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Fast Companys 11th annual Innovation Festival lands in New York City next week, but theres still plenty of time to buy your pass and build your schedule. In case you missed it, we’ve added some exciting new speakers to our agenda including actor Michael Chiklis; X Games CEO Jeremy Bloom; Jimmy Fallon and Bozoma Saint John; professor and author Brené Brown, and lead singer of OK Go Damian Kulash. Check out their sessions below. And see the full Innovation Festival agenda on our events page: Preaching to Hollywood: Faith, Fans, and the Future of Film with Angel StudiosFeaturing Michael Chiklis, actor; and Neal Harmon, CEO, Angel Studios Religion continues to be a hot-button topicand a lucrative market. So what role should it play in Hollywood? Angel is becoming one of the most talked-about film studios in the industry. Rebranded from the bankrupt streaming service VidAngel, the studio has found considerable success among a religious demographic. But let cofounder and CEO Neal Harmon tell the story. Angels vision and what they produce is broader than religionfor example, their latest movie The Senior starring Michael Chiklis. In this candid conversation, youll hear how Angel is using a fan-driven model to vote on which projects the studio produces, their plans to go public, and how theyre finding a place in Hollywood at a time when religion has become such a loaded word. The Art of Creative Problem-Solving with OK Go’s Damian KulashFeaturing Damian Kulash, musician and lead singer/guitarist, OK Go; and Karl Lieberman, global chief creative officer, Wieden+Kennedy From zero-gravity music videos to treadmill choreography that broke the internet, the band OK Go has redefined what it means to fuse art, technology, and sheer imaginationand lead singer Damian Kulash has learned a thing or two about creative problem-solving along the way. In this town hallstyle session moderated by Wieden+Kennedy’s global chief creative officer Karl Lieberman, attendees are welcome to take the mic and ask their questions around creative roadblocks. You’ll walk away with practical insights on unlocking ingenuity, embracing constraints, and applying creative problem-solving to challenges big and small. On Strong Ground: Brené Brown’s Lessons in Leading with Courage Featuring Brené Brown, research professor, The University of Texas at Austin; and author, Strong Ground In today’s highly turbulent times, Brené Brown is reimagining what courageous leadership looks like. In her forthcoming book Strong Ground, Brown draws on her global experience guiding more than 150,000 leaders to reveal how connection, discipline, and accountabilitynot performative toughnessare the true foundations of sustainable leadership. Join this one-on-one conversation for deeply human insights rooted in research and illustrated through powerful stories, along with practical strategies for fostering trust and developing the courage to unlearn and relearn in an increasingly unpredictable world. Staying “On Brand” with Jimmy Fallon and Bozoma Saint John Featuring Jimmy Fallon, Executive Producer and Host, On Brand with Jimmy Fallon; and Bozoma Saint John, Chief Marketing Officer and Mentor, On Brand with Jimmy Fallon Jimmy Fallon is ready to get down to businessand he’s bringing us along for the ride. On Brand with Jimmy Fallon is the Late Night host’s new unscripted reality series on NBC where he launches a marketing firm and brings on top-tier creatives to reimagine marketing. And serving as a mentor to the competing creatives is Bozoma Saint John, former chief marketing or brand officer at companies including Netflix, Uber, and Beats by Dre. Hear from Fallon and Saint John on what they’ve found resonates in today’s ever evolving cultural landscape and what it takes for a brand to break through. The Next Play: Reinventing Sports Entertainment Featuring Jeremy Bloom, CEO, X Games; Gotham Chopra, Filmmaker and Cofounder, Religion of Sports; and Andrea Hopelain, SVP and General Manager of Marketing and Commercial, EA Sports From stadiums to screens, sports are evolving faster than everand the business of fan engagement is being rewritten in real time. In this conversation, hear from three leaders shaping the future of sports entertainment: Jeremy Bloom, CEO of X Games, on the future of AI in sports; Gotham Chopra, cofounder of Religion of Sports, on storytellings power to turn athletes into cultural icons; and Andrea Hopelain, SVP of brand and publishing at EA Sports, on building the next generation of interactive fandom. Together, theyll unpack how technology, media, and culture are colliding to create new experiences, new audiences, and new revenue streamsrevealing whats at stake for brands, athletes, and fans in a rapidly shifting industry. Visit the Innovation Festival events page for the full agenda. And be sure to lock in our late rate to save $200 on your Innovation Festival pass.
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E-Commerce
A South Korean charter plane left for the U.S. on Wednesday to bring back Korean workers detained in an immigration raid in Georgia last week.A total of 475 workers, more than 300 of them South Koreans, were rounded up in the Sept. 4 raid at the battery factory under construction at Hyundai’s sprawling auto plant. U.S. authorities released video showing some being shackled with chains around their hands, ankles and waists, causing shock and a sense of betrayal among many in South Korea, a key U.S. ally.South Korea’s government later said it reached an agreement with the U.S. for the release of the workers. Korean workers will be brought back home after days of detention South Korean TV footage showed the charter plane, a Boeing 747-8i from Korean Air, taking off at Incheon International Airport, just west of Seoul. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said it was talking with U.S. officials about letting the plane return home with the released workers as soon as possible. But it said the plane cannot depart from the U.S. on Wednesday as South Korea earlier wished due to an unspecified reason involving the U.S. side.The Korean workers are currently being held at an immigration detention center in Folkston in southeast Georgia. South Korean media reported that they will be freed and moved to Atlanta to take the charter plane.South Korean officials said they’ve been negotiating with the U.S. to win “voluntary” departures of the workers, rather than deportations that could result in making them ineligible to return to the U.S. for up to 10 years.The workplace raid by the U.S. Homeland Security agency was its largest yet as it pursues its mass deportation agenda. The Georgia battery plant, a joint venture between Hyundai and LG Energy Solution, is one of more than 20 major industrial sites that South Korean companies are currently building in the United States.Many South Koreans view the Georgia raid as a source of national disgrace and remain stunned over it. Only 10 days earlier, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and U.S. President Donald Trump held their first summit in Washington on Aug. 25. In late July, South Korea also promised hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. investments to reach a tariff deal.Experts say South Korea won’t likely take any major retaliatory steps against the U.S., but the Georgia raid could become a source of tensions between the allies as the Trump administration intensifies immigration raids. South Korea calls for improvement in U.S. visa systems U.S. authorities said some of the detained workers had illegally crossed the U.S. border, while others had entered the country legally but had expired visas or entered on a visa waiver that prohibited them from working. But South Korean experts and officials said Washington has yet to act on Seoul’s yearslong demand to ensure a visa system to accommodate skilled Korean workers needed to build facilities, though it has been pressing South Korea to expand industrial investments in the U.S.South Korean companies have been relying on short-term visitor visas or Electronic System for Travel Authorization to send workers needed to launch manufacturing sites and handle other setup tasks, a practice that had been largely tolerated for years.LG Energy Solution, which employed most of the detained workers, instructed its South Korean employees in the U.S. on B-1 or B-2 short-term visit visas not to report to work until further notice, and told those with ESTAs to return home immediately.During his visit to Washington, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun met representatives of major Korean companies operating in the U.S. including Hyundai, LG and Samsung on Tuesday. Cho told them that South Korean officials are in active discussions with U.S. officials and lawmakers about possible legislation to create a separate visa quota for South Korean professionals operating in the U.S., according to Cho’s ministry.Trump said this week the workers “were here illegally,” and that the U.S. needs to work with other countries to have their experts train U.S. citizens to do specialized work such as battery and computer manufacturing.Atlanta immigration attorney Charles Kuck, who represents four of the detained South Korean nationals, told The Associated Press on Monday that no company in the U.S. makes the machines used in the Georgia battery plant. So they had to come from abroad to install or repair equipment on-site work that would take about three to five years to train someone in the U.S. to do, he said.The South Korea-U.S. military alliance, forged in blood during the 1950-53 Korean War, has experienced ups and downs over the decades. But surveys have shown a majority of South Koreans support the two countries’ alliance, as the U.S. deployment of 28,500 troops in South Korea and 50,000 others in Japan has served as the backbone of the American military presence in the Asia-Pacific region.During a Cabinet Council meeting on Tuesday, Lee said he felt “big responsibility” over the raid and expressed hopes that the operations of South Korean businesses won’t be infringed upon unfairly again. He said his government will push to improve systems to prevent recurrences of similar incidents in close consultations with the U.S. Hyung-Jin Kim and Kim Tong-Hyung, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Are you overly reliant on an emotional-support lol at the end of a text? Do you stop yourself from adding lol to work emails and Slack messages? Are you, by chance, a millennial? Those three small letters have become the topic of a generational debate that has been dividing the internet in recent months. The conversation started earlier this year across X, Threads, and Reddit when one user suggested: Millennials use lol like STOP at the end of a telegram lol. In the comments millennials quickly defended their favorite acronym. What of it? one wrote. Hold steady lads, another added. In a culture that has taken everything from you, never let them strip you of your lols. What of it?— Skylar Romines (@skylarromines) June 4, 2025 The debate resurfaced on TikTok when creator Anna Gaddis backed the use of lol and its many functions. Millennials invented the language so how about no one tells us anything, one commenter wrote. They will never erase our culture lol, added another. @annagaddis And we wont stop! lol. #lol #millennial #humor original sound – Anna Gaddis LOL entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2011 (Merriam-Webster also lists it in all caps, noting that the all-lowercase version is considered a variant). Since then, its meaning has shifted from signaling laughter to acting as punctuation. Lol is to millennials as . . . is to boomers, explained one X user. But it often does much more. Lol is to millennials as is to boomers— Anna Carter NYC (@meetannacarter) June 5, 2025 Some sentences need an lol at the beginning or end to set tone. Without the cues of expression, tone of voice, and body language, text can feel flator harsh. Thats where the three letters carry weight. It can be hard to decipher whether the person youre texting is joking or deadly serious, happy or mad. This is where the three little letters do the most heavy lifting. For example: I need to ask you something. Aggressive, direct, anxiety-inducing. Whereas, I need to ask you something lol. Lighthearted, curious, friendly.
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E-Commerce
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