08 JANUARY 2025
Honored to be part of a panel at CES moderated by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy from The Verge about the current state of smart home device interoperability and insights from the last two years of Matter adoption in the smart home industry. Full video.
ABSTRACT: Experts discuss Matter & smart home adoption, sharing insights from two years of experience & highlighting opportunities for service providers to shape a connected future.
18 APRIL 2024
Honored to take part in the Samsung eXperience 2024 event at the Venetian in Las Vegas. During the event, I was interviewed on stage as part of a thought leadership and innovation segment on the state of the smart home in the US, recent product announcements, and what people can look forward to in the future.
ABSTRACT: This fireside chat with Mark Benson focuses on innovation as it relates to the smart home in the US including user trends, device category trends, use case trends, economic trends, and demographic shifts. In addition, Mark will share the latest SmartThings product announcements and what may be coming in the future.
24 JANUARY 2024
Honored to be invited to speak to the Willmar Rotary Club on my life, career highlights, and leadership roots in Willmar, Minnesota where I grew up in a family and surrounded by people that were hard-working, honest, kind, driven, and full of character and integrity.
ABSTRACT: In this presentation, Mark Benson shares about the global impact that Samsung and SmartThings are making in the lives of millions through smart home technology and experiences. Also, Mark shares his personal story of growth into leadership and the roots that he formed in west centeral Minnesota centered on core values of trust, honesty, integrity, kindness, and hard work. Mark shares how these roots have formed his leadership style and approach, and are in turn having a significant impact on the company he leads and the hundreds of millions of US homes that he impacts every year.
11 JANUARY 2024
Honored to speak on a US Cyber Trust Mark panel called, "A Secured IoT World?: Programs, Rules, Brands, Retailers and Consumers" along with Michael Dolan (Senior Director, Head of Enterprise Privacy and Data Protection, Best Buy), Kat Megas (Cybersecurity for IoT Program Head, NIST), Scott Register (Vice President, Security Solutions, Keysight Technologies), and moderated by Mike Bergman (Vice president, Technology and Standards, Consumer Technology Association).
ABSTRACT: The Internet of Things (IoT) enhances how we live, work and play. Increased adoption of connected devices prompts questions about how to effectively address security of these devices, protect the networks they run on and safeguard the data they collect.
A public-private sector effort led by the White House, with input from CTA, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and other government and private sector stakeholders is developing a voluntary cybersecurity label program for consumer connected devices (consumer IoT). The U.S. Cyber Trust Mark program will give consumers more information about the cybersecurity of the connected products they buy and ensure that those products meet certain standards.
This panel discusses the implications of the US Cyber Trust Mark, the EU CRA, and other related programs.
09 JANUARY 2024
Honored to be a featured speaker at the 2024 Parks Associates CONNECTIONS Summit at CES. The CONNECTIONS Summit is an annual research and industry event hosted by international research firm Parks Associates at CES in Las Vegas. In 2024, the executive event focuses on new trends, emerging technology and standards, new business models, and partnerships impacting the connected home.
ABSTRACT: This fireside chat covered four distinct aspects of the smart home industry, including the unique position and focus that SmartThings has on services as well as perspectives on user growth and challenges, device trends and partnerships, and how services and cross-brand experiences bring it all together.