills and the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce and focused on innovative ways that will see the healthcare, transportation, and entertainment industries in Southern California evolve.
Beverly Hills Mayor John Mirisch highlighted Beverly Hills’ innovative ideas including the City Council’s recent vote to develop a public transportation program containing autonomous vehicles. “It’s really important for us to embrace this technology,” he said. “It’s wonderful to be in a city that can look backward and forward at the same time while living in the present.”
Joshua Schank, chief innovation officer at L.A. Metro spoke about the impact the Purple Line Westside Subway Extension will have on the community and acknowledged, “There are always disagreements when it comes to major infrastructure projects that go
through communities and people have different feelings about where they should go and how they should be and it’s never easy to build stuff.”
Kenny Dichter, founder and CEO of the membership-based private aviation company Wheels Up, discussed the sharing economy and the democratization of private aviation. “Eight hundred percent of private flights in North America are two hours or less and nobody had covered that opportunity,” he said.
Looking at innovations in healthcare, MD Beth Karlan, the director of the Women’s Cancer Program at Cedars-Sinai said, “Cancer is a myriad of diseases and we have to get away from thinking of it as a one size fits all.”
And Alki David, founder of Hologram USA and FilmOn.TV, discussed why the future is in holograms, citing Hologram USA’s town hall campaign that helped Narendra Modi become the Prime Minister of India in 2014. David noted that “Entertainment is the lowest hanging fruit,” when it comes to Holograms and said, “it’s the most obvious place for it to be embraced first.”
