Recognized worldwide as one of the leading experts in artificial intelligence, Yoshua Bengio is most known for his pioneering work in deep learning, earning him the 2018 A.M. Turing Award, “the Nobel Prize of Computing,” with Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun.

He is a Full Professor at Université de Montréal, and the Founder and Scientific Director of Mila – Quebec AI Institute. He co-directs the CIFAR Learning in Machines & Brains program as Senior Fellow and acts as Scientific Director of IVADO.

In 2019, he was awarded the prestigious Killam Prize and in 2022, became the computer scientist with the highest h-index in the world. He is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of London and Canada, Knight of the Legion of Honor of France and Officer of the Order of Canada.

Concerned about the social impact of AI and the objective that AI benefits all, he actively contributed to the Montreal Declaration for the Responsible Development of Artificial Intelligence.

Joelle Pineau is a faculty member at Mila and an Associate Professor and William Dawson Scholar at the School of Computer Science at McGill University, where she co-directs the Reasoning and Learning Lab. She is also co-Managing Director of Facebook AI Research, where she oversees the labs in Montreal, Seattle, Pittsburgh, and Menlo Park.

She holds a BASc in Engineering from the University of Waterloo, and an MSc and PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Pineau’s research focuses on developing new models and algorithms for planning and learning in complex partially-observable domains. She also works on applying these algorithms to complex problems in robotics, health care, games and conversational agents. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research and the Journal of Machine Learning Research and is Past-President of the International Machine Learning Society. She is a recipient of NSERC’s E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship (2018), a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), a Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), a member of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists by the Royal Society of Canada, and a 2019 recipient of the Governor General’s Innovation Awards.

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.

Alyssa Lefaivre is the Director of Partnerships and Market Development at the Responsible AI Institute (RAII). RAII is a community-driven non-profit organization working to advance trustworthy, safe, and fair AI. With over 12 years of experience in business and partnership development primarily in emerging tech, Alyssa has a strong understanding of the opportunities and challenges associated with the adoption of innovation tools and services. Recognizing that people are at the heart of these technologies, she has been successful in supporting both individuals and companies through various aspects of digital transformation.  

In her spare time, Alyssa sits on the board for Global Woman of Vision and NorQuest’s Workforce Advisory Committee.She always strives to be a conscious connector of people who are pursuing their purpose with passion, authenticity and gratitude.

Andrew oversees Global Impact Initiatives at Planet, working to ensure that the company’s data, products and services achieve their highest humanitarian, sustainable development and scientific potential. He works closely with all parts of the company and with the United Nations, NGOs, philanthropies, conservation organizations, and disaster response entities to incubate and deliver new forms of social and environmental impact. Andrew is also the author of the bestselling book Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back. He received a BA in Cognitive and Computer Science at Vassar College, and did graduate studies in foresight at the University of Houston

Alka Roy is a Bay Area innovator, technologist, author, keynote speaker, and independent advisor who guides and coaches industry leaders, entrepreneurs and policy makers to make awesome organizations, products, and tech. Alka is on the 100 Brilliant Women in AI & Ethics List and a recipient of the Rising Star, National Women of Color in Technology Outstanding Contribution Award and was invited to speak to the US AI Commission. Two questions preoccupy her: How are we designing our world? And how is that design, designing us?  

As a product and technology leader, Alka has built and launched over 100+ Wireless, Cloud & AI products working with startups and Fortune 500 companies. She has evaluated and coached hundreds of AI and emerging tech startups as well as briefed and advised Universities, Policy Makers & Industry Leaders on Emerging Tech, Gen AI and Innovation. 

She is also the founder of Responsible Innovation (RI) Labs and The Responsible Innovation Project where she is investigating new paradigms and models for leadership in emerging tech and innovation. Her Responsible Innovation Framework has appeared in a peer-reviewed academic journal and in Forbes. Alka holds patents for policy and security frameworks and has lectured at UC Berkeley in Silicon Valley. Her online courses on 5G & AI and Ethics in AI & Data Science for the Linux Foundation have been accessed globally in over 83 countries/regions. She has served on advisory boards for startups, industry groups, nonprofits, and human rights organizations. In addition to Computer Science & Electrical Engineering degrees, Alka also holds an MFA in creative writing & literature.

Fiona J McEvoy is an AI ethics writer, researcher, speaker, and thought leader based in San Francisco, CA. She was named one of the 30 Women Influencing AI in San Francisco by RE•WORK, and was recently honored in the inaugural Brilliant Women in AI Ethics™ Hall of Fame, established at the end of 2020 to recognize “brilliant women who have made exceptional contributions to the space of AI Ethics and diversity.”

Fiona is the founder of YouTheData.com, a platform for the discussion of the societal impact of tech and AI, and she has had numerous articles published in media outlets including Slate, VentureBeat, The Next Web, Offscreen, and All Turtles.  Fiona is also regularly asked to present her ideas to AI conferences across the US and internationally, and in recent years has addressed events in Canada, Spain, Portugal, and Mexico. Her work has been referenced in books, including Francine Banner’s Crowdsourcing the Law, David Vance’s Business Essentials, and Jeff Mapua’s Virtual Reality and You.

Fiona holds a graduate degree in Philosophy, with a special focus on ethics and technology.

Irina Rish is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science and Operations Research Department at the Université de Montréal (UdeM) and a core faculty member of MILA – Quebec AI Institute. She holds Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Autonomous AI and a Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Canada AI Chair. She received her MSc and PhD in AI from University of California, Irvine and MSc in Applied Mathematics from Moscow Gubkin Institute. Dr. Rish’s research focus is on machine learning, neural data analysis and neuroscience-inspired AI. Before joining UdeM and MILA in 2019, Irina was a research scientist at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, where she worked on various projects at the intersection of neuroscience and AI and led the Neuro-AI challenge.

She received multiple IBM awards, including IBM Eminence & Excellence Award and IBM Outstanding Innovation Award in 2018, IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award in 2017, and IBM Research Accomplishment Award in 2009. Dr. Rish holds 64 patents, has published over 80 research papers in peer-reviewed conferences and journals, several book chapters, three edited books, and a monograph on Sparse Modeling.