Daphne Koller is CEO and Founder of insitro, a physical AI therapeutics company. Daphne is also co-founder of Engageli, was the Rajeev Motwani Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where she served on the faculty for 18 years, the co-CEO and President of Coursera, and the Chief Computing Officer of Calico Labs. She is the author of over 300 refereed publications with an h-index of over 150. Daphne was recognized as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2012 and 100 most influential people in AI in 2024. She received the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2004, the ACM Prize in Computing in 2008, the ACM AAAI Allen Newell Award in 2019, and the AnitaB.org Technical Leadership Abie Award Winner in 2022. Daphne was inducted into the National Academy of Science in 2023, into the National Academy of Engineering in 2011 and elected a fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence in 2004, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014, and the International Society of ComputationalBiology in 2017.

Zico Kolter is a Professor and Department Head of the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University. Additionally, he serves on the Board of OpenAI, where he chairs the Safety and Security Committee, and the Board of Qualcomm. He is a co-founder and Chief Scientist of Gray Swan AI, an AI Security company, and an advisor to BNY. His work spans several topics in machine learning, including work in AI safety and robustness, LLM security, the impact of data on models, implicit models, and more. He is a recipient of the DARPA Young Faculty Award, a Sloan Fellowship, and best paper awards at NeurIPS, ICML (honorable mention), AISTATS (test of time), IJCAI, KDD, and PESGM.

Prof Simon See is professor at a number of universities including Nanyang Tech Univ, Surrey Univ, SJTU and others. He is a distinguished fellow in Fudan and ASTAR CIFAR. Prof See has published 200+ papers in AI, Applied Mathematics and High Performance Computing. Simon is also the Global Head of Nvidia AI Technology Centres.

Dr Ling Ge leads global technology company Tencent’s strategic investments in EMEA, along with the development of partnerships with technology start-ups, universities, government and industry.

She serves on the boards of several venture capital and technology firms, providing expertise in areas such as AI, biotech and education. Widely recognised as a leading figure in Europe’s tech ecosystem, Dr Ge is an expert and supportive investor who has helped numerous companies scale, raise funding and reach successful exits and IPOs.

Dr Ling Ge is a sought-after speaker and has taken part in prestigious events ranging from SXSW, Founders Forum, Slush, Web Summit, FT Future of AI Summit and London Tech Week through to the UK Government’s AI Safety Summit.

Prior to Tencent, Dr Ge worked in academia at the renowned Imperial College London as a Leverhulme Fellow. She received her doctorate in Quantum Computing at Oxford University and was a Clarendon Scholar.

Mark Papermaster is chief technology officer and executive vice president at AMD, responsible for driving the company’s end-to-end technology vision, strategy and product roadmap. He led the redesign of engineering processes at AMD and helped drive development of the “Zen” high-performance x86 CPU family, high-performance GPUs, and AMD’s modular design approach and Infinity Architecture.

With more than 40 years of engineering leadership, Papermaster has held senior roles at Cisco, Apple and IBM, spanning products from microprocessors to mobile devices and high-performance servers. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2025 and was appointed to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science Advisory Committee in 2026. Papermaster holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and an M.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Vermont.

Harrison is the CEO and co-founder of LangChain, which provides the agent engineering platform and open source frameworks developers need to ship reliable agents fast. Prior to starting LangChain, he led the ML team at Robust Intelligence (an MLOps company focused on testing and validation of machine learning models), led the entity linking team at Kensho (a fintech startup), and studied stats and CS at Harvard.

Audrey Tang, the Right Livelihood Award Winner, is Taiwan’s Cyber ​​Ambassador and served as Taiwan’s 1st digital minister and the world’s 1st nonbinary cabinet minister (2016-2024).

As a child, Tang practiced Taoism to moderate all strong emotions to survive a cardiac condition. After attending 10 educational institutions in 10 years, she left formal schooling to pursue self-education at age 14. In her 20s, Tang rose to prominence as a leader in free and open-source software, revitalizing the Haskell and Perl programming languages.

During her 30s, Tang played a crucial role in shaping g0v (gov-zero), one of the most prominent civic tech movements worldwide. In 2014, she helped broadcast the demands of Sunflower Movement activists and worked to resolve conflicts during a three-week occupation of Taiwan’s Legislature. Tang became a reverse mentor to the minister in charge of digital participation, before holding the role in 2016.

Tang helped develop participatory democracy platforms such as vTaiwan and Join, bringing civic innovation into the public sector through initiatives like the Presidential Hackathon and Ideathon.

Other accomplishments for Tang include shaping Taiwan’s internationally acclaimed COVID-19 response and safeguarding the country’s 2024 presidential and legislative elections from cyber interference.

Jesper Schleimann, AI Officer for the EMEA region at SAP, brings over 20 years of experience at the crossroads of business and technology. A passionate tech optimist, Jesper is dedicated to driving AI-powered innovation that ensures sustainable growth and keeps SAP at the cutting edge. His expertise in strategy, AI, and digital leadership leads transformative solutions within the Intelligent Enterprise framework, shaping the future of business.

Diana Schildhouse is the Chief Data & Analytics Officer at Colgate-Palmolive, where she leads the vision, strategy and priorities for enterprise-wide data, analytics and AI, driving and embedding advanced capabilities to enable growth and innovation in how Colgate designs, markets, and sells products and how it engages with consumers. Diana joined Colgate in 2021 from Mattel where she was Senior Vice President of Global Strategy, Insights and Analytics. She built Mattel’s first team of data scientists, advanced Mattel’s data strategy, and pioneered large scale advanced analytics capabilities focused on marketing, media, new product development, customer and retail. She also led mergers & acquisitions and the development of enterprise-wide strategic planning for Mattel, with a focus on driving transformation, innovation and growth. Previously, Diana held the role of Senior Director of Strategy and Market Research for Westfield, a global shopping center developer. Diana began her career at The Walt Disney Company in corporate finance. Diana holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Southern California.

Cihangir Kocak is an expert in business strategy and AI advisory, known for creating opportunities and building strong ecosystems that empower businesses to thrive. Cihangir has successfully guided numerous organizations through the challenges of digital transformation and strategic business development. He is appreciated for his ability to simplify complex concepts and inspire actionable insights. Cihangir is passionate about enabling business growth in the AI industry for HP, its customers, and partners, ranging from emerging startups to established enterprises.

Alice Xiang is the Global Head of AI Governance and Vice President at Sony Group Corporation (SGC), where she leads the team shaping AI governance policies and frameworks across Sony’s business units worldwide. She serves as the AI Governance Officer for SGC and concurrently serves as Lead Research Scientist, directing a lab of researchers and engineers advancing responsible AI for creative industries and the protection of creator rights.

Alice has been named one of Nature’s Top 10 Scientists to Watch for 2026, one of AI Magazine’s Top 100 Women in AI 2026, and one of the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics in 2021. Her project FHIBE was recognized as one of Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas for 2026. Her research has been published in Nature, leading machine learning conferences, and top law reviews. She has published op-eds in TIME and Fortune, and delivered guest lectures at Harvard, Stanford, UT Austin, and Seoul National University, among others.

A lawyer and statistician by training, Alice combines hands-on experience as a machine learning practitioner with a background as legal counsel to technology companies. She holds a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School, a Master’s in Statistics from Harvard, a Master’s in Development Economics from Oxford, and a Bachelor’s in Economics from Harvard.

Dr Daniel Eriksson is Director of the Oversight Board Administration. He most recently served as CEO of Transparency International, based in Berlin, where he showed exceptional leadership in steering the organization’s global anti-corruption movement, and standing up for basic freedoms. He brings to the Oversight Board Administration a wealth of strategic leadership experience, deep expertise in technology, and a strong commitment to transparency, integrity and freedom of expression. During his career, he has played important roles in a wide range of sectors, including governments, civil society, the private sector and international organizations including the United Nations.

Salima Monorma Bah is the Minister of Communication, Technology and Innovation in Sierra Leone. As a cabinet minister, Ms Bah’s mandate includes leading the government’s digital
transformation agenda as well as the country’s digital economy and innovation entrepreneurship strategic development while also supervising the telecommunication sector.

Ms. Bah is most passionate about the potential of technology and innovation to accelerate the national development of developing countries and prior to her appointment she lead the design, development and implementation of such programs as the Head of Project Coordination at the Directorate of Science, Technology and Innovation in Sierra Leone.

Ms Bah holds a Bachelors of Law Degree from the University of Wales in the United Kingdom as well as a Masters of Law from Columbia Law School In the United States.

Nigel is a leading researcher in Artificial Intelligence. He is the Chair of AI@Oxford Research and Professor of Computing Science at the University of Oxford. He is also Senior Distinguished Scientist at the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford. He served as Principal of Jesus College, Oxford from 2015 – 2026. He is chairman of the Open Data Institute which he co-founded with Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He was knighted in 2013 for ‘services to science and engineering’. With over 500 publications, he has researched and published on topics from cognitive psychology to computational neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence to the Semantic Web. In May 2024 he published ‘As If Human’, which provides a new approach to the challenges surrounding AI. In 2025 he was appointed to the Council for Science and Technology, which advises the Prime Minister and Cabinet on strategic science and technology policy issues.

At Oxford he has focused his research in human centred AI in a wide range of applications.

He is a Fellow of The Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the British Computer Society.

Appointed in 2023, Una Shortt is currently the group Chief Data Officer and Senior Vice President of Data & Performance.

Una joined Schneider Electric in 2004 and has enjoyed a dynamic career in Software & Data Engineering, Data Architecture & Governance, working with talented individuals & teams globally.

Una began her Data career during an internship in 1998, writing data quality routines in manufacturing. When she graduated with a BSc in Computer Systems in 2000, development of Enterprise Application Interfaces, Business Reporting and low level coding in Capital Markets followed. From there she began her Schneider Electric career joining APC in 2004, with a mission to grow BI & Analytics Development, Data Engineering, Business Analysis and Project Management.

She defined the first Analytics Strategy for Schneider Electric in 2012, launched the first B.I. & Analytics Community and was a key member of the squad pioneering the original Enterprise Data Lake in the company in 2014. This followed with the introduction of a suite of BI & Analytics technologies that enabled scaled autonomy for internal stakeholders, with a reach of 60K users today.

Una’s hands-on experience, understanding the very building blocks to operationalize strategy, were the solid foundations to elevate to senior leadership roles in Schneider Electric’s Data Strategy execution, transitioning her career from pure tech to data governance in more recent years.

Una received an MBA from Heriot – Watt University (SCO). During her time there, she developed a passion for Portfolio (PMP, Scrum@Scale).

Una’s driver is a passion for people, enabling together a data backed execution of strategy at Schneider Electric, through Trusted Data@Scale.

About Schneider Electric

Schneider Electric is a global energy technology leader, driving efficiency and sustainability by electrifying, automating, and digitalizing industries, businesses, and homes. Its technologies enable buildings, data centers, factories, infrastructure, and grids to operate as open, interconnected ecosystems, enhancing performance, resilience, and sustainability. The portfolio includes intelligent devices, software-defined architectures, AI-powered systems, digital services, and expert advisory. With 160,000 employees and one million partners in over 100 countries, Schneider Electric is consistently ranked among the world’s most sustainable companies.

www.se.com

I’m Bloomberg’s Amsterdam bureau chief leading coverage of the Netherlands, including chip equipment makers such as ASML, local policy and governments. Prior to that I completed a short stint as Miami bureau chief and was a consumer goods reporter in London. Before Bloomberg, I spent 10 years at Reuters covering Turkey, corporate finance and finally writing commentary.

With more than 20 years of experience building and scaling advanced AI systems at some of the world’s most innovative technology companies, Xavier joins Expedia Group from Google, where he most recently served as VP of AI and Compute Enablement. In this role, he led the teams building the core AI platforms and infrastructure that power all of Google’s products including Gemini, Cloud, Search and Ads. Prior to Google, Xavier held senior positions at LinkedIn, and Netflix, and has mentored talent who went on to found leading AI companies including Perplexity and Scale AI.

Appointed in December, in his current role, Xavier leads Expedia Group’s AI and Data organization, setting the long-term vision for AI, machine learning and data science across our global travel platform. He is focused on applying generative AI and advanced ML at scale to drive tangible business impact for travelers and partners worldwide.

Marzieh Fadaee is the Head of Cohere Labs, where she leads research on fundamental problems in artificial intelligence. Her work spans multilingual language models, data-efficient learning, model evaluation, and trustworthy AI, with a focus on building systems that are robust, inclusive, and globally impactful. She co-leads the Aya initiative that brought together over 3,000 collaborators worldwide to create the world’s largest multilingual instruction dataset and the development of a series of state-of-the-art multilingual language and vision models. Before joining Cohere Labs, Marzieh was the Research Lead at Zeta Alpha Vector, where she pioneered innovative approaches to knowledge discovery and organization. She holds a PhD from the University of Amsterdam where she conducted foundational research on neural machine translation. Her research has been published in top venues such as NeurIPS, ACL, EMNLP, and ICLR, and she frequently serves as a mentor and advisor in the global AI research community.

Giang Nguyen is the CEO of NYB.ai, where he leads the company’s technology vision and the development of AI-native platforms for drug and ingredient discovery. Working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, computational science, and biotechnology, he focuses on translating advanced technologies into practical systems that accelerate compound discovery and therapeutic innovation. His experience spans research, product development, and the application of AI to real-world biomedical challenges, positioning NYB.ai at the forefront of scalable AI-driven life sciences innovation.

Anu Talus has served as the Finnish Information Commissioner since autumn 2020. She is the Head of the Office of the Information Commissioner (TSV) and the Chair of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB).
Prior to her work at the IMY, Talus served as Senior Adviser at the Ministry of Justice for over ten years. At the Ministry of Justice she led the implementation of the GDPR in Finland and acted as representative of the Finnish government in the EU GDPR negotiations. Talus has also worked at the European Commission as Seconded National Expert.
Talus holds a Doctor of Laws degree and a Master of Laws degree from the University of Helsinki and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Vaasa.

Found an angel turned venture capitalist. Investing early in very technical teams who are transforming how the world works using physical AI.

Helen King, VP of Responsibility, sets Google DeepMind’s strategy for developing and deploying AI responsibly to benefit humanity.

Originally a computer scientist with experience working in the gaming industry, Helen is finely tuned to both the technical and more abstract aspects of AI. Since joining the GDM team over 10 years ago, she has held several roles, including Director of Strategic Programs & Strategy Partners, as well as leading DeepMind’s DE&I function.

During her time at GDM she has seen the company grow from a startup, where she was one of the first 15 employees. Helen is deeply committed to fostering a supportive working environment to enable team members to reach their full potential. She has a number of mentees, and facilitates career development courses. Helen was also featured in Fast Company’s 2024 AI 20 list.

Husayn is founder and CEO of ollo, building internal AI capability through an AI-agnostic platform and hands-on training. Before ollo, he co-founded and led Onfido as CEO – zero to $100m ARR in 7 years, sold in 2024 as the largest UK AI exit. Oxford Economics & Management graduate, former President of Oxford Entrepreneurs, and career-long obsessive about the gap between AI’s promise and how it actually lands inside organisations.

After establishing and leading a department focused on digital innovation at a large consulting firm, I made the transition to the Ministry of Defence shortly after the war in Ukraine began. As Head of the DATA, I lead a team of 80 experts, including data scientists, data engineers, and DevOps engineers. Since 2021, the Data Lab has played a crucial role in executing the Data Science and AI strategy of the Ministry of Defence. I am responsible for formulating the strategic goals of both my own organizational unit and the Defence-wide Data Science Community and achieving these with our internal and external partners. Establishing (inter)national collaborations forms an important foundation.

Artemis Seaford is the head of AI Safety at ElevenLabs, an industry leader in AI audio and voice models and products, where she leads the company’s work on preventing and mitigating abuse of ElevenLabs’ AI models and products. Previously Artemis was at OpenAI, where she oversaw usage policies for ChatGPT and the API, and Meta, where she worked on countering online harassingment, espionage and other threats to its community of users. Before tech, Artemis worked in migration policy and refugee response. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and a J.D. from Stanford University, an MPP from HKS, and a first class B.A. from Oxford.

Hiek is a passionate all-round Data & AI practitioner with a strong business sense and ability to find the right pragmatic approach. He has built up deep expertise on how business can derive value from Data, Analytics, and AI. Hiek drives Data & AI transformations from strategy to implementation, has a track record on realizing impact while ensuring a sustainable foundation. The use cases he is involved in vary from basic analytics to AI and covers both the offensive and defensive side of data.

In his current role Hiek is responsible for ABN AMRO’s transformation to become a Data- and AI driven organization. He leads the Data & AI agenda, sets the appropriate data governance, and ensures impact across the organization. Hereby serving as the bridge between business, IT and data. Prior to joining ABN AMRO, he worked at Aegon, McKinsey, EY-VODW and TrueChoiceSolutions, and worked across the globe for various industries ranging from Insurance, Banking, Telco, Energy, Electronics to Online gaming. Hiek holds a PhD in econometrics of the University of Groningen

Amma Asante is an experienced professional with extensive substantive knowledge of the social domain and experience with various roles (chair, manager, researcher and advisor). Her broad expertise in the social domain ranges from youth care to poverty, debt and social security.
She has extensive political and administrative experience. From 1998 to 2006 she was a member of the Amsterdam City Council and spoke on a wide range of topics. From 2016 to 2017 she was a member of parliament and spoke on Higher Education and Low Literacy. She also has experience as a director and supervisor at social organizations. Due to her political and administrative work, Amma has a large network at local and national level. She also regularly participates in temporary committees and juries. She also worked as an independent advisor for the government and social organizations. Before that, Amma worked as a Social Domain Advisor at BMC. She is currently chair of Commissariaat voor de Media, the Dutch Media Authority. And for the year 2026 she is the chair of the European Media Board.

Fabrizio Del Maffeo is the CEO and co-founder of Axelera AI, the Netherlands-based company delivering the world’s most powerful and advanced solutions for AI at the edge. Before establishing Axelera AI, Fabrizio Del Maffeo served as head of AI at the Bitfury Group, a globally recognized emerging technologies company. Prior to joining Bitfury, Fabrizio was Vice President and Managing Director of AAEON Technology Europe, the AI and internet of things (IoT) computing company within the ASUS Group.

Emanuela Girardi is President of ADRA, the European Association for AI, Data and Robotics, private partner of the European Commission in the AI, Data and Robotics Public-Private Partnership. In this role, she works at the intersection of AI, data and robotics, focusing on physical AI and EU sovereign solutions and their integration into industrial and societal systems. She is also founder of Ainnova, focused on AI governance, founder and CEO of AI Value Srl, helping companies digitalize their value chains through AI projects balancing economic and social sustainability, and founder and President of Pop AI, a non-profit dedicated to making artificial intelligence accessible to everyone. An expert in international AI policy, Emanuela was a member of the Italian Ministry of Economic Development’s expert group on AI, contributing to Italy’s first national AI strategy. She sits on the industrial board of AIxIA and the Advisory Board of CAIRNE, the confederation of AI research laboratories in Europe. She teaches AI and sustainable development at Politecnico di Torino’s HumanAIze Master’s program, and serves on the boards of Fondazione per la Scuola (Compagnia di San Paolo) and IGF Italy, where she is Vice President. Named one of Italy’s 50 most influential women in technology.

Dmitry is a co-founder and CEO at Flo Health, the most popular healthcare app in the US and worldwide, with 80M monthly active users and USD 300M ARR. Flo is the most popular app in the health and fitness category of the App Store (6 years in a row). In Aug 2024, Flo raised $230M from General Atlantic (the biggest investment in the digital health segment in 2024) and became a Unicorn with a 1B+ valuation. Flo helps women around the globe to understand the meaning of their body signals and provides them with accurate cycle predictions and evidence-based health insights.

Nour Al Hassan, Founder & CEO of Arabic AI and Tarjama&, is a visionary leader in technology, business, and innovation. Recognized by Forbes Middle East as one of the top women behind Middle Eastern tech brands, she has played a pivotal role in driving the region’s technology sector forward since 2008. She founded Tarjama& in Amman, Jordan, in 2008 to address the lack of high-quality Arabic content. What started as a small, bootstrapped venture became a market leader, offering state-of-the-art translation, content services, and linguistic innovations. Over the last 16 years, she expanded the company into the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. In 2017, Nour launched Ureed.com, the region’s first online marketplace connecting businesses with Arabic-language professionals. Recognizing the demand for enterprise-grade Arabic artificial intelligence solutions in 2023, Nour spent two years developing Arabic AI, launching it as an independent technology powerhouse. The company delivers scalable, high-precision Arabic AI tools to global enterprises, governments and Fortune 500 companies. Beyond technology, Nour is committed to upskilling talent and creating opportunities for women and freelancers. Her leadership has earned her recognition from Forbes, Entrepreneur Middle East, Arabian Business, The CEO Magazine, and the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Nitzan is the Chief AI Officer at eBay where he runs the company-wide strategy for artificial intelligence and technology innovation. An R&D scientist by training, Nitzan has spent his career developing machine intelligence systems, directly integrated into mission-critical products. Having led enterprise AI organizations across multiple industries, including healthcare, financial services, and ecommerce, Nitzan is a thought leader in the delivery of transformational impact through real-time AI at scale, changing companies’ business models and core value propositions to their customers. Nitzan received his PhD from the University of Chicago, and currently resides in New York City as the GM of eBay NYC.

Steve co-founded DN Capital in June 2000, runs DN’s US operations and co-leads DN’s AI strategy. Steve’s portfolio at DN have generated exits representing over $500 million of capital gains for his LPs. He was the DN board member and lead for Auto1, Remitly, Endeca, Robin Systems and Brigit. Current portfolio includes AI companies such as Sanas, Mext, and Verita, as well as SaaS companies Partnerize and Shiphawk and Fintech company Recargapay. Steve has an BA from Wharton, summa cum laude, and an MBA from Harvard with high distinction where he was a Baker Scholar.

An alumna of Oxford University, Meryem studied Theoretical Physics and Philosophy. She frequently speaks at leading conferences, including TEDx and QCon, sharing insights on inference technology and enterprise AI. Meryem has been recognized as a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree for her contributions to the AI field.

Philippe Rambach is the SVP, Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer of Schneider Electric. His mission is to drive AI innovation at scale, both internally and for customers, to provide greater overall efficiency and sustainability through data-based insights.

Philippe is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique in France and joined Schneider Electric in 2010 from AREVA. He has more than 20 years of experience in strategy, innovation, and business responsibility in many industries. He held various leadership roles in Energy Management and Industrial Automation. Most recently, as SVP Industrial Automation Commercial, where he led the commercial organization.

He has an international career background and is currently based in France, reporting to the Chief Digital Officer.

About Schneider Electric

Schneider Electric is a global energy technology leader, driving efficiency and sustainability by electrifying, automating, and digitalizing industries, businesses, and homes. Its technologies enable buildings, data centers, factories, infrastructure, and grids to operate as open, interconnected ecosystems, enhancing performance, resilience, and sustainability. The portfolio includes intelligent devices, software-defined architectures, AI-powered systems, digital services, and expert advisory. With 160,000 employees and 1 million partners in over 100 countries, Schneider Electric is consistently ranked among the world’s most sustainable companies.

Bryn Mooser is a two time Academy Award–nominated filmmaker, Emmy Award winner, and entrepreneur who has consistently been at the forefront of new storytelling frontiers. Over the past decade, he has helped define and pioneer the language of immersive media—pushing early boundaries in virtual reality and augmented reality—and today is leading the charge in artist first AI workflows for film and animation.

In 2024, Bryn co-founded Asteria, an AI-driven film and animation studio and built the first commercially safe professional-grade AI video model designed for Hollywood studios and global creators. Bryn’s passion is demonstrating how cutting-edge AI tools can expand—not replace—the role of artists, empowering storytellers to create new worlds with unprecedented freedom while protecting intellectual property. His career has always fused creative vision with technological innovation. As co-founder of RYOT, he established one of the earliest and most influential immersive media studios, producing award-winning VR and AR documentaries that redefined how audiences experience global events. His work has earned two Academy Award nominations (Body Team 12, Lifeboat), ten Emmy nominations, five Peabody wins, and a Cannes Lion, among other honors.

Later, as founder of XTR and DOCUMENTARY+, he built a world-class documentary studio responsible for some of the most acclaimed nonfiction films of recent years. Now, Bryn is channeling his deep experience across film, documentary, immersive media, and emerging technology into shaping the future of storytelling—ensuring that the next revolution in cinema is driven by artistry, and imagination.

Isabelle C. Hau is the executive director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, where she leverages brain science and technology to champion innovative, effective, and inclusive learning solutions.

Previously a successful impact investor, Isabelle led the US education practice at Omidyar Network and Imaginable Futures, where she invested in mission-driven organizations that have reached millions of learners. She is the author of Love to Learn: The Transformative Power of Care and Connection in Early Education. At Stanford University, Isabelle teaches the class Design to Equip Learners in Under-Resourced Communities. She serves on the board of EDC and Design Tech High School, on the steering committee of the EdSAFE AI Alliance, the Brookings Institution Global AI Taskforce, and the World Economic Forum’s 4.0 education alliance.

Named as one of the 100 most inspiring women by Harvard Business School, 2025 World Education Medal finalist, 2026 Top 100 Influencers in EdTech, and 2026 Power of Women Award, Isabelle has also received distinctions in early childhood education and human-centered artificial intelligence. She co-starred with Grover of Sesame Street. Her lifelong professional goal is to bring the love of learning to each and every child.

Pierre-Yves is Chief Digital Officer of Pernod Ricard, the group that owns +200 premium spirit brands like Jameson, Chivas, Absolut or Havana Club. With an engineer degree from Ecole Polytechnique, Pierre-Yves joined Pernod Ricard group in 2003, served as CIO and as Managing Director of several subsidiaries. He has been Chief Digital Officer of the Pernod Ricard group since September 2018 and has led, over the past 5 years, the large-scale deployment of innovative data and AI solutions. He’s also serving as board member for Jumia, the innovative e-commerce platform serving millions of consumers across Africa.

Christophe founded multiple companies and invests through Atlantic in early-stage companies in AI/Data, Energy/Climate, Resilience/Defense, and Industrial Tech. Some of those companies are global category leaders today, including SoundCloud, GetYourGuide, Clue, Omio, Zenjob, Wandelbots, Mirelo, Prior Labs, Softr, Bliq, Again, Phlair and Harmattan.
FoodLabs invests in Food & Climate, backing trailblazers such as Formo, Choco, Stenon, Holy, Infinite Roots, Ahead and InPlanet. FoodLabs supports entrepreneurs who tackle some of the most pressing challenges of our time, such as climate, food security, and human health. Christophe is a tech entrepreneur; he founded and exited HERE Technologies, Plazes, Txtr and played a leading role in the emergence of the German/European venture ecosystem.

Prev. CFO at healthcare company Zava, CEO Delivery Hero Germany. Co-founded multiple companies and also worked with ABN Amro and Booz & Company. MBA from INSEAD

Jelle was responsible for the first apps at Uber, Booking.com and CataWiki. Now co-founder at Cradle.bio

Jeannette Gorzala is an expert in AI governance, leadership and literacy, recognized for her influential role in shaping Europe’s artificial intelligence landscape. She is the founder and CEO of ACT AI NOW, an AI governance and leadership consultancy.​ With over 15 years of experience in international business law and investment banking, Jeannette has advised Fortune 500 companies and public institutions on AI strategies, compliance, and the implementation of trustworthy AI systems. She played a pivotal role in the legislative process of the EU AI Act, representing over 2,000 European AI companies as former Vice President of the European AI Forum. In addition to her legal and advisory work, Jeannette serves as Deputy Chair of the Austrian Federal Government’s AI Advisory Board.

Grzegorz (Greg) Ombach, PhD, is a senior deep tech executive and board chair focused on scaling technology driven businesses through complex industrial transformations. He is Senior Vice President at Airbus, where he sets direction and governance for advanced technology development and innovation strategy, and leads venture and portfolio oversight across next generation industrial platforms in civil, defence, and dual use domains. His role spans strategic direction, portfolio level decision making, and ecosystem partnerships to accelerate the transition from technology development to operational and business impact. He chairs AdvEn Industries and serves on the boards of ProLogium, Thread Innovations, and Acubed. He is also an advisor and investor at More.ai, supporting the scaling of physical AI capabilities for robotics and machine intelligence. Earlier, he held senior leadership roles at Qualcomm, Siemens, and Dräxlmaier Group. Greg holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering and an INSEAD Certificate in Global Management

Gaia is an experienced senior leader, convenor, and facilitator with a strong track record of leading and contributing to complex, high-level, multi-stakeholder discussions at the intersection of AI, governance, public policy and societal impact – recently speaking at the UN Global Dialogue of Dialogues, and serving as a member of the London AI and Jobs Taskforce.

Gaia has extensive experience of leadership roles across the UK civil service and the non-profit sector. In government she has held roles as Deputy Director (Strategy for the Integrated Data Service) at the Office for National Statistics, Head of Engagement for Civil Service Reform at the Cabinet Office, and Head of National Data Strategy at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

In the non-profit sector, Gaia specialised in data strategy and participatory approaches to research, innovation and policy. This included roles at Parkinson’s UK, Centrepoint and the Royal Society of Arts, also serving on the Samaritans’ Board of Trustees.

Gaia holds an MA in Understanding and Securing Human Rights from the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London and a BA in History from University College London.

Nick is an economist by training focused on the impact of General-Purpose Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) on geopolitics, the economy, and industry. He is the Executive Director at The Future Society, where he works on the management, strategy, and stakeholder engagement for the organization. He previously studied and monitored European developments in the legislative framework surrounding AI and he is an active member of the EU AI Scientific Panel.

Jochen Rudat leads growth, sales, and customer partnerships at Humanoid. He focuses on commercial results: shaping revenue strategy, running pilots, and building partnerships that get robots into use. He believes in testing early, learning fast, and letting results shape the next step.

Jochen brings more than a decade of experience at Tesla, where he worked directly under Elon Musk and helped scale operations across Europe from the ground up. He played a central role in launching the German market, turning a single Roadster delivery into a billion-dollar region, and later helped steer the company’s China turnaround. He also led the internal push to build the European Gigafactory, aligning stakeholders and helping get construction underway.

Since Tesla, Jochen has advised startups across tech and mobility, helping them turn complex ideas into working products and traction. He also holds a Bachelor of Engineering from Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences and an MBA.

Marco Bressan is a senior data and AI leader with over 25 years of experience building and scaling high-impact organizations across finance, sustainability, technology, and retail. He has a PhD in Artificial Intelligence, has authored more than 30 scientific publications, and holds over a dozen patents.
Marco is currently Chief Scientist at Santander Group, responsible for the Group’s Data & AI Science practice and AI strategy, ensuring that advanced AI capabilities translate into scalable, responsible, real-world impact.
Before joining Santander, Bressan co-founded Cambium Earth, focusing on reforestation for carbon removal, served as Chief Data Officer at UniCredit and Chief Product Officer at Satellogic, where he led the development of a planet-scale AI-powered satellite imagery platform.
Previously, as Chief Data Scientist in BBVA, he contributed to establish Europe’s first Data & Analytics Center of Excellence in finance, earning the Digital Masters Award for transformational use of data. Earlier in his career, at Xerox, he led and managed R&D programs at the intersection of AI and analytics.
He currently serves on the Digital Advisory Board of SONAE and is the author of the 2025 Venice Biennale installation The Tide, which explores the intersection of AI and participatory decision-making.

Martina Fuchs is an international TV anchor, business journalist, Guinness World Records holder, event moderator, DJ, and expert on China and the Middle East. She speaks nine languages.

She is a business correspondent for CGTN, co-founder of the Frequency School with Grammy-nominated producer Maejor, consultant to IMD business school, and advisor to the Lang Lang International Music Foundation. Based in London, Zurich, and Dubai, she is also a media ambassador and board member for Montreux Jazz Festival China and brand ambassador for WITHIN darkness retreats.

In 2025, she set a Guinness World Record for the first song featuring women from all 195 countries, using the 528 Hz frequency to promote gender equality and global unity. She also launched World Frequency Day on November 11, marked globally at 11:11 AM and PM to promote wellbeing through music.

Previously, she worked with CNNMoney Switzerland, Reuters, and CGTN in Beijing. Martina holds degrees from the University of Geneva, the American University in Cairo, and a joint MSc in Global Finance from HKUST and NYU Stern.

Stan van Baarsen is an AI Fellow at the Delta Institute and one of the authors of the Dutch National AI Plan, a national strategy aimed at strengthening the Netherlands’ position in artificial intelligence. He currently works on advancing the plan’s recommendations and, in June 2026, co-authored Europe 2031, a widely discussed scenario exploring how AI could reshape Europe’s economic competitiveness, sovereignty, and geopolitical position over the coming years.

Nicoletta Wagner is Head of Future Engineering at the European Space Agency, where she drives AI, digitalisation, sustainable engineering and industrial transformation for Europe’s space sector. With leadership experience across ESA and Airbus Defence & Space, she has managed complex space programmes, engineering teams and strategic transformation initiatives spanning launchers, infrastructure, digital tools, asset management and advanced space systems. Her work focuses on translating emerging technologies — including artificial intelligence, digital twins and data-driven engineering — into operational impact, competitiveness and resilience for European space.

Designing and building service robots at Fraunhofer IPA in Stuttgart 2012-2016 and working for FANUC since 2016. At FANUC starting in automotive project management, taking different management positions in technical teams until taking over CTO for FANUC Europe in 2025. In this Position overseeing all technical divisions of FANUC Europe (Robotics, Machine Tools, CNC & Drive technologies) and driving AI adoption within FANUC and at our customers shopfloor.

Lyndsay Weir is Chief Analytics and Insight Officer at Barilla, where she leads global analytics and decision transformation. With over 15 years’ experience in consumer goods, including senior leadership roles at Nestlé and Barilla, she operates at the intersection of data, strategy and executive decision-making. Lyndsay works closely with boards and executive teams to redesign how organisations make decisions in the age of AI. Her focus is not just on capability, but on the cultural, governance and leadership shifts required to turn technology investment into sustained competitive advantage. She sits on multiple advisory boards in AI and technology and has been recognised as one of the Top 20 Women in Data and AI, as well as one of the Top 100 Data Executives for three consecutive years.

Ben Burtenshaw is a Machine Learning Engineer in the Hugging Face advocacy team, specializing in agents, large language models, and fine-tuning. He leads the development of open-source educational initiatives like the Agents Course, the MCP Course, and the LLM Course, which bridge the gap between complex Reinforcement Learning (RL) techniques and practical application. Ben focuses on democratizing access to efficient AI, empowering the community to align, evaluate, and deploy transparent agentic systems.

Smitha Shyam is the Senior Director of Engineering for Waymo and leads the Simulation grp. With Simulation, her teams recreate the physical world for accelerated development and evaluation of the Waymo Driver. Before Waymo, she led Uber’s AI organization, where she was responsible for delivering applied machine learning solutions and building the foundational AI/ML platform, Michelangelo.
She has over two decades of experience leading engineering teams and driving innovation and business growth at tech giants including Uber, Google, and startups. She is passionate about building diverse and inclusive teams. A long-time SF Bay Area resident, she is deeply invested in the tech community and frequently advises startups and mentors the next generation of leaders.

Yuval Dvir is Senior Advisor and Commercial Executive at SandboxAQ, the Alphabet spinout pioneering Large Quantitative Models (LQMs), a new class of AI grounded in math, physics, and chemistry that is helping solve complex challenges across drug discovery, materials science, cybersecurity, navigation, and financial risk. At SandboxAQ, he works across AI, quantitative modeling, and agentic infrastructure, helping organizations move from AI experimentation to production-scale deployment.
Prior to SandboxAQ, Yuval spent nearly two decades at Google, DeepMind, Microsoft, and Skype, leading global teams responsible for bringing frontier technologies from research into commercial reality. At Google, he built and led the partner ecosystem behind Google Workspace and Gemini, helping establish one of Google’s largest customer acquisition channels and launching Gemini’s first major partnerships, including Samsung and Wix. He also worked with DeepMind and Google Brain on initiatives spanning healthcare AI, scientific discovery, and advanced research collaborations.
A recognized international speaker on AI, innovation, and the future of work, Yuval focuses on how organizations can successfully deploy AI beyond pilots and proofs of concept, combining frontier language models, quantitative AI, and agentic systems to create measurable business and scientific outcomes. He holds an MSc in Applied Neuroscience from King’s College London and an MBA from INSEAD and is the author of the forthcoming book AI-Political.

World renowned inventor with over 100 patents in fields ranging from technology, finance, telecommunications, entertainment etc. Seasoned executive running technology organizations of over $10B and 100,000 engineers over 55 countries. Former CIO at Citi, Chief Product Officer at JP Morgan Chase, Chief Digital Officer at Barclays and CIO and Chief Product Officer at Verizon. Currently CEO of Vibrant Capital. Leading the third wave of AI by scaling AI on the Main Street across industries like finance, healthcare, insurance, telecommunications, sovereign AI funds and manufacturing.

Wei Manfredi is Senior Vice President of AI and Architecture at IHG Hotels & Resorts, where she guides the company’s AI strategy, technical architecture, data engineering and enterprise technology across one of the world’s largest hospitality portfolios.
Named one of the 100 Most Influential AI Leaders in the U.S. and a Top AI Leader for 2026, Wei brings 25+ years of experience transforming how global enterprises think about data, architecture, and artificial intelligence. Her career spans senior leadership roles at McDonald’s, Google Cloud, Lululemon, and Visa — each chapter defined by a simple conviction: technology should create possibilities that didn’t exist yesterday.
A first-principles thinker and sought-after speaker on enterprise AI transformation, Wei is known for challenging the status quo — believing that AI’s greatest impact isn’t just automation, but democratization: embedding AI in everything we do by making every employee a creator, not just a consumer, of intelligent technology.

Haakon Overli is co-founder and General Partner of Dawn Capital, one of Europe’s leading B2B software investors. He works across the entire portfolio, contributing to Dawn’s direction and positioning, and oversees the firm’s growth-stage investing. Having been an entrepreneur himself, Haakon loves seeing organisations — including Dawn — develop and grow, and has built long-standing relationships with the firm’s investors so Dawn can continue to partner with its founders throughout their journey. Before co-founding Dawn, Haakon was UK CEO and a founder of Self Trade, an online stockbroker which floated in April 2000 and was sold six months later to HypoVereinsbank for €911 million (US$1.1 billion). The experience of building, listing, and exiting a category-defining technology business in under two years shaped his conviction that great founders, properly backed, can move at extraordinary speed. For Haakon, partnering with founders who go on to become global category leaders — in the face of the multitude of challenges software companies face — is what Dawn is all about.

Tadej Magajna is an AI and data science leader, author, and open-source contributor currently serving as Global Associate Director of Data, Analytics, Data Science & AI at Sandoz. He leads teams building applied machine learning and AI solutions, combining technical depth in AI, data science, and software engineering with leadership experience. Previously, he was a Software Engineer at Microsoft, where he worked on AI systems used by millions, gaining experience building cutting-edge solutions at scale. His background spans big data, machine learning, experimentation, and software engineering across both enterprise and startup environments. Tadej remains hands-on beyond his day-to-day work. He is the author of the book Natural Language Processing with Flair, published by Packt, and an active open-source contributor, including contributions to CPython with changes slated for the upcoming Python 3.15 release. He combines AI expertise with practical problem-solving, real-world impact, and a strong commitment to mentoring in the wider tech community.

Craig Tavares brings over 20 years of experience in digital infrastructure and energy to his role as President & COO of BUZZ HPC, where he leads the GPU Cloud and HPC data center business. A recognized innovator across the telecom, data center, cloud, and power generation industries, Tavares has a proven track record of driving growth and success in high-performance technologies. His career began with the development of a metro fiber network and Internet service provider, Toronto Hydro Telecom. He then held several leadership positions at Cogeco, where he managed and expanded a global portfolio of 20 data centers, regional public clouds, global IP/MPLS networks, and HPC hosting services serving thousands of enterprise customers. At Aptum, Tavares served as Head of Cloud, launching a global business offering managed DevOps, private and public cloud solutions, and partnerships with Microsoft Azure and AWS. He also led product and program strategy for third-party clouds and Apple-owned data centers, contributing to Apple’s hybrid approach. Mr. Tavares co-founded Kingston Co-gen, an independent power producer, where he led M&A, debt financing, and corporate development, acquiring and operating over 300 MW of natural gas generation and creating one of North America’s first HPC data centers connected to a power plant. Additionally, he has advised and contributed to several scale-up companies in energy, HPC, big data, and AI. At BUZZ HPC, his leadership is instrumental in expanding the company’s HPC capabilities and delivering high-performance cloud solutions for demanding workloads.

AI Governance and Cybersecurity strategist, specializing in responsible AI and secure software policy for the Dutch Railways. Experienced CISO in Retail Banking, Media Broadcasting and Enterprise Software industries. Balancing engineering background with a pragmatic, people-centric approach. Credentials include AIGP, CISSP, CISM, CCSP, CIPP/e, and Lead Implementer ISO/IEC 42001:2023 (AIMS).

Bala Muthiah is a Director of Engineering at Lyft and a people-first technology leader known for scaling high-performance teams and building AI systems that strengthen—not replace—human connection. An immigrant from India who built his career in Silicon Valley, Bala leads the engineering groups responsible for real-time decision systems that support millions of riders and drivers. Beyond his technical leadership, he serves as a startup advisor and a board member at Defy Ventures, reflecting his belief that community impact and innovation should grow together.

Bala’s work centers on creating environments where teams thrive under pressure, develop resilience, and innovate sustainably. His leadership philosophy evolved from being an output-driven engineer to a mentor who prioritizes empathy, psychological safety, and long-term talent growth. He champions AI as a force for equity in leadership—one that can democratize mentorship, surface areas for growth, and help leaders cultivate healthier, more effective teams. Committed to expanding opportunity, Bala has taught computer science to underserved students and mentors founders across multiple platforms. Whether guiding early-stage startups or shaping large-scale engineering systems, he brings a consistent vision: technology should scale people, culture, and connection as much as it scales product

Pranav Gokhale is a leading quantum computing researcher and technology entrepreneur, serving as the CTO of Infleqtion, a company specializing in quantum technologies. He co-founded Super.tech, a quantum software startup that merged with ColdQuanta in May 2022 to become Infleqtion. Pranav earned his Ph.D. in quantum computation from the University of Chicago, where his research aimed to bridge the gap between quantum hardware and software, focusing on practical applications of quantum computing. He has also been involved in developing AI and quantum software tools and optimization techniques to enhance hardware execution performance.

Dr. Yaser Al-Onaizan is the Deputy CEO & President of AI Products at HUMAIN.
Previously, he served as CEO of the National Center for AI (NCAI), the innovation, research, and development arm of the Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA). At NCAI, he led a team of over 600 scientists and engineers, advancing Saudi Arabia’s nationalArabic LLM capabilities, including the launch of ALLaMin collaboration with IBM Watson and Microsoft Azure.
Prior to returning to Saudi Arabia, Dr. Al-Onaizanspent five years at Amazon, where he led key AI initiatives focused on speech and language services. He headed the AI Languages Lab, managing over 100 scientists and engineers across multiple regions, and contributed to establishing AWS AI’s presence in New York City.
Earlier in his career, he spent 15 years at IBM Research and the Watson Group, where he led work in neural machine translation, speech translation, multilingual information extraction, and medical coding. He directed several multi-year DARPA projects in collaboration with leading universities worldwide, including Stanford, MIT, CMU, and Cambridge.
Dr. Al-Onaizanhas been recognized with multiple international awards, has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers, and holds more than 20 patents. He is a senior member of several professional organizations, has served as program chair for internationalconferences, and was Editor-in-Chief for ACM Transactions as well as a board member of AMTA.
He holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute, and an MBA from Columbia University.

Ekaterina, a founding partner of BlankPage Capital, is one of Europe’s most visionary venture capitalists who has been investing in breakthrough technology companies in AI, semiconductors, quantum computing, cloud and cybersecurity for almost two decades. Previously, as a General Partner at OpenOcean VC and a Managing Director at Samsung Catalyst Fund, she has led investments and served on the boards of companies such as GraphCore (acquired by SoftBank), IQM Quantum Computers, AIMotive (acquired by Stellantis), Mapillary (acquired by Meta) and many more. In addition, she was deeply involved in strategic initiatives to create $20B+ business opportunities for Samsung, EMC/Dell and Siemens. Passionate about building a strong technology ecosystem, she has invested in other deep tech Venture Capital funds across Europe.

Mateusz Malinowski is driving breakthroughs in AI and AI-powered tools for filmmakers. Formerly at Google DeepMind , he pioneered visual question answering, shaping today’s VLM field. His mission: create models that can reason and simulate the real world.

Kirsten joined Octopus Ventures in 2021 to launch First Cheque Fund, its first dedicated pre-seed fund. The Fund is deliberately anti-thematic believing that the best founders are not restricted to any one sector. To date the Fund has backed over 70 startups across Europe.

Daniel Kliewe the head of Research and Development for HAVER & BOECKER (H&B). H&B is a specialist in the sector of mineral processing and packaging technology for materials in bulk. H&B designs, manufacturers and services machines for the above-mentioned applications.
The R&D department has a variety of topics from mechatronics to digital transformation and AI. With more than 10 years of experience in innovation and digital transformation, Daniel is responsible to design H&B’s digital transformation journey and lead the company through it.
Prior to H&B, Daniel was the head of Predevelopment of the HOMAG Group and in charge for the development and organization of the HOMAG Digital Factory.
He studied mechanical engineering and made his PhD in the field of Industry 4.0 at a Fraunhofer Institut.

A Forbes 30 Under 30 honouree, Ruben Miessen has spent over ten years at the intersection of product leadership and emerging technology. As CEO and Co-Founder of LEGALFLY, he is building AI solutions that free corporate legal teams from the repetitive, low-value work that consumes too much of their time, allowing them to focus on the work that actually requires their expertise. His approach is grounded in deploying AI safely and responsibly, recognising that trust is foundational in the legal industry.

Tom Paton is the founder and CEO of AiMation, the company behind the pioneering AI movie Where The Robots Grow. Under his leadership, AiMation has developed Omnigen-01, a professional-grade AI platform for long-form content, and is preparing to launch a gamified video-on-demand platform set to redefine how audiences experience entertainment. With a career in entertainment spanning more than two decades, Paton has directed and produced 11+ feature films, television projects, and hundreds of commercials and music videos. This body of work has established him as one of the leading voices in AI who also deeply understands the business of traditional media. A self-described futurist, Paton’s passion for innovation and emerging media drives every aspect of his work, positioning him at the forefront of the evolving intersection between technology and storytelling.

Taavi Madiberk is the CEO and Co-Founder of Skeleton Technologies, a global leader in graphene-based high-power energy storage for AI infrastructure, grid, and defense applications. Skeleton’s solutions power exponential AI growth, from GPUs to the grid. Its latest innovation, GrapheneGPU, boosts computing performance in AI data centres by 40% and cuts energy use by 44%.

 Founded in 2009 in Estonia, Skeleton employs 300+ people across Estonia, Finland, Germany, France, the UAE, and the US. Skeleton’s breakthrough lies in its patented “curved graphene” material, which earned its scientists the European Inventor of the Year Award (2022) from the European Patent Office. This innovation gives Skeleton’s supercapacitors an unrivalled advantage in power and energy density. The company is also the only deeptech company fully vertically integrated and globally controlling the full value chain – from advanced materials to cells, full systems and energy software – delivering higher performance, reliability, and compactness for high-power applications, while not having any strategic dependencies. 

Since inception, Skeleton has raised over €300 million from investors including Siemens, Marubeni Corporation, and InnoEnergy, and serves leading industrial and tech players such as Siemens, GE Vernova, Hitachi Energy, Honda Racing, and the European Space Agency. A serial entrepreneur, he co-founded Frankenburg Technologies, a defense start-up often nicknamed the SpaceX for missiles, and serves as Non-Executive Chair of Stargate Hydrogen.

Professor of Human Robot Interaction, School of Computer Sciences, Northumbria University & National Robotarium UK. Prof Baillie, has a PhD and MSc in Computer Science. She undertakes research on the development of new user centred interaction technologies, including robotics, and the impacts that technology has on the population in terms of convenience, usability, performance and security. She is based at Northumbria University and in the National Robotarium, which is a world-leading institute for robotics and artificial intelligence, boasting unrivalled facilities to explore collaborative interaction between humans, robots and their environments. She is Chair of the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Human Robot Interaction 2026 in Edinburgh, Scotland and has recently been elected to serve on the ACM’s European Committee.

Giancarlo Miluccio graduated in Economics from the University of Naples and holds an MBA from the Stoà School of Management. He began his career as a marketing specialist before joining L’Oréal as Commercial Manager for Turin. He held various marketing and commercial roles at L’Oréal, in Italy and at the Paris headquarters, increasingly focusing on data usage and governance. In 2014, he became Head of CMI & Data at L’Oréal France and was appointed Chief Data Officer in 2018, overseeing data strategy, including Data Quality, Management, Science, Business Intelligence, and Visualization. In 2020, he joined Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) as Chief Data Officer and, in 2026, added responsibility for Digital, becoming Chief Digital & Data Officer. At URW, he supervises the digital ecosystem, drives data strategy, and defines the Consumer Insights plan, leveraging innovation and advanced analytics to enhance business performance and create new revenue streams.

Iliya teaches 1.5M+ students on the topics of AI, data science, and machine learning. He is co-founder and CEO of Juma, a marketing superagent that executes complete workflows autonomously – analyzing data, generating content, and delivering ready-to-use assets. Apart from Juma (formerly Team-GPT), Iliya also co-founded 3veta and 365 Data Science.

Cristina Rutgers-Astolfi is a seasoned thought leader with 20 years of international experience in customer experience, data analytics, and large-scale transformation. She has led complex, cross-organizational initiatives in global corporate environments, combining strong people leadership with a passion for turning data and customer insights into tangible business impact.

Cristina is currently Global Head of Analytics for IKEA Customer Support, where she leads global analytics to deliver transformational insights, enable performance optimization, and drive continuous value creation for millions of customers worldwide.

Previously, she held senior leadership roles at HP Inc. across Customer Experience Analytics, Business & Strategy Development, and R&D.

Cristina holds a degree in Economics from the University of Bologna and a postgraduate qualification in Finance and Accounting.

Matt Henderson is the co-founder and CEO of Coral, an open-source data retrieval layer for AI agents. Previously, Matt was CEO of Stripe Europe and led the company’s international operations across product and engineering. Earlier in his career he was a product director at Amazon and Google, and co-founded the ML analytics startup Rangespan, acquired by Google.

Viswatej Seela is a Senior Data Scientist working in the U.S. financial services sector, where he designs and deploys production-scale machine learning and generative AI systems used across enterprise operations. His work focuses on bridging the gap between cutting-edge AI capabilities and the practical requirements of reliability, governance, and long-term system ownership in regulated environments.

Viswatej has hands-on experience building end-to-end AI systems, including system architecture design, model evaluation frameworks, monitoring strategies, and post-deployment governance. He has led the deployment of enterprise AI solutions that deliver measurable business impact through automation, operational efficiency, and improved decision support, while meeting strict compliance and risk standards.

In addition to his industry work, Viswatej has authored peer-reviewed technical publications in applied data science and regularly contributes to discussions on responsible AI adoption and real-world AI deployment challenges. He enjoys sharing practical lessons learned from moving AI systems beyond experimentation into reliable, production-ready platforms that organizations can trust and scale.

Alina is a data and analytics technology leader known for turning complex systems into clear, usable concepts and practical outcomes. Having lived in three countries, studied in seven schools, and graduated with honours from two universities, she brings intellectual adaptability, cross-cultural perspective, and disciplined curiosity to every environment she joins. Her academic background spans linguistics, media, and communication, complemented by advanced certifications in data science, machine learning, and AI.
With over a decade of experience in enterprise data and analytics, she leads high-impact technology teams and drives modern data platforms across cloud ecosystems including AWS and Snowflake. Her approach combines structured thinking, strong stakeholder alignment, and a practitioner’s focus on measurable value. She is recognized for asking precise questions, challenging assumptions, and promoting AI as a practical tool rather than abstract magic.
Beyond her leadership work, she is a writer, traveler, and multilingual parent. She actively promotes critical thinking, clarity, and independence in both professional and personal contexts. One of her long-term goals is to teach at a university, where she aims to connect theory with real-world practice and help students build durable analytical skills for the AI era.

Alex founded Respeecher with Dmytro Bielievtsov and Grant Reaber in 2018. Since then the team has been focused on high-fidelity voice cloning. Their technology was the first synthetic speech adopted by big Hollywood productions, starting from 2019. Alex is in charge of Business Development and Strategy. The primary focus of Respeecher is improving voice cloning technology in several directions, including the democratization of the technology to let sound professionals and creators all over the world have access to this great tool. Respeecher technology is already applied in numerous projects, including Oscar-winning films, like Brutalist and Emilia Perez.

Nicole Pfister Fetz – a cultural policy consultant – is Secretary General of the European Writers’ Council (EWC) and of the Casa della Letteratura per la Svizzera italiana, as well as guest speaker at conferences, on panel discussions, in internal strategic processes within the cultural sector, and on cultural lobbying at the University of Basel. She has a degree in history of art and history and was Managing Director of A*dS (Authors of Switzerland), President of the Society of Swiss Art History (GSK), Suisseculture Sociale and worked in museums, independent cultural projects and education programmes. She has published numerous articles in the fields of history of art, cultural studies and the politics of literature.

Koen Groenland is passionate about translating the complex scientific world of Quantum Technology to tangible solutions that aid society. He is a recognized speaker and science communicator, known for engaging and interactive presentations. Koen obtained a PhD in the near-term applications of quantum computers from QuSoft, and is the author of ‘Introduction to Quantum Computing for Business’ (www.introtoquantum.org). As Innovation Officer at the University of Amsterdam, he is responsible for collaborations with industry, incubating spin-outs and growing an active ‘quantum ecosystem’. His key interests include developing use-cases for quantum computers, enhancing material science simulations, and the quantum impact on cybersecurity. 

Noortje van Genugten is Vice President of Product at Albert Heijn, where she leads Product teams shaping the future of one of Europe’s most digitally advanced retailers. In her role, she drives large‑scale innovation across stores and digital channels, focusing on how AI and GenAI unlock better customer experiences while elevating the daily work of 100,000+ associates. With a background spanning analytics, data science, finance, and operational excellence, Noortje has been a central force behind Albert Heijn’s acceleration in AI. She previously co-built the company’s analytics and data science capabilities, and led breakthrough initiatives in demand forecasting, dynamic markdown, and food‑waste reduction, areas where AI now delivers measurable impact at scale. Noortje is the founder of the Women in Technology community at Albert Heijn, championing inclusion, visibility, and career growth for women across Product, Tech and Data Science.

Dirk Bergmann is Head of AI R&D at Haver & Boecker, a 137-year-old German industrial machinery manufacturer. Over more than a decade at the company, he has built and now leads a growing international team developing industrial AI infrastructure – from computer vision systems in production use and predictive analytics to VLA and reinforcement learning pipelines for humanoid robot manipulation. His team operates multiple Unitree G1 platforms and is developing the Industrial Humanoid Benchmark (IHB), a structured framework for evaluating humanoid platform readiness in real factory environments. Earlier in his career, Dirk spent four years deploying industrial systems on-site from Cochabamba to Tokyo across four continents

Luca Cartechini is the Co-Founder and CEO of Shop Circle, an AI-first platform building a permanent home for exceptional B2B software companies. Shop Circle has completed 20+ acquisitions and raised nearly $250M from leading global investors, serving 180,000+ customers worldwide. The platform acquires and scales mission-critical software businesses through its centralised AI team, embedding AI into products and deploying agentic workflows across the portfolio to drive growth, expand TAM, and improve margins. Beyond Shop Circle, Luca has lectured on entrepreneurship and corporate finance at ESCP Business School for five academic years. Earlier in his career, he worked in Equity Research at Jefferies, covering European technology, and in Venture Capital, investing in high-growth B2B software companies. Luca’s focus is on building a category-defining software platform for the AI era.

Varya is the founding head of frontier research and partnerships at Birla AI Labs. Her team of researchers and engineers spans India, Germany, the US, and the UK, and she runs the lab’s collaborations with universities, governments, and enterprise partners. Birla AI Labs sits within the Office of Ananya Birla at the Aditya Birla Group.

Underlying her work is a sustained interest in how technology shapes knowledge, agency, and opportunity at scale.

Prior to this, she led product and government affairs at Network Capital – a career navigation platform. She managed the company’s partnership with the Government of India’s Atal Innovation Mission, bringing mentorship to 7.5 million school students, and organised Tinkerpreneur, the world’s largest online bootcamp, which taught entrepreneurship to over 50,000 students. She worked with Network Capital through its fundraise from Facebook and a subsequent acquisition.

Varya holds a BA (Hons) in Political Science and Economics from the University of Delhi and an MSc in Comparative Education from the University of Oxford. Her research on proof of personhood won Paper of the Year at the Future of Privacy Forum in 2024. Her broader research examines epistemic agency, trust, and privacy in digital environments.

Responsible AI leader with 18 years’ experience across retail and tech, having held key roles at Decathlon, IKEA, and Albert Heijn. Architected and scaled AI/ML solutions now serving 1 billion unique customers across 80 countries, generating 4 billion visits annually. Expert in ML and MLOps, I lead cross-functional teams to drive cost efficiency, elevate KPIs, and foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, and continuous learning.

Joe McDonald is a serial founder with over 12 years of experience in the energy sector. After being turned down by Google for not being considered ‘Google material,’ he started his entrepreneurial journey by becoming a founding employee at energy startup Limejump. As former Vice President of Sales and Product at Limejump, he led the development of virtual power plants that allow small, renewable energy assets to access the market opportunities of larger utilities and steered the company’s successful exit to Shell in 2019, earning him a spot on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Europe list. Motivated by the inefficiencies in energy market transactions and a belief that energy should be a human right, he co-founded tem. in 2021 to reimagine the entire transactions infrastructure of energy. The platform uses a matching algorithm to make the way we buy and sell energy more transparent, decentralised, simpler and a fairer deal for all.

James leads Gen25’s Strategy and Transformation practice, bringing over a decade of experience delivering complex change across international organisations. His background combines consulting leadership with senior in-house roles across multiple industries, with direct accountability for growth, operating models, service lines and large-scale transformation programmes. He works with executive teams on AI strategy, growth transformation and operational improvement, translating ambition into commercially grounded, executable programmes. James was also a contributor to the European Commission report “The Opportunity for AI to Enhance Business Support Processes”, shaping perspectives on how AI can drive enterprise productivity and performance.

I am an ex-banker turned startup founder turned venture capitalist, with a strong belief that the most innovative startups have the power to reinvent the way we live. I have been on the roller coaster of entrepreneurship and understand the importance of ‘just being there’ for a founder. Like the majority of my Wharton classmates, I graduated and joined finance. I started off as a banker at JP Morgan Chase before eventually starting my own company that was incubated at Y Combinator. As founder/CEO of a healthtech venture, I led workflows across product, operations, sales, fundraising and HR to try and successfully piece together the crazy puzzle of startup success. After 4 years at DocTalk, I had tasted failure in terms of scaling a business, and wanted to share my learnings of what to do and, more importantly, what not to do with aspiring entrepreneurs. I launched StartupConnect, a collaborative social organization for founders to learn from their peers. During this journey, I saw that working with driven founders on early-stage ideation and execution invigorates me and the possibility of backing founders and partnering with them in a mission-oriented manner became my calling. Since then, I have worked at Progression Fund and Accel before meeting Mattias and Mike and falling in love with their vision of building a truly tech-driven VC. My personal experiences have shown me that startups are really really hard. Thousands of data points have to line up for progress to be made. The life of a founder is not one of glamor but of grit and determination – where lows are soul-crushingly low and very frequent while the rare high is never as all-encompassing as you would like. I always add this lens to my relationships with founders. I am continuously excited by the remarkable founders working on fantastic ideas. I firmly believe that through our combination of data-driven investing and human-centric relationships, Moonfire is uniquely positioned to help early-stage founders reach their next milestone while never losing focus over the bigger long-term target. I am excited for the journey ahead and am happy to chat on how we could partner up. Dont worry, I am quite informal in how I communicate and will give you a real representation of my thoughts.

Roderik Koenders is Lead AI at Eraneos and an experienced builder of production AI systems and the teams behind them. With expertise in agentic AI, data engineering and Python, he helps public and private organizations find, build and embed agentic ways of working. Previously, he spent nine years at Booking.com, where he led the experimentation platform and built the statistical methodology and governance that enabled 10.000 employees to test their assumptions rather than trust them. He now asks the harder question: not whether AI works, but how to make sure it delivers real value, and how to build an organization that can sustain it.

Dave Kiwi is Partner and Practice Lead Data & AI at Eraneos, with over 20 years of experience in digital transformation and innovation. He is highly experienced in Data & AI and has led the development of secure data and AI solutions for a diverse range of organisations in the industrial sector. Dave was CTO at a leading market player and combines deep insight into complex business processes with academic expertise. He holds a PhD from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and is the founder of the VU Knowledge Hub for the Strategic Management of AI. His passion lies at the intersection of technology, strategy and impactful innovation.

Tyler Hannan is an experienced technologist with a passion for human interaction. With a career that has spanned the private and public sectors, large enterprises, consulting, and startups of varying success, he has maintained a focus on data persistence and analysis. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, called on to provide commentary about market trends impacting the design and deployment of database solutions and distributed systems.

Luke Duffell leads the vision and delivery of AI-powered automation solutions at NiCE, helping enterprises streamline operations and elevate customer experiences. With extensive experience across the CX and automation landscape, he specialises in building scalable strategies that translate cutting-edge technology into measurable business outcomes. Luke is passionate about shaping the future of service automation and regularly collaborates with industry leaders and partners to unlock the potential of AI-driven customer journeys.

Jose Velasco is a Spanish producer, entrepreneur, and CEO of PLIA, an AI-powered production software company built to modernize film and television production. With a background in commercial production, he has worked on more than 150 music videos and advertising projects, developing practical experience across shoots, budgets, teams, and client-driven content.

Through PLIA, Jose focuses on bringing artificial intelligence into the real production workflow: script breakdowns, scheduling, budgeting, production tracking, and communication. His goal is not to replace creativity, but to give producers, line producers, assistant directors, and production teams smarter infrastructure to work faster, reduce inefficiencies, and make better decisions.

Alongside PLIA, Jose continues to develop international film, documentary, and television projects through Souvenir Studios, combining hands-on production experience with a forward-looking approach to how content gets made.

Sarah Darweesh wants to make AI work for people, not the other way around. With a background spanning AI consulting, business transformation, customer experience, and communications, she brings a human perspective to a field that often focuses on technology first. She is particularly interested in the questions many organizations are grappling with today: how do we innovate at speed without losing sight of trust, transparency, and human values? Known for her pragmatic approach and ability to make complex topics accessible, she helps organizations navigate AI innovation in a way that is both ambitious and responsible

Itay is the co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of Figma Weave (prev. Weavy), bringing 25 years in post-production and VFX into a new era of media creation. A former Flame artist, he now leads Weave’s brand vision, creative direction, and community movement toward Artistic Intelligence – scaling ideation and media creation.

DR. WERNER VOGELS, CTO, AMAZON.COM

Dr. Werner Vogels is Chief Technology Officer at Amazon.com where he is responsible for driving the company’s customer-centric technology vision.

 As one of the forces behind Amazon’s approach to cloud computing, he is passionate about helping young businesses reach global scale, and transforming enterprises into fast-moving digital organizations.

 Vogels joined Amazon in 2004 from Cornell University where he was a distributed systems researcher. He has held technology leadership positions in companies that handle the transition of academic technology into industry. Vogels holds a PhD from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and has authored many articles on distributed systems technologies for enterprise computing.

On his blog, all things distributed, Werner shares insights and thought leadership content on a range of topics, such as cloud computing, machine learning, artificial intelligence, as well as his annual technology predictions.

Stuart Russell is a pioneer in the understanding and uses of artificial intelligence (AI), its long-term future, and its relation to humanity. He also is a leading authority on robotics and bioinformatics.

Stuart Russell is the author or coauthor of three books on knowledge, reasoning, and machine learning, including the standard textbook on artificial intelligence. Stuart Russell is a professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC-Berkeley and Adjunct Professor of Neurological Surgery at UC-San Francisco.

Artificial intelligence. AI is a machine’s ability to perceive its environment and use that information to maximise its chance at succeeding at some goal. All of the technologies behind artificial intelligence are evolving at exponential rates and are just now beginning to rocket up the curve. Soon artificially intelligent machines will be doing things we can barely conceive, in virtually every area of human business, life, and culture. Few people understand this future better than Stuart Russell, who wrote the standard textbook on AI (with coauthor Peter Norvig), now in its third edition.

Robotics. Stuart Russell is also a leading researcher in the practical applications of machine intelligence. If AI is the brain of the machine of the future, the robot is its body. Robots are taking over more and more functions that once required a human actor, with far-reaching consequences — and opportunities — for people, businesses, and society as a whole. He has focused recently on the threat of autonomous weaponry.

Biological information. As an Adjunct Professor of Neurological Surgery, Stuart has been researching computational physiology, with a current focus on Intensive Care Unit monitoring systems. He is a leader in the development of technologies that make sense of biological data and that apply this information in ways that advance human health.

Credentials. In addition to the positions already mentioned, Stuart Russell holds the SmithZadeh Chair in Engineering at UC-Berkeley and is Vice-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Council on AI and Robotics. He is the recipient of many awards and held the Chaire Blaise Pascal in Paris from 2012 to 2014. He is a researcher at a number of research centers, including the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research Lab (BAIR), the Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM), and the Synthetic Biology Institute (SBI). He is the founder and Vice-President of Bayesian Logic, Inc., a data analysis start-up under contract with the UN to build a new Nuclear Test Ban Treaty global monitoring system.

Gary Marcus, scientist, bestselling author, and entrepreneur, was CEO and Founder of the machine-learning startup Geometric Intelligence, recently acquired by Uber, and is known for his provocative and bold claims in artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and cognitive science. Trained by Steven Pinker, he received his PhD at MIT at age 23. His professional research, published in leading journals such as Science, Nature, Cognition, and Artificial Intelligence, has focused on the foundations of cognition in humans, animals and machines, spanning fields from developmental psychology to neuroscience to genetics to artificial intelligence. A special interest has been on the challenge of endowing machines with common sense.

He is also well-known for his writing for the general public, including frequent essays and op-eds for The New Yorker and The New York Times. His books include The Algebraic Mind, The Birth of the Mind, Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind, The New York Times Bestseller, Guitar Zero and The Future of the Brain: Essays By The World’s Leading Neuroscientists.

In a 2012 essay for The New Yorker, he was perhaps the first person to publicly criticize deep learning, drawing on arguments he developed in his 2001 technical book The Algebraic Mind. More recently, in a 2018 arXiv article, Deep Learning: A Critical Appraisal, he asked whether deep learning might be “approaching a wall.” The challenges he laid out there were covered everywhere from The
New York Times to Wired to The Financial Times and Wall Street Journal.

In another provocative 2012 essay, Moral Machines, Marcus was the first to adapt “trolley problems” to driverless cars, anticipating much recent research on the ethics of AI. His next book, REBOOT: Getting to AI We Can Trust, to be published by Pantheon in Fall 2019, co-authored with Ernie Davis, calls for a fundamental rethinking of current approaches to artificial intelligence.

Yoshua Bengio is Full Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research, head of the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA), CIFAR Program co-director of the CIFAR program on Learning in Machines and Brains,  Canada Research Chair in Statistical Learning Algorithms. His main research ambition is to understand principles of learning that yield intelligence. He supervises a large group of graduate students and post-docs. His research is widely cited (over 80000 citations found by Google Scholar in September 2017, with an H-index of 101).

Yoshua Bengio is currently action editor for the Journal of Machine Learning Research, associate editor for the Neural Computation journal, editor for Foundations and Trends in Machine Learning, and has been associate editor for the Machine Learning Journal and the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks.

Neuroscientist Anil Seth is interested in understanding the biological basis of conscious experience, a topic he considers one of the greatest challenges for 21st century science. His groundbreaking research provides fascinating insight into what this means for storytelling. His 2017 TED talk has been viewed over 5 million times.

Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex and Codirector of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science. He seeks to understand the biological basis of consciousness by bringing together research across neuroscience, mathematics, AI, computer science, psychology, philosophy and psychiatry. Key to his work is exploring the relationship between perception and hallucination, and how this applies to the experience of being a “self.” Seth is also Editor in Chief of the academic journal Neuroscience of Consciousness, a Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and a Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow. He was the 2017 President of the British Science Association (Psychology Section).

Athina Kanioura is Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer at PepsiCo. PepsiCo products are enjoyed by consumers more than one billion times a day in more than 200 countries and territories around the world. PepsiCo generated more than $86 billion in net revenue in 2022, driven by a complementary beverage and convenient foods portfolio that includes Lay’s, Doritos, Cheetos, Gatorade, Pepsi-Cola, Mountain Dew, Quaker, and SodaStream. PepsiCo’s product portfolio includes a wide range of enjoyable foods and beverages, including many iconic brands that generate more than $1 billion each in estimated annual retail sales.

An accomplished innovator and transformation leader, Kanioura oversees PepsiCo’s end-to-end strategy to win both as a total company and in key markets, including our digitalization strategy. She also leads company-wide transformation—ensuring that our scale is leveraged as we focus on accelerating profitable growth and identifying areas of cost efficiency and optimization—in addition to overseeing Data Products, Platforms, and Talent. 

Prior to joining PepsiCo, Kanioura was the Chief Analytics Officer and Global Head of Applied Intelligence at Accenture, where she specialized in applying AI and analytics to drive business value. During her 15 years at Accenture, Kanioura grew the Applied Intelligence function from a subspecialty to a global group at the forefront of scale business transformation. She also ran Sales and Customer Analytics globally and drove the company’s offerings in customer relationship management and personalization. 

Kanioura specializes in transforming businesses with emphasis on data and technology, and brings many years of practical experience globally in industries such as telecomms, oil and gas, financial services, and consumer packaged goods, having worked with companies such as Mondelez, Unilever, P&G, Reckitt Benkiser, Phillip Morris, and Adidas.

Kanioura is a member of the Royal Statistical and Economics Society, where she contributes to shaping government policy around how data is used by bodies like the IMF. She also sits on the board of the Institute of Marketing Sciences and is a keen educator who has held lectureships at UMIST (UK), Imperial College London (UK), and the University of Sheffield (UK), where she also earned her PhD in Econometrics and Quantitative Economics.  Kanioura is based in Purchase, N.Y

Constantijn van Oranje leads TechLeap.NL (formerly StartupDelta), the accelerator for the Tech-ecosystem in the Netherlands. As Special Envoy he is on a mission to turn The Netherlands into a unicorn nation. He and his team connect the Dutch Tech-ecosystem to help ambitious and promising Dutch Tech companies grow fast internationally by improving their access to capital, market and talent.

Constantijn co-founded StartupFest Europe, which is still the biggest start-up event ever organized in The Netherlands. He used to be Chief of Staff of VP Neelie Kroes at the European Commission in charge of the Digital Agenda and lead the Brussels office of the RAND Corporation.

He is currently also Director Digital Technology & Macro Strategy at Macro Advisory Partners in London and New York and Edge Fellow at Deloitte Centre for the Edge, where he advises companies and the European Commission on their digital innovation strategies. Besides innovation and technology.

Constantijn van Oranje is passionate about art, music, photography and nature.

Daphne Koller is CEO and Founder of insitro, a physical AI therapeutics company. Daphne is also co-founder of Engageli, was the Rajeev Motwani Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where she served on the faculty for 18 years, the co-CEO and President of Coursera, and the Chief Computing Officer of Calico Labs. She is the author of over 300 refereed publications with an h-index of over 150. Daphne was recognized as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2012 and 100 most influential people in AI in 2024. She received the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2004, the ACM Prize in Computing in 2008, the ACM AAAI Allen Newell Award in 2019, and the AnitaB.org Technical Leadership Abie Award Winner in 2022. Daphne was inducted into the National Academy of Science in 2023, into the National Academy of Engineering in 2011 and elected a fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence in 2004, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014, and the International Society of Computational Biology in 2017. 

Lambert Hogenhout is Chief Data and AI at the United Nations Secretariat. He is also an author, keynote speaker and advisor on AI and responsible use of technology. He has 25 years of experience working both in the private sector and with international organizations such as the World Bank and the United Nations. He leads governance and strategy in the areas of data and AI and oversees its practical implementation. He has published on data privacy, data governance, the societal implications of technology and responsible use of AI.

Dr. Steve Chien is JPL Fellow, Senior Research Scientist, and Technical Group Supervisor of the Artificial Intelligence Group and in the Mission Planning and Execution Section at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology where he leads efforts in automated planning and scheduling for space exploration.  Dr. Chien was previously Adjunct Faculty with the Department of Computer Science of the University of Southern California, and a Research Scientist at the Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science & Engineering and a Visiting Scholar with the Department of Computer Science of the University of California at Los Angeles. He holds a B.S. with Highest Honors in Computer Science, with minors in Mathematics and Economics, M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science, all from the University of Illinois.

He is a founder of the International Workshop on Planning and Scheduling for Space held every other year from 1997 onward and was the Chair or Co-chair  of numerous workshops.  He is former chair of the AIPS Executive Council (2000-2002), was a founding member of the ICAPS Executive Council (2002-2006), and was founding President of the ICAPS Executive Council 2002-2004. He was also a Councilor for the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (2003-2006)

Dr. Chien was a recipient of the 1995 Lew Allen Award for Excellence, JPLs highest award recognizing outstanding technical achievements by JPL personnel in the early years of their careers. In 1997, he received the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal for his work in research and development of planning and scheduling systems for NASA. He is the Team Lead for the ASPEN Planning System , which received Honorable Mention in the 1999 Software of the Year Competition and was a contributor to the Remote Agent System which was a co-winner in the same 1999 competition. In 2000, he received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for service and leadership in research and deployment of planning and scheduling systems for NASA. He is the Principal Investigator for the Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment which is a co-winner of the 2005 NASA Software of the Year Award. In 2007, he received the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal for outstanding technical accomplishments in the development of the Autonomous Sciencecraft deployed on the Earth Observing One Mission and the development of the Earth Observing Sensorweb. In 2011 He was awarded the innaugural AIAA Intelligent Systems Award, for his contributions to Spacecraft Autonomy. In 2011, he was the team co-lead for the Sensorweb Toolbox team, which was awarded Honorable mention in the 2011 NASA Software of the Year Competition. In 2015 He was awarded a JPL Magellan Award as well as the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal for his contributions to automated science scheduling for ESA’s Rosetta mission.

Dr. Chien has supported the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Defense Science Board, and Air Force Scientific Advisory Board.  In 2018, Dr. Chien was appointed to the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.

Dr. Chien has presented invited seminars on planning, scheduling, and resource allocation as well as on spacecraft autonomy and autonomous systems. He has authored numerous publications. in these areas, and has served as a consultant to several multinational corporations in these areas. His current research interests lie in the areas of: planning and scheduling, machine learning, operations research, and decision theory.

Roman, an author and a professor at the University of Louisville, is globally recognized for his pioneering research in AI risk prevention and containing superintelligence. His work has shaped international conversations on how to govern and develop AI safely. After captivating audiences with a book signing at WSAI Americas, Roman is bringing his cutting-edge insights to Qatar, where he will challenge conventional thinking about the future of AI.

Head of JDX Silicon Valley Research Center

Dr. Hui Cheng is the Head of JD.com’s JD-X Silicon Valley Research Center and the Head of JD.com Silicon Valley Innovation Center, where he leads teams working on technologies that will revolutionize E-commerce and Logistics. JD-X is developing autonomous ground delivery vehicles, delivery drones and warehouse robotic systems, all powered by artificial intelligence, advanced robotics and computer vision. Dr. Cheng also serves on the board of directors of a high-flying AI and robotics startup company.

Prior to JD, Dr. Cheng was Senior Research Manager of Amazon Go where the new grab-and-go shopping experience was first developed. He was also the Program Director and head of the Cognitive and Adaptive Vision System Group at SRI International where he led more than 30 client-sponsored R&D programs in many areas including social medial analysis, video understanding, cloud-based Big Data analysis, AR/VR, mobile authentication, mobile activity understanding, media forensic, etc.

Dr. Cheng received his Ph.D degree from Purdue University. He has more than 60 publications and holds more than 30 patents.