World’s Top 50 Innovators 2019

Information

Congratulations to our friends at NASA on the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. Next stop Mars..!

Codex is proud to invite you to one of the most prestigious events in the technology calendar. The ‘World’s Top 50 Innovators 2019’ will take place at the Royal Society in London from 23rd to 25th September 2019.

A distinguished line up of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and visionaries who are moving the world forward with the power of their technologies and ideas will convene to share their excitement with you.

The format will be a series of Codex Talks, each of which is a concise presentation, lasting 15 minutes (or less), in which the speaker addresses a challenging question faced by their technology or industry today, and ends with a bold prediction for the future.

The pace of change is accelerating and what was once science fiction is becoming reality. How will you respond to this, when your business could be endangered if you miss a disruptive technology that’s on the horizon today?

Come and join us to learn what’s on the horizon, understand the bigger picture, and future proof your business. Entrepreneurs and innovators from all the industries of the future will be there to fire your imagination..!

TICKETS CAN ALSO BE PURCHASED FROM THE CODEX EVENTBRITE PAGE

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The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, St. James's, London SW1Y 5AG

23 September 2019 - 25 September 2019

8:00 am - 6:30 pm

Schedule

8:15 am 8:50 am Registration

8:50 am 9:00 am Chairman’s welcome

9:00 am 10:30 am Robotics and Artificial Intelligence

H. James Wilson, Managing Director IT and Business Research, Accenture Research
Human+Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI What new kinds of jobs will AI create?
Bruno Maisonnier, CEO, AnotherBrain
Will the next generation of AI fly us to the stars?
Mark Pivac, CTO, Fastbrick Robotics
How do you take the precision of indoor robotics outdoors?
Dr. Barbara Mazzolai, Director, Micro-BioRobotics, IIT
Can robots grow and behave like plants?

10:30 am 11:00 am Morning Coffee

11:00 am 12:15 pm Robotics and Artificial Intelligence

Anima Anandkumar, Director of Machine Learning Research, NVIDIA. Bren Prof, Caltech
The path to embodied intelligence
Victor Riparbelli, CEO, Synthesia
How will AI generated content rewire the media industry?
Vishal Chatrath, CEO, Prowler
Does AI really need big data?

12:15 pm 1:15 pm LUNCH

12:45 pm 1:15 pm Keynote address

Dr. Jim Green, Chief Scientist, NASA
Why Return to the Moon?

1:15 pm 2:45 pm Educational Technologies

Karin Bjerde, Kognity
Why technology is needed to solve the world’s greatest scaling challenge – education
Dr. Gareth Davies, CEO, Kwiziq
The limits of what’s possible: will future EdTech turn anyone – including you – into a genius?
Jamie Brooker, Founder, Kahoot!
How must technology adapt to enable relevant learning experiences for tomorrow’s world?
Dr. Xiang Cao, CEO, Wonder Painter
How can technology boost creativity?

2:45 pm 3:15 pm Afternoon Tea

3:15 pm 5:15 pm The Future of Mobility

Dr. Mark Bentall, COO, Corporate Technology Office, Airbus
What does the future of aviation look like?
Tom Vice, CEO, Aerion Supersonic
Is green speed possible?
Jonathan Carrier, Vice-President, AeroMobil
Why the sky is the best place to travel ?
James Murdza, Founder, Silverwing Aeronautics
How can a student-designed personal flying machine compete with Aerospace giants?
David Keith, Founder, Carbon Engineering
How to make transportation carbon neutral?

5:15 pm 5:30 pm Chairman’s Closing Remarks

Speakers

Dr. Jim Green
Chief Scientist, NASA

Dr. James (Jim) Green is NASA’s chief scientist. He received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Iowa in 1979. He worked at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) from 1980 to 1985 in the Solar System Division. In addition, he was also a safety diver in the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator supporting NASA’s crewed spaceflight program, making more than 150 dives. In 1985, Jim transferred to Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and was the deputy project scientist on the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) mission and the global geospace science missions WIND and POLAR.

From 2006 to 2018, Jim was the director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters. Under his leadership several missions have been successfully executed, including the New Horizons spacecraft flyby of Pluto, the MESSENGER spacecraft to Mercury, the Juno spacecraft to Jupiter, the Grail A and B spacecraft to the Moon, the Dawn spacecraft to Vesta and Ceres, and the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars.

Over his career, Jim has received numerous awards, including the Arthur S. Flemming award for outstanding individual performance in the federal government, and Japan’s Kotani Prize in recognition of his international science data management activities. He has written more than 115 scientific articles in refereed journals about heliophysics and planetary science and more than 50 technical articles on data systems and networks. In 2015, Jim provided guidance as a part of the NASA collaboration on the film “The Martian.”
Bruno Maisonnier
CEO, AnotherBrain

French serial entrepreneur and innovator, Bruno Maisonnier is founder and CEO of AnotherBrain, world category leader in 3^rd generation AI, and the Founder & ex-CEO of Aldebaran Robotics.

Passionate about technology, especially artificial intelligence and robotics, and the way they can improve people’s everyday lives. In 2017, Bruno founded AnotherBrain, startup which brings Organic AI^TM, the new generation of artificial intelligence which is bio-inspired, explainable and self-learning.

In 2005, Bruno developed from scratch Aldebaran Robotics, world leader in humanoid robotics, and created NAO and PEPPER humanoid companion robots. Sold to a Japanese giant in 2015, the company became SoftBank Robotics.

Previously, Bruno has been a CEO of banks and international finance companies in France and internationally, managing 2500 to 3500 staff, in multicultural environment.
Kenneth Mulvany
Chairman, BenevolentAI

Ken is a serial entrepreneur, investor, healthcare and technology industry veteran.

He is currently the Chairman of BenevolentAI, a $2bn valuation British technology company he founded, which is applying AI to accelerate and enhance scientific discovery.

He was previously CEO of Proximagen, a UK-based biotech company that he founded which was committed to delivering novel drugs and innovative new treatments for central nervous system disorders.

Proximagen was sold to a US pharmaceutical company in 2012 for $555m. Ken sits on the advisory panel to the UK Government on Artificial Intelligence and is a member of the All Party Artificial Intelligence Parliamentary Group. He is currently the Chairman of the Trustees of the Cure Parkinson’s Trust. Ken also sits on the Advisory Board for Oxford Sciences Innovations. Ken is twice a world champion sailor and competed in the 1992 America’s Cup.
James Wilson
Managing Director IT and Business Research, Accenture Research

James Wilson is managing director of IT and Business Research at Accenture Research, where he leads global research programs on the impact of AI on work. Wilson is co-author of the best-selling, Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI (Harvard Business Review Press). He is author or contributing author of eight books on the impact of technology on work and society, including most recently, AI, Analytics, & The New Machine Age (HBR Press 2019) and How to Go Digital (MIT Press 2019).

Wilson wrote “The Jobs Artificial Intelligence Will Create,” MIT Sloan Management Review’s #1 Most-Read article of the year, and is a longtime contributor to The Wall Street Journal and HBR. His latest HBR article is, “The Future of AI Will Be About Less Data, Not More.”

Dr. Barbara Mazzolai
Director, Micro-BioRobotics, IIT

Barbara Mazzolai is Director of the Center for Micro-BioRobotics (CMBR) since February 2011.

She graduated (MSc) in Biology (with Honours) at the University of Pisa, Italy, and received the Ph.D. in Microsystem Engineering from the University of Rome Tor Vergata. She was Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering at SSSA from 1999 to 2009. From November 2009 to February 2011 she was Team Leader at the CMBR. She was Deputy Director for the Supervision and Organization of the IIT Centers Network from July 2012 to 2017. From January to July 2017 she was Visiting Faculty at Aerial Robotics Lab, Department of Aeronautics, of Imperial College of London.

In 2010 she received the “Marisa Bellisario” Award for her scientific and management activities in the EU DustBot project for improving the urban hygiene and the quality of life of citizens. In 2013 she was awarded the Medal of the Senate of the Italian Republic for her scientific activities in biomimetics and biorobotics. In 2015 she was listed among the 25 most influential women in robotics by RoboHub. In 2019 she received the “Carla Fendi Foundation” award for developing the first plant-inspired robot.

Her current scientific activity focuses on bioinspired soft robotics, with a particular research interest in merging biology and engineering. She has a long experience as Project Manager of European Projects in this field (e.g. OCTOPUS, FP7-231608; HydroNet, FP7-212790; DustBot, FP6-045299; EMECAP, QLK4-CT-2000-00489; etc.) and she was the Coordinator of the FET-Open PLANTOID European Project (n° 293431). Currently, she is the Coordinator of the FET-PROACTIVE GrowBot (n.824074) European Project.

She is Guest Editor of a Soft Robotics Special Issue in Biomimetics, member of the Executive Advisory Board of Advanced Intelligent Systems, member of the Editorial Board of Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics, Soft Robotics, Robotics & Automation Letters, and Associated Editor for Frontiers in Bionics and Biomimetics. She served as Associated Editor for ICRA 2016-2019, IEEE RA-L 2016-2019, IROS 2013 and 2017, as Interdisciplinary Program Co-Chairs for RoboSoft 2018-2019, Government Forum Co-Chair for IROS 2016, and Publicity Co-Chair for BIOROB 2012. She is Workshop Co-chair of I-RIM (Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines) Conference 2019.

She is also member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen and Stuttgart, Germany. She is author of more than 180 papers appeared in international journals, books, and conference proceedings. She is member of the IEEE, and of the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society and of the Robotics and Automation Society
Will Eaves
Winner Wellcome Book Prize 2019

Will Eaves is a novelist and poet, and an Associate Professor at the University of Warwick. He was Arts Editor of the TLS from 1995 to 2011. His most recent novel, Murmur (CB Editions / Canongate), is a fantasia on aspects of the later life and work of Alan Turing. It won both the Wellcome Book Prize and the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Fiction in 2019. It has also been shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize, the James Tait Black Prize, and the BBC National Short Story Award. Will co-hosts The Neuromantics (a podcast about literature and neuroscience) with Sophie Scott, Director of UCL’s Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience.
René Bostic
VP, Innovation and New Technologies, IBM

René Bostic is the Global Technical Vice President of Innovation and New Technologies for IBM Cloud.

She is an expert in cloud computing, DevOps and emerging cloud technologies such as Blockchain. Her speaking engagements include the O’Reilly Software Architecture Conference (New York), Gartner Enterprise Architecture Summit (USA), CloudExpo (USA), Cloud Expo Europe (London), AdTech (London), Blockchain & Bitcoin Conference Germany (Berlin), Blockchain & Bitcoin Conference Russia (Moscow), Blockchain & Bitcoin Conference Prague (Czech Republic), Armenia Blockchain Forum (Yerevan, Armenia), and IBM Think Summits (USA/Canada & China).

Her strengths and core competencies include a proven record of accomplishments in consensus building at all levels to assess, plan, and implement enterprise cloud computing solutions.
Robert Hariri
CEO, Celularity

Dr. Hariri is a visionary trauma neurosurgeon, scientist, aviator, military medicine expert and entrepreneur. The Founder, Chairman and former CEO of one of the world’s largest human cellular therapeutics companies, Dr. Hariri has pioneered the use of stem cells to treat a range of life threatening diseases. Dr. Hariri has over 170 issued and pending patents, has authored over 200 published chapters, articles and abstracts and is most recognized for his discovery of pluripotent stem cells from the placenta and as a member of the team which discovered TNF (tumor necrosis factor). Dr. Hariri received the Thomas Alva Edison Award in 2007 and 2011, and awarded the Pontifical medal and numerous other honors for his many contributions to biomedicine and aviation.

A jet-rated commercial pilot with over 7,000 of hours of flight time in over 60 different military and civilian aircraft, Dr. Hariri is a founder of the Rocket Racing League, an extreme aerospace corporation and Jet-A Aviation, a heavy-jet, tactical mission charter airline. Dr. Hariri serves on numerous Boards of Directors including Cryoport and Myos Corporation. Dr Hariri was a member of the Board of Visitors of the Columbia University School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, Science & Technology Council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and is a member of the scientific advisory board for the Archon X PRIZE for Genomics, awarded by the X Prize Foundation. Dr. Hariri is also a Trustee of the Liberty Science Center and has been appointed Commissioner of Cancer Research by NJ Governor Christie.

A member of the Intl Rugby League, Dr. Hariri is a Board Member of the Somerset Patriots, a minor league baseball team.

Dr. Hariri has also produced several feature films and documentaries which can be reviewed at www.imdb.com.

Specialties: Stem cell biology, Neurosurgery and neurotraumatology, Aerobatics and high performance aviation, Scuba Diving, Military Surgery/Battlefield Medicine
Asymmetric warfare

Jonathan Carrier
Vice-President, AeroMobil

At McLaren I worked with the CEO to establish McLaren Automotive as a super-car company, laying the product and marketing foundation for the company as responsible for brand, marketing and product strategy, actively involved in the development of MP4-12C and the P1.

As founder of InMotion Ventures I led the open innovation, investment and venture building activities, from strategy through to delivery, including deal structuring at seed and Series A. I built a high-performance culture and team, with P&L responsibility I was responsible for day-to-day operations as well as the strategic and operational interface with the JLR CEO and board.

At AeroMobil I lead the corporate development of a leading player in flying cars and air transportation as a service. I am responsible for fundraising activities and lead investor relations. I also lead corporate strategy activities to deliver business partnerships and wider eco-system engagement to make flying cars a profitable reality.

I am passionate about the changes taking place in the auto industry and continue to participate as a thought leader and contributor to mobility eco-system as non-exec director for Hiyacar, and advisor for Humanising Autonomy, an autonomous vehicle startup.

Entrepreneurial by nature and familiar with challenging convention, I am at the intersection of digital change in the auto industry, possessing deep knowledge of autonomous, connected, electric and shared (ACES) mobility.
Michael Grant
President, British Computer Society

Michael Grant first entered the technology field in the flight simulation industry. He then spent 25 years’ working in a variety of international marketing and corporate communications roles at director and vice-president level within six global IT companies: Gateway, Lotus Development, Commodore, ICL, Prime Computer and Wang. During this period he lived and worked in Australia, the Republic of Ireland and the USA.

Michael is a strong supporter of charity and the City of London. He was Clerk (CEO) and later became Master of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, a City Livery Company. The 800 members are senior leaders of the IT industry drawn from suppliers, educationalists, entrepreneurs, IT practitioners and other IT professionals, all of whom are giving their IT knowledge and skills back into society and worthy charities. Michael still sits on the Court of the Company and assists in their Education and Employment work through mentoring of schools and the men and women of the Forces.

This year Michael is President of the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, whose purpose is to promote and advance the education & practice of computing for the benefit of the public. With over 68,000 members they are a charity with a Royal Charter and an agenda to support the people who work in IT and to lead the industry through its ethical challenges. The BCS support IT careers, share members expertise, work to improve IT Education, influence practice and drive standards in the IT profession. His role is to Chair the Board of Trustees and other committees and to represent the IT profession and the BCS globally.

In recent years, Michael has worked in IT recruitment having founded his own pan European IT headhunting company. Today, he is an associate director of Harvey Nash PLC, one of the world’s leading IT services and recruitment organisations.

Michael’s current interests range from a Trustee of 15 schools within the University of Chichester Academy Trust, to an early supporter and user of Social Media, to dressing in his armour as a ‘Pikeman’ in the Lord Mayor of London’s ceremonial bodyguard at State and Civic occasions.
Mark Pivac
CTO, Fastbrick Robotics

Mark Pivac is the primary inventor of FBR’s automated bricklaying technology. He is an aeronautical and mechanical engineer with over 25 years’ experience working on the development of high technology equipment ranging from lightweight aircraft to heavy off-road equipment.

He has 20 years’ experience working with pro/engineer 3D CAD software as well as high-level mathematics, including matrix mathematics, robot transformations and vector mathematics for machine motion. Mark has also worked extensively with design, commissioning and fault finding on servo controlled motion systems achieving very high dynamic performance.
Abhinav Kandala
Experimental Quantum Computing, IBM

Dr. Abhinav Kandala is an experimental physicist in the quantum computing group at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, where his research has focused on the coherence and control of superconducting qubits, multi-qubit device characterization, and applications of near-term quantum computers.

Abhinav received his Bachelors degree in Engineering Physics from the Indian institute of Technology-Bombay, and a PhD in Physics from Pennsylvania State University. His graduate research was focused on a class of materials known as topological insulators, that are important candidates for dissipation-less interconnects, and topological quantum computing.

After receiving his PhD, Abhinav joined IBM Research, and during his post-doctoral stint, experimentally studied the applicability of a noisy superconducting quantum processor to simulate small molecules. This work was recognized by MIT Technology Review as one of 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2018 and by C&E News’ Research of the Year 2017.

His most recent work has focused on mitigating errors for computations performed on noisy quantum processors. His research has been covered by major tech outlets, including Bloomberg, Gizmodo, Science, and Chemistry World. In 2019, Abhinav was cited in MIT Technology Review’s list of 35 Innovators Under 35.

Prof. Dr. Ugur Sahin
CEO BioNTech

Prof. Ugur Sahin, M.D., co-founded BioNTech in 2008 and has served as our Chief Executive Officer since that time. Prof. Sahin also served as the head of the Scientific Advisory Board and Chief Medical Officer of Ganymed Pharmaceuticals AG from 2008 until the company was acquired by Astellas Pharma Inc., or Astellas, in 2016.

In 2010, Prof. Sahin co-founded TRON, and served as a Managing Director from 2010 until 2019. Prof. Sahin has also been a professor (W3) at the Mainz University Medical Center since 2014. Prof. Sahin co-founded the Ci3, the German Cluster Initiative of Individualized ImmunIntervention (Ci3), a non-profit organization. Prof. Sahin earned an MD in 1990 from the University of Cologne. Prof. Sahin is married to Dr. Özlem Türeci
Bruce Schneier

Bruce Schneier is an internationally renowned security technologist, called a “security guru” by the Economist. He is the author of 14 books — including the New York Times best-seller “Click Here to Kill Everybody” — as well as hundreds of articles, essays, and academic papers. His influential newsletter “Crypto-Gram” and blog “Schneier on Security” are read by over 250,000 people. Schneier is a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University; a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School; a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, AccessNow, and the Tor Project; and an advisory board member of EPIC and VerifiedVoting.org.
Katie Moussouris
CEO, Luta Security

Katie Moussouris is the founder and CEO of, Luta Security.

Ms. Moussouris testified last year as an expert on bug bounties and the labor market for security research for the US Senate, and has also been called upon for European Parliament hearings on dual- use technology.

She was later invited by the US State Department to help renegotiate the Wassenaar Arrangement, during which she successfully helped change the export control language to include technical exemptions for vulnerability disclosure and incident response.

She is a coauthor of an economic research paper on the labor market for bugs, published as a book chapter by MIT Press in 2017, and presented on the first system dynamics model of the vulnerability economy and exploit market in 2015, as part of her academic work as a visiting scholar at MIT Sloan School. She is also an author and co-editor of standards ISO 29147 Vulnerability disclosure and ISO 30111 Vulnerability handling processes.
Dr. Gareth Davies
CEO, Kwiziq

Dr. Gareth Davies (Gruff) is a pioneering British inventor, tech entrepreneur, author and PhD physicist.

He is the creator, co-founder and CEO of “Kwiziq“, an “AI language coach” which helps adults learn a foreign language up to ten times faster. Kwiziq is recognised as a leading British AI start-up. Gruff, and co-founder, Simon, won BMWi’s UK Tech Founder of the Year Award 2018 (EdTech category). Kwiziq has also been a top 3 finalist in CogX’s Best AI Product in Education Award, three years running.

As well as pioneering the use of AI in education, Gruff is a pioneer of ‘exergaming’. Seven years prior to Nintendo’s launch of the “Wii Fit”, he invented the world’s first interactive gaming-exercise bike, “Exertris”. Bill Gates presented the invention at CES 2003, describing it as “really quite amazing”. Gruff has appeared twice on BBC Tomorrow’s World, including once as a TV finalist for the Inventor of the Year Award. He was a semi-finalist in Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award the same year. Sadly, Exertris was forced to close in 2004, but Gruff recently revealed he has developed a new AI-enabled exergaming technology for smart phones: Beat Fitness Games will launch in Q4 this year.

Prior to Exertris, Gruff helped found Moonfruit, one of the UK’s best-known early-era dotcoms.

In his ‘spare time’ Gruff writes fiction and non-fiction. His debut novel, “The Looking Glass Club“, reached #1 on Amazon (SF> Mysteries and Crime), and was even read by Amazon’s CTO, Wernel Vogels. The novel is set at Imperial College, London, where Gruff studied physics.

Tom Vice
CEO, Aerion Supersonic

Tom is the Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Aerion Corporation. Aerion is a leader in supersonic civil aircraft and advanced design software tools and technologies.

Tom retired from Northrop Grumman after nearly 31 distinguished years of service with the company. He served as President of its Aerospace Systems sector, overseeing an $11 billion global advanced technology business with 23,000 employees. Aerospace Systems is a pioneer in space-based observatories, satellites, fully autonomous systems, combat aircraft, high-powered lasers, and microelectronics.

Previously, Tom was President of Northrop Grumman’s Technical Services sector, a leader in integrated logistics and modernization, defense and government services, and training solutions, with more than 19,500 employees in 300 locations in all 50 states and 29 countries.

Tom joined Northrop Grumman in 1986 as an engineer on the B-2 Stealth Bomber. Over the span of his career, he led nearly every aspect of the business: strategy, engineering, program management, advanced programs and technology, manufacturing and operations, supply chain management, business development, and information technology.

Tom earned a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Southern California.
He has completed numerous advanced management programs including MIT’s Corporate Strategy; Northwestern’s Value Creation through M&A; Caltech’s Management of Technology and Innovation; Caltech’s Strategic Marketing of Technology Products; UCLA’s Executive Marketing; and Defense Acquisition University’s Advanced Program Management course.

Tom serves on the board of directors of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA); the board of directors of Local Motors Industries, a technology-enabled manufacturer focus on mobility products; the board of Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum; the board of councilors for USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering; the board of advisors for Purdue University’s School of Astronautics and Aeronautics; and previously served on the board of governors for the USO and the board of trustees for the Florida Institute of Technology.

Tom is the recipient of the 2016 Daniel J. Epstein Engineering Management Award from the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering. The Engineering Management Award was founded in 1978 to recognize industry leaders who have made lasting contributions to science and engineering through exemplary professional accomplishments and contributions to the field of engineering management.

Tom and his wife, Kim, have been married for 32 years and have two daughters, Shannon and Hailey.
James Murdza
Founder, Silverwing Aeronautics

James Murdza is an American aerospace engineer and one of the founders of Silverwing Aeronautics, a startup providing electric, ultra-compact air transport for cargo and people.

Hooked on futuristic technology from a young age, James was involved with a number of entrepreneurial endeavors before graduating in Aerospace Engineering at the Delft University of Technology. These included consumer software products for Mac and iPhone, a Hyperloop vehicle, and finally Silverwing, which began as a small project conceived by a group of friends and finally took off in mid-2018 after winning several prizes funded by Boeing in the GoFly Prize.

While managing a team of over 30 students designing and building the first Silverwing S1, James gained essential non-technical experience in engineering project management, communication and business
David Kaiser
General Manager, Amazon Alexa

David Kaiser leads the Alexa Marketing and Evangelism Teams in Europe. He is responsible for building and executing the strategy to drive awareness, adoption, and engagement for Alexa Voice Service (AVS), Alexa Skills, and Alexa Automotive together with the Product and Engineering teams.

He has a long-time experience in cross functional roles and driving innovation. His career started with the development and distribution of Palm and Pocket PC software on one of the world’s first app stores, followed by building a consumer business for Europe’s largest private weather forecaster MeteoGroup. Afterwards, he managed the product strategy for one of the biggest dating companies worldwide.

David joined Amazon in 2016 as General Manager for Alexa Skills in Germany and Austria and mainly formed the Alexa skill business strategy in Europe.
Andy Clark
Design Innovation Director, Oracle

Helping customers to execute innovation in their respective markets, Andy works as part of a team that ensures we design solutions for customers that truly meet their needs.

Andy has worked at Oracle for nearly thirty years in a variety of roles. As well as working with customers who are striving to innovate, Andy works with a team of experienced solution engineers and interns on innovation projects such as The World Bee Project to investigate how emerging technologies and Oracle Cloud can contribute to solving significant global issues.

Part time hockey player, triathlete and coach, Andy is passionate about coaching and development and is never happier than when he is working with people who are striving to be the best they can be with what they have.

Dr. Richard Price
CTO, PragmatIC

Richard Price is co-Founder of PragmatIC and has over 20 years’ experience in technology commercialisation, focusing on printed electronics, process and materials. Richard has a BSc and PhD in Chemistry (Dunelm), specialising in organometallics, and has led PragmatIC’s development of FlexLogIC and FlexIC. He is inventor/co-inventor on >25 patent families.
Bernard Marr
Author and Futurist

Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. He helps organisations improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and leverage new technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, blockchains, and the Internet of Things.

LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers, and the No 1 influencer in the UK for 2018/2019. He is a frequent contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for Forbes. Every day Bernard actively engages his over 1.6 million social media followers and shares content that reaches millions of readers.
Anima Anandkumar
Director of Machine Learning Research, NVIDIA. Bren Prof, Caltech

Anima Anandkumar is the Director of ML Research at NVIDIA and Bren Professor at Caltech. She was previously a Principal Scientist at Amazon Web Services. She has received several honors such as the Alfred. P. Sloan Fellowship, NSF Career Award, Young investigator awards from DoD, and Faculty Fellowships from Microsoft, Google and Adobe. She is part of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network. She has co-authored more than 220 papers and cited about 5000 times
Dr. Mark Bentall
COO, Corporate Technology Office, Airbus

Mark Bentall has been working for Airbus for over 20 years and is currently Chief Operating Officer to the Corporate Technology Office.

As part of the CTO team Mark’s mission is the operational delivery of the CTO mission, objectives and targets including the R&T governance to ensure appropriate implementation, maintenance and analysis of the R&T portfolio by ensuring the R&T decision makers have the best information available in the right time.

Additionally the COO function provides the core competence, tooling, capability and environment to develop new concepts requiring eco-system evolution or new eco systems. Develop, grow and partner for new capabilities to secure the future in the area of Electrification. Acquire funding to establish and maintain external research collaborations with key partners. Scout Airbus and adjacent industries for positioning, innovative ideas, partnerships, technology, etc. On behalf of the group the COO also manages the Airbus innovation governance.

In previous roles Mark was Head of Technology, Development and Innovation for Airbus Defence and Space – Engineering, consolidating and coordinating the divisional product portfolio and R&D plan for the ExCom and providing independent technical insight. Head of the Group Innovations Research Centre for Communications and Automatic Flight, responsible for Airbus group-wide Communications Roadmap and created and ran the Airbus Defence & Space Technical Office. Mark is a Board Member of Innovation Point, supporting SME’s accessing research funding.

Steve Fuller
Professor, University of Warwick

Steve Fuller is Auguste Comte Professor of Social Epistemology in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick, UK.

The author of twenty-five books, much of Fuller’s recent work has been concerned with the future of humanity (or ‘Humanity 2.0’). His latest books are Post-Truth: Knowledge as a Power Game (Anthem, 2018) and Nietzschean Meditations: Untimely Thoughts at the Dawn of the Transhuman Era (Schwabe Verlag, 2019).

He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, the Royal Society of Arts and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.
David Keith
Founder, Carbon Engineering

David Keith has worked near the interface between climate science, energy technology, and public policy since ’91. Best known for his work on the science, technology, and public policy of solar geoengineering, David led the development of Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program.

He took first prize in Canada’s national physics prize exam, won MIT’s prize for excellence in experimental physics, and was one of TIME Magazine’s Heroes of the Environment. David is a Professor at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and at the Harvard Kennedy School, and founder of Carbon Engineering, a Canadian company developing technology to capture CO₂ from ambient air.
Wendy Nather
Head of Advisory CISO, Cisco

Wendy Nather is head of the Advisory CISO team at Duo Security (now Cisco). She was previously the Research Director at the Retail ISAC, as well as Research Director of the Information Security Practice at independent analyst firm 451 Research.

Wendy led IT security for the EMEA region of the investment banking division of Swiss Bank Corporation (now UBS), and served as CISO of the Texas Education Agency. She speaks regularly on topics ranging from threat intelligence to identity and access management, risk analysis, incident response, data security, and societal and privacy issues.

Wendy is co-author of The Cloud Security Rules, and was listed as one of SC Magazine’s Women in IT Security “Power Players” in 2014, as well as an “Influencer” in the Reboot Leadership Awards in 2018.
Martina King
CEO, Featurespace

Martina is responsible for the strategic direction and corporate vision at Featurespace. She has served as CEO since October, 2012. Former Executive roles include: Managing Director of augmented reality company Aurasma, Managing Director of Capital Radio PLC, where was a key contributor to the trebling of the radio industry’s advertising revenue and successfully defended the radio station’s number one position in London. Martina was also Managing Director of Yahoo! Europe where she led the team to rebuild the European business after the ‘dot com’ collapse.

Her portfolio career included 5 FTSE Non-Executive roles, where she chaired 2 Remuneration Committees.

Antony Jenkins
Founder & Executive Chairman, 10x Future Technologies

As the Founder & Executive Chair of 10x Future Technologies Group, Antony defines our vision to make banking 10x better.

Antony’s focus on driving innovation in the digital economy also extends to his role as Group Chairman of Currencies Direct, the leading UK non-bank provider of foreign exchange and international payment services; and his role as a board member of Blockchain, the world’s leading software platform for digital assets.

He is a Board Director of Fannie Mae, sitting on the US mortgage lender’s Strategic Initiatives and Technology Committee as Vice Chair, the Audit Committee and the Risk Policy and Capital Committee.

Antony is a strong believer in the need for businesses to support the future workforce to acquire the right skills to thrive in the digital era; his commitment to education is recognised in his role as Chair of the Institute for Apprenticeships, an employer-led organisation established to promote high-quality apprenticeships by 2020.

He was previously the Group CEO of Barclays plc for three years until July 2015.

Antony holds an MA from the University of Oxford and an MBA from Cranfield.
David Excell
Founder, Featurespace

David co-founded Featurespace with Prof. Bill Fitzgerald when he was studying for his PhD at Cambridge University. David oversees our US business and the core development of Featurespace’s enterprise Adaptive Behavioral Analytic solutions. He has more than 15 years’ experience in software development and turning research into commercial reality. Under his leadership, Featurespace has grown from a concept into a commercial success with blue-chip company customers. Before founding Featurespace, David graduated with honours from Australian National University, completing degrees in Engineering and Information Technology. He has been awarded more than ten prizes and scholarships for his academic and commercial achievements, including the 2011 ITC Enterprise Award for Young Entrepreneur.
Nell Watson
Faculty, Singularity University, Chairman, EthicsNet

Eleanor ‘Nell’ Watson is a Machine Intelligence specialist, educator, and tech philosopher who grew up in Northern Ireland.

She helped to develop pioneering Machine Vision techniques at her company Poikos (now QuantaCorp), which enables fast and accurate body measurement from two photos. Later she decided to teach these techniques to others, as author of Machine Intelligence coursebooks for O’Reilly Media.

Nell serves as Vice-Chairman of the IEEE P7001 Committee creating new safety standards for autonomous systems, and Chair of Transparency Experts Focus Group at the IEEE Standards Association Ethics Certification Programme. She is also the Co-Founder and Chairman of EthicsNet.org, a community teaching pro-social behaviors to machines.

She serves as a Senior Scientific Advisor to The Future Society at Harvard, and holds Fellowships with the British Computing Society, and Royal Statistical Society, among others.
Charbel Aoun
AI City Managing Director, NVIDIA

Charbel Aoun has spent more than two decades in Fortune 100 and technology startups. Bringing transformation to living and working conditions in urban environments. Charbel has also spent 10 years researching, implementing and advising companies on a range of topics he is passionate about from smart cities to digitization and urban transformation.

A strong believer in the possibilities for positive change as technology is applied in the modern world, Charbel is currently a board member of Future Cities Catapult. He aslo serves on the boards and advisory councils for several startup businesses as well as market leading organizations.

Charbel previously worked as Chief of Sales and Strategy Officer at Enevo, an IOT startup which he joined from Schneider Electric where he was Global President & CEO of their Smart Cities business. For five years prior to that he was Managing Director for Cisco EMEA’s Smart and Connected Communities practice. He has also worked as a Senior Director at Accenture Government Services

Victor Riparbelli
CEO, Synthesia

Victor Riparbelli is the CEO of London based AI-startup Synthesia. Their mission is to develop powerful AI video tools that maximise human creativity and minimise harmful use of AI.

Synthesia technology enables brands and creators to automatically generate personalised, localised and interactive video content for their audiences. They recently delivered a campaign for Malaria No More featuring David Beckham that received more than 500m impressions.
Vishal Chatrath
CEO Prowler

Vishal is a serial entrepreneur and global manager whose work experience spans fundamental research, manufacturing, operations, R&D, product management, corporate strategy and business development. He has lived in 18 cities in six countries, ranging from the equator to the arctic.
Jamie Brooker
Founder, Kahoot!

Jamie Brooker is an entrepreneur and creative leader best known as Co-Founder of Kahoot!, one of the world’s fastest growing learning brands with more than 2 billion players since launch.

As a Founding Partner at We Are Human he creates new businesses with social and commercial impact, whilst advising and investing in others.
Ethan Ng
CEO, BiKi

Ethan Ng is the CEO of BiKi.com Southeast Asia, BiKi.com is one of the fastest growing crypto exchange and ranking in the top 30 exchanges. He was also the Marketing Lead of Huobi Global, leading the team into market expansions in different markets, he was the organizer of Blockchain Festival Vietnam, garnering 1626 attendees, 30 vip speakers and 52 media delegates.

Prior to this, he was a digital strategist in the banking sector and growth specialist in startups. Ethan graduated with Bachelor of Business Marketing from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino
Designswarm

Alexandra is an internet of things author, consultant, public speaker and entrepreneur with a background in industrial and interaction design.

She wrote ‘Smarter Homes: how technology will change your home life’ (Apress, 2018) was the first UK distributor of the Arduino and is the founder of the Good Night Lamp which is in the permanent collection of the London Design Museum. Her projects are also part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

She has been organising the London Internet of Things Meetup since 2011. She was named 1st in a list of 100 Internet of Things Influencers (Postscapes, 2016), 2nd in Top 100 Internet of Things Thought Leaders (Onalytica, 2014) and in the Top 100 Influencial Tech Women on Twitter (Business Insider, 2014). She’s been included in the longlist of Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Women in Tech in the UK (2017, 2018 & 2019).

Her clients have included ING Labs Bulb, The Wellcome Trust, Victoria & Albert Museum, P&G, Connected Digital Economy Catapult, Danish Ministry of Urban & Rural Affairs, BBC R&D, Nokia, American Express, BT, EDF, BFI, British Gas, Mozilla Foundation, Wired, Evening Standard, Arup, National Geographic,Y&R, Dare Digital, Hyper Happen, W+K.
Wilhelm Myrer
CEO, Empower

Wilhelm Myrer is the Founder & CEO of Empower and a tech enthusiast with passion for Blockchain/DLT , Renewable Energy, and Business development.

Empower aims to build a global plastic waste recycling ecosystem powered by blockchain technology. Wilhelm is also the Chairman of the Oslo Blockchain Cluster and the Blockchain driven start-up Race for Climate.
Clare Jones
CCO, What3words

What3words is the world’s first addressing system designed for voice – every 3m x 3m square in the world has been assigned an address made of just three words from the dictionary. These 3 word addresses can be used to route cars or drones, used as an address when ordering online, or simply given as a meeting point for a picnic in the park. what3words is used in 170 countries and is being adopted by governments all around the world as an official addressing system. Its investors include Daimler, Intel Capital, Aramex and Deutsche Bahn.

Clare is the CCO of what3words; prior to this, her background was in the development and growth of social enterprises, including in impact investing. She is interested in how innovative business models can tackle social and environmental challenges and is involved in social enterprises in the UK and abroad. Clare also volunteers with the Streetlink project, doing health outreach work with vulnerable women in South London.
Maxine Mackintosh
The Alan Turing Institute

Maxine is an researcher at the Alan Turing Institute and University College London’s Institute of Health Informatics. Her work involves using medical records to uncover early signs of dementia. She is interested in how we might make better use of routinely collected data to inform our understanding of health and diseases. Maxine is also the co-founder of One HealthTech – a community which champions and supports underrepresented groups, particularly women, to be the future leaders in health innovation.

Her professional work has led her to the Royal Society, Roche, L’Oreal, Department for International Development, and NHS England. She is part of a number of communities and committees including the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers, and the British Computer Society (Health Exec). She really really likes fancy dress.

Nick Ogden
Founder, ClearBank

An entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience in banking, payments and fintech, Nick Ogden invented ecommerce in 1994 building the first e-commerce store the Wine Warehouse.

Nick is the founder of ClearBank and a main board director. ClearBank® is the first new UK clearing bank in 250 years.

Prior to ClearBank, Nick founded and led two other Fintech companies. The most notable of these is WorldPay, which he launched in 1997. The first internet payment service to guarantee transactions worldwide, Nick led WorldPay to grow to over 270 employees, and 20,000 customers across 120 countries and e-commerce transactions more than $2 billion per year. During its development from 1994, Nick Created BarclaySquare, a Joint venture with Barclays Bank which was the first bank endorsed e-commerce shopping mall in the world.

Following Worldpay, Nick founded the Voice Commerce Group, which launched VoicePay a biometric payments platform in 2007. VCG became the UK’s first non-bank payments institution, in 2009. Re-branded as Cashflows, it became the first European non-bank principal member of VISA and Mastercard and an agency bank under agreement with HSBC.

Nick has been recognised for many industry awards including the UK Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the Computer World Global IT Leaders award, the ID People Awards, the National Business Awards UK Entrepreneur of the Year, The EPA 2017 Payments Industry Contributor of the Year Award and the 2107 Banking Technology Tech Leadership Award. Nick was the winner of the 2018 Payments Pioneer Awards and highly commended in the City AM UK Entrepreneur of the Year Award. In 2019 Nick was selected to present at The World’s Top 50 Innovators, a CODEX initiative held at the Royal Society in London.

In addition to his ClearBank® roles, Nick is non-executive chairman, of ING backed Funding Options, and a non-executive director of Visa® backed ShieldPay.
Dr. William Bateman
CEO, CCell Technologies

Will has a PhD and degree in Civil & Environmental Engineering, both from Imperial College London and is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of IMarEST. He has worked for a range of multinational engineering and finance organisations, including General Dynamics, Lloyd’s Register (LR) and Risk Management Solutions. However, his focus for the last five years has centred around the development of marine technologies to build artificial reefs, which can be used to protect beaches, support corals and enhance marine aquaculture.
Kristoffer Famm
President, Galvani Bioelectronics

Kris is president of Galvani Bioelectronics, a joint venture between GSK and Verily Life Sciences to pioneer precision neuromodulation as a new treatment modality. He’s overall responsible for Galvani’s efforts to deliver new therapies to patients, including the current development of electronic implants and the transition into a clinical-stage company.

Before his appointment to lead Galvani, he was founding VP and head of Bioelectronics R&D at GSK. During his time at GSK he also headed up the R&D Strategy Group and the Protein Degradation Discovery Performance Unit.

Kris obtained his PhD in Molecular Biology at University of Cambridge with Sir Greg Winter, following an MSc in Chemical Engineering at Lund University, Sweden. Before joining GSK, he worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.
Richard Davies
COO, Revolut

Richard Davies joined Revolut in July 2019 as COO, and leads a range of transformation work for the group. Previously Richard has worked in senior roles at HSBC, TSB and Barclays and was the first CEO of challenger bank OakNorth.

Revolut is a radically better digital bank account that includes a debit card, currency exchange, and peer-to-peer payments. We are on a mission to build a fair and frictionless platform to use and manage money around the world. Our platform allows users to transfer, exchange, and spend money at great value rates with a multi currency card that is accepted everywhere.

Adrian Griffiths
CEO, Recycling Technologies

Adrian is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Recycling Technologies Ltd, a company dedicated to creating value from plastic waste and making plastic a truly sustainable material. “You can help solve the problem of plastic in our oceans, by making waste plastic valuable on land” Adrian says.

Adrian graduated as an engineer from Imperial College and spent many years in the automotive, aerospace and nuclear sectors. He worked as a consultant and engineering manager in a variety of sectors and has extensive strategic planning, commercial, operations and technical experience. He previously co-founded two successful UK businesses, OEE Consulting and Vendigital. The Company has developed and patented a mass producible, modular RT7000 machine that can be shipped and installed at existing waste sites around the globe to recycle plastic back into an oil, Plaxx®. Plaxx® is suitable as a feedstock for use in the manufacturing of new plastic.
Dr. Xiang Cao
CEO, Wonder Painter

Dr. Xiang Cao is the founder and CEO of Xiaoxiaoniu Creative Technologies and an expert in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) technologies.

Before founding Xiaoxiaoniu, he had been a director and senior research staff member at Lenovo Research, a researcher at Microsoft Research, and a fellow at the University of Cambridge.

He received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University, published over 50 academic papers, and filed over 40 patents internationally.

“Created for your Creativity,” Xiaoxiaoniu’s Wonder Painer technologies (www.wonderpainter.net) helps everyone turn their imagination into playful interactive experiences in the context of education and entertainment.
Karin Bjerde
Kognity

Karin Bjerde is Head of Strategic Growth at Kognity, and a true global citizen having lived abroad most of her life. She has been named one of the world’s 75 future global leaders by Goldman Sachs and the Institute of International Education, and is now channeling this to challenge, rethink, and ultimately improve existing norms in education, firmly believing in the power of combining technology and pedagogy. Karin has a MSc in Economics, and worked at Morgan Stanley for 4 years before joining Kognity.
Sumit Kishore
Head Of Operations, ConsenSys Poland

Sumit is working as a Head of Operations for ConsenSys Poland, and also works as a Product Head for regulatory and compliance service platform for digital assets (crypto assets) and building an AML KYT solutions.

Sumit has over 15 years of work experience in the Finance, Credit & Risk Control , Assets & Fund Management, Investment banking business processes and Technology/Product development sectors. Sumit is an Entrepreneur by heart and has a passion for bringing positive changes in the world using advanced technology and business strategies.

Sumit is one of the early adopters of the Blockchain technology and has hands on experience in building the Blockchain technology based software solution for the financial industry. Sumit has expertise in the Product and Process Development especially using the Blockchain technology.

Sumit has worked in Investment banking for over 6 years; where he was working at global banks such as BNY Mellon and Citibank. He was handling Funds Management, Middle office functions, Reconciliation, Supervising teams, running projects for process improvements & development.

Maya Al Sid Cheikh
Microplastics expert, Plymouth University

My research centres on understanding the fate and behaviour of emerging contaminants in environmental interface compartments such as chemistry/biology, freshwater/seawater (coastal), and wetlands. To answer my questions, I draw on tools from radiolabelling, analytical and synthesis chemistry techniques that I build from my previous experiences.

My research at the university of Plymouth as a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Biological and Marine Sciences focus on developing methods to track micro- and nanoplastics using radiolabelling approach and nuclear techniques, which I will continue to perform at the University of Surrey as a permanent lecturer.

Prior to joining the University of Plymouth, I was a visiting scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG, Zurich, Switzerland) where I developed a method for quantification of nanoparticles in environmental samples by automated electron microscopy.

I completed my doctoral studies in Geochemistry within the Department of Geosciences at the University of Rennes I (France), where I worked on the impact of engineered iron oxides nanoparticles on the fate and behaviours of traces elements and organic matter in wetland soil. I hold two MSc degrees: i) Analytical Chemistry from the University of Toulon (France) with a research project hosted at the University of Bordeaux I (France) on the extraction and characterisation of the marine organic matter and ii) Chemical Oceanography from the University of Quebec at Rimouski (UQAR, Canada), where I developed a radiolabelling synthesis of silver nanoparticles to track them in marine organisms. I also hold a BSc degree in Chemistry from the University of Poitiers (France).
Dr. Richard Price
CTO, PragmatIC

Richard Price is co-Founder of PragmatIC and has over 20 years’ experience in technology commercialisation, focusing on printed electronics, process and materials. Richard has a BSc and PhD in Chemistry (Dunelm), specialising in organometallics, and has led PragmatIC’s development of FlexLogIC and FlexIC. He is inventor/co-inventor on >25 patent families.