2025 Concordia Annual Summit

From Track to Grid: How Industry Leaders Harness Innovation and Resilience

  • Energy, Environment, & Transition
Alice Ashpitel, Barbara Humpton, Ehab Elsonbaty, Matthew Wells

Session Summary

Important
Quotations

"I think engaging with your supply chains is key. They have amazing innovations they might not be sharing with you yet. Starting those conversations and opening that dialogue helps uncover solutions you didn’t even know existed, and then you can figure out how to deploy them."
Alice Ashpitel
"AI is the first technology that actually comes to us. Instead of requiring deep study and preparation, people are now interacting with a technology that speaks their language, and as a result, they’re able to get on board and be productive right away."
Barbara Humpton
"It's fantastic to see how industries that were looked at to be heavily resource and energy intensive are now leading into innovation and efficiency and equity."
Ehab Elsonbaty
"When it comes to innovation, we’re seeing what I’d call ‘recombinant innovation’: looking at how existing technologies, originally built for a specific purpose, can be repurposed and commercialized in new ways. The goal is to ensure that the prosperity these innovations generate is more inclusive than it might otherwise be."
Matthew Wells

Key
Takeaways

  • Innovation and Sustainability are Complementary Forces: Barbara Humpton emphasized that choosing between sustainability and innovation is a “false choice” because the same technological tools enable both decarbonization and economic prosperity.

 

  • AI Democratizes Advanced Manufacturing: Unlike previous industrial technologies, AI “speaks to them in their language,” enabling rapid workforce integration of non-traditional candidates like former pizza delivery drivers and retail clerks.

 

  • Supply Chain Innovation Through Engagement: Alice Ashpitel highlighted that supply chains “have amazing innovations that they’re probably not sharing with you yet,” requiring structured communication, dual targets, and education to show suppliers “what’s in it for them.” 

 

  • Recombinant Innovation Creates Inclusive Growth: Matthew Wells described how repurposing existing technologies for new applications brings previously excluded participants into the innovation economy, ensuring more inclusive prosperity.

 

  • Legacy Asset Transformation Drives Regional Development: Industrial regions like the Midwest are positioned for “significant transformation” by rethinking “how do we use legacy assets for new economic uses” through AI-enabled processes and digital technologies.

Action
Items

  • Immediate Actions: Accelerate sustainable industrial transformation, deploying Industrial AI Co-Pilots in manufacturing (prioritizing second shifts), adopting HVO 100 for global freight to cut CO₂ emissions, and launching dual-target supply chain dialogues that align partners with varying capabilities and timelines.

 

  • Medium-Term Actions: Advance digital and inclusive innovation, implementing Digital Twin technology to boost sustainable engineering, creating on-site workforce programs with retired educators to upskill non-traditional candidates, and establishing Recombinant Innovation Labs to repurpose existing technologies inclusively.

 

  • Long-Term Infrastructure: Strengthen manufacturing resilience and sustainability, building redundant infrastructure to enhance “speed to power,” forming material innovation partnerships for bio-based alternatives, and integrating digital twins, software-defined automation, and AI as the three core enablers of secure and prosperous industry.

 

  • Cross-Cutting Enablers: Unite innovation and sustainability, rejecting trade-offs by creating frameworks that measure how innovation drives environmental progress, and developing strategic education programs to show the economic and growth potential of sustainable innovation.

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