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.

Fiona Tan is Wayfair’s Chief Technology Officer, and oversees a global innovation team responsible for creating market-leading experiences through its world-class e-commerce platform. Prior to Wayfair, Fiona served as senior vice president of U.S. Technology at Walmart where she was responsible for innovation and engineering execution spanning its site, mobile app and all associate and merchant-facing technology across its e-commerce and stores business in the U.S. Her prior roles at Walmart include senior vice president of Customer Technology and vice president of Engineering. Prior to Walmart, Fiona served in a number of leadership roles at Ariba, where she led a global engineering organization responsible for the strategy, lifecycle, and delivery of the Ariba Commerce Network, as well as TIBCO Software. Fiona has a master’s degree in Computer Science from Stanford and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from MIT.

Jason Snyder is a globally recognized inventor, technologist, and futurist, serving as the Global CTO of Momentum Worldwide, a leading brand experience and experiential commerce agency. In this role, he drives the integration of AI, data, and emerging technologies to transform how brands connect with consumers in physical and digital spaces.

As chair of the 4A’s AI Committee for large agencies, Snyder plays a pivotal role in shaping the future of AI in advertising, guiding the industry toward responsible and effective AI adoption. A champion of ethical AI, he actively participates in global conversations on responsible AI development. His involvement in the UN Forum on Sustainability & Emerging Tech and leadership within the AI Core Leadership Council for Interpublic underscore his commitment to ensuring AI is deployed with integrity across industries.

Snyder also serves on the board of The Famous Group, a leader in immersive live event experiences, where AI is transforming how audiences engage with professional sports, esports, concerts, festivals, and brand activations. The company leverages AI-driven augmented reality, real-time data integration, and personalized fan engagement to create next-generation experiences across stadiums, arenas, and digital platforms.

Beyond his executive roles, Snyder is a frequent television commentator, appearing as a subject matter expert on AI, emerging technology, and innovation. As a Forbes contributor, he writes about AI, data, and the future of technology, helping shape the discourse on innovation in business and society.

His leadership is defined not only by his deep technological expertise but also by his dedication to AI as a force for good. Through thought leadership, industry advocacy, and the development of ethical AI frameworks, Snyder continues to drive AI’s future, ensuring its transformative and responsible impact.

*Chandra Donelson is speaking in her personal capacity.

Brief Bio: Wendell Wallach has an international reputation as an expert on the ethics and governance of emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence and biotechnologies. While semi-retired, he continues to consult and accepts speaking engagements.  From 2020-2024, he was Carnegie/Uehiro Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs (CCEIA)  where he founded and co-directed (with Anja Kaspersen) the AI and Equality Initiative. He is also senior advisor to The Hastings Center and a scholar at the Yale University Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics where he chaired Technology and Ethics studies for eleven years. Wallach’s latest book, a primer on emerging technologies, is entitled, A Dangerous Master: How to keep technology from slipping beyond our control. He co-authored (with Colin Allen) Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right From Wrong.  The World Technology Award for Ethics was awarded to Wendell in 2014 and for Journalism and Media in 2015, He was appointed Fulbright Research Chair at the University of Ottawa in 2015-2016. The World Economic Forum appointed Mr. Wallach co-chair of its Global Future Council on Technology, Values, and Policy for the 2016-2018 term. More recently, Wallach has been referred to as, “a Godfather of AI Ethics.”

Raquel Urtasun is Founder and CEO of Waabi, a company pioneering generative AI for the physical world, first by applying this technology to overhaul the autonomous trucking industry. Raquel is also a Full Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto and a co-founder of the Vector Institute for AI. Raquel earned her Ph.D. from the Computer Science department at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 2006 and did her postdoc at MIT and UC Berkeley. In 2024, she was named a fellow of The Royal Society of Canada for her contributions to computer science and was included on the CNBC Changemakers: Women Transforming Business list. In 2023, she was named one of the TIME100 Most Influential People in AI, made Business Insider’s AI 100 list of Top People in AI, and was awarded the Ontario Chamber of Commerce’s Emerging Tech CEO Award and the Order of Ontario, the highest civilian honor in the province.

Bill DeWeese is CTO of Airia, a pioneering enterprise AI platform for data and document processing and intelligent workflows. Prior to Airia, Bill was part of the advanced R&D team at AirWatch, contributing to its growth and $1.54B acquisition by VMware in 2014. He then founded Aviation Mobile Apps, driving mobile application development for the aerospace industry. Bill’s innovative work has resulted in 30 U.S. Patents and applications. With nearly three decades in the tech industry, he leads the development of multimodal AI systems leveraging cutting-edge NLP, computer vision, and machine learning technologies. He has completed executive Business Strategy and Entrepreneurship programs at Cornell University and advanced AI and Machine Learning programs at MIT. As an accomplished private pilot, Bill brings a unique perspective to the intersection of AI, aviation, and mobile technologies.

Andrej Zdravkovic is senior vice president of GPU Technologies and Engineering (G&E) Software and Chief Software Officer, managing the global G&E Software team and driving AMD’s software development strategy and processes.

With more than 30 years of industry experience and deep software expertise, Zdravkovic rejoined AMD in November 2015 as corporate vice president of Global Software Development. Since then, Andrej has delivered a clear software vision that drives differentiated features and supports critical customer programs as well as improved end-user ratings and performance of AMD Radeon software.

Prior to AMD, Zdravkovic was senior vice president at Giesecke & Devrient, leading worldwide Software Solutions from 2009-2015. Before Giesecke & Devrient, Andrej was senior director of software for graphics and multimedia, product integration, customer engineering and customer project management at AMD, which he joined in 1998, then known as ATI.

Zdravkovic holds a Bachelor and Master of Science in electrical engineering from Belgrade University, as well as a professional engineer designation with the Professional Engineers of Ontario and Senior Member status with IEEE.

Rob Petrosino is a seasoned digital transformation expert and strategic advisor with over 10 years of experience guiding leading global organizations through technology-driven innovation. His expertise spans various industries, including retail, manufacturing, education, and B2B, where he has successfully launched innovative revenue streams through cutting-edge products and scalable services.

Currently, Rob leads Custom & Emerging Technologies teams, specializing in spatial computing, digital twins, executive strategy, and machine learning. He excels in translating complex technological advancements into practical, growth-focused strategies that inspire innovation and efficiency within established businesses.

As a recognized thought leader, Rob frequently delivers keynote presentations to prominent audiences within the U.S. government, including the FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, DOJ, CIO Council, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence. His engaging talks emphasize actionable insights and practical applications of emerging technologies, highlighting their transformative potential.

Pamela Snively is the Chief Data & Trust Officer at TELUS. She leads the team responsible for privacy governance and data ethics, along with data management and a number of compliance functions, including the Anti-bribery & Corruption and Competition Law programs. Pam approaches overall data governance through the lens of customer trust, leveraging TELUS’ Customer First principle to drive the organization’s commitment to privacy and data ethics.

Pamela was the recipient of the 2017 Ontario Bar Association’s Karen Spector Memorial Award for Excellence in Privacy Law. She participates in a number of national and international think-tanks and governance bodies related to privacy and data governance, including serving as a Board member for the Information Accountability Foundation and on the Privacy and Data Advisory Committee for the Canadian Marketing Association. She is also a founding member and Chair of Canada’s Business Privacy Group, a working group made up of some of Canada’s leading privacy professionals and industry associations focused on building trust in Canada’s digital ecosystem and legislative regime.

Pam is a frequent speaker on privacy and data ethics and she actively encourages other organizations to join her in her mission to earn and elevate consumer trust in our digital ecosystem.

Durga Kota is the Chief Technology Officer for the Americas region and is responsible for leading the strategies to translate Fujitsu technology innovation into differentiated and industry-ready solutions for the region’s customers.

Throughout his 24-year career, Durga has held customer-facing, consultative solution-selling, and technology leadership roles. His collaborative spirit and deep technical expertise enable him to build trust, work in true partnership with customers, and provide solution leadership that leverages advanced technologies to solve even the most complex challenges.

Durga holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), Delhi, and a B.Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering from the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, India.

Dr. Helia Mohammadi is the Chief Data Scientist and Health & Life Sciences Industry Lead for Microsoft Canada. With close to 20 years of experience in research and applied AI, her work has deeply influenced key domains in healthcare, including medical image processing, genomics research, and precision medicine.

Dr. Mohammadi is an inventor and thought leader in the AI, healthcare, and research industry, with numerous patents and publications to her credit. She is an active member of the Responsible AI Office for Microsoft Canada and serves on several advisory boards, including Women in AI. She spearheads digital transformation and fosters AI adoption strategy.

Dr. Mohammadi has received several distinguished awards and recognitions, including the “Top 30 Influential Women Advancing AI in Canada.” Her passion lies in empowering the healthcare and research community to positively impact patient and medical professional quality of life. Her expertise in the intersection between technology and healthcare makes her a sought-after speaker and a valuable asset to the healthcare and AI communities.

Dr. Helia Mohammadi is the Chief Data Scientist and Health & Life Sciences Industry Lead for Microsoft Canada. With close to 20 years of experience in research and applied AI, her work has deeply influenced key domains in healthcare, including medical image processing, genomics research, and precision medicine.

Dr. Mohammadi is an inventor and thought leader in the AI, healthcare, and research industry, with numerous patents and publications to her credit. She is an active member of the Responsible AI Office for Microsoft Canada and serves on several advisory boards, including Women in AI. She spearheads digital transformation and fosters AI adoption strategy.

Dr. Mohammadi has received several distinguished awards and recognitions, including the “Top 30 Influential Women Advancing AI in Canada.” Her passion lies in empowering the healthcare and research community to positively impact patient and medical professional quality of life. Her expertise in the intersection between technology and healthcare makes her a sought-after speaker and a valuable asset to the healthcare and AI communities.

Ritesh leads Autodesk’s Analytics Data & Machine Learning Platform team, delivering trusted AI solutions and personalized customer experiences through efficient and reliable data insights. He is a seasoned technologist with over 25 years in the software industry and more than 18 years of experience building and designing scalable applications and platforms. Ritesh was CEO and founder of XyLeo Labs, a real-time data analytics startup that created big data solutions for Fortune 500 companies. Before XyLeo Labs, he was co-founder and CTO of Fuze, a leader in the mobile and web collaboration industry.

Alicia is a technology innovator in the space and robotics sectors developing and successfully launching systems for NASA, NOAA and Commercial customers in the Telecommunications and Mining sectors both in space and on Earth. In her new startup Orbital Outpost X, Alicia is leading as CTO the development of AI driven smart components for autonomous builds in space. Alicia previously led as Co-Founder and CTO OffWorld, a robotics startup developing AI based mobile robots for extreme environments on Earth as a precursor to Lunar, Martian, asteroid, and free space applications. Alicia’s background in AI, robotics, space and software systems, has heavily influenced her approach to the development of distributed architectures for terrestrial and space applications, with several patents to her name in key technologies. Alicia holds a MSc. and PhD from Stanford University and a BSc. in Theoretical Physics from UAM, Spain.

Krish Banerjee, is the Data and AI Lead for Accenture in Canada, where he leads a team of Data, Analytics and AI practitioners. Krish has more than 20 years of experience working across several industries, as advisor to C-suite executives and helping them shape their Data & AI journey and driving value through large and complex transformation programs.
Krish has an Engineering degree in Computer Science and completed his Executive Management in Finance and Marketing. In his 20+ years of career, Krish has lived and worked across the globe, in UK, Sweden, Japan and US.

With 27 years of experience, Karine Courtemanche is a trailblazer known for driving innovation and large-scale transformation. Named Media Leader of the Year in Canada in 2024, she has spearheaded initiatives that have redefined agency operations and strengthened client partnerships. Her leadership, visionary approach, and unwavering commitment to advancing the media industry have earned her international recognition and led her teams to prestigious accolades, including honors at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and the Media Innovation Awards. Courtemanche’s impact extends beyond results—she is actively redefining industry practices as Chair of the Canadian Media Directors’ Council, where she champions ethical standards and sustainable partnerships. Her data-driven and collaborative approach continues to set new benchmarks for excellence, solidifying her role as a leader shaping the future of media and communications.

With two decades of marketing expertise, Véronique Dumas stands as a dynamic Chief Marketing Officer at Alliance de l’industrie touristique du Québec, celebrated for her innovative strategies and results-oriented leadership. Throughout her distinguished career, Véronique has consistently pushed boundaries and delivered impactful results across diverse sectors, earning recognition as a transformative leader in North American and European markets. Her profound knowledge encompasses CRM, digital innovation, and brand elevation. Previously, at a major entertainment and hospitality organization, Véronique spearheaded significant marketing growth and spearheaded transformative initiatives. Driven by her entrepreneurial spirit and global perspective, Véronique continues to shape the future of marketing and drive impactful advancements for Alliance de l’industrie touristique du Québec and the broader tourism landscape.

Phil Lorenz is the Chief Technology Officer at Basecamp Research, leading a team at the forefront of AI and Genomics, building the largest “map of life on earth” ever assembled. He studied molecular biology and genetics at the University of Oxford before shifting to a PhD in genomics and AI. He has taught computational biology at Oxford and worked in AI-driven drug discovery with small and large pharmaceutical companies. Since the founding of Basecamp Research, he has focused on bioinformatics, deep learning, and knowledge graphs. Basecamp Research, with offices in London and Boston, has raised over $85 million to develop the largest commercial biodiscovery program. Its proprietary genomic data, collected from more than 100 locations across 25 countries, powers AI models that advance protein and genome design, unlocking intellectual property and solutions beyond conventional reach.

Tal Arbel is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, where she is the Director of the Probabilistic Vision Group and Medical Imaging Lab in the Centre for Intelligent Machines, McGill University. She is a Canada CIFAR AI Chair and Core Member of MILA, She is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. She is also an Associate Member of the Goodman Cancer Research Centre. Prof. Arbel’s research focuses on development of probabilistic, deep learning methods in computer vision and medical image analysis, for a wide range of real-world applications, with a focus on neurological diseases. She is a recipient of the 2019 McGill Engineering Christophe Pierre Research Award. She regularly serves on the organizing team of major international conferences in computer vision and in medical image analysis (e.g. MICCAI, MIDL, ICCV, CVPR). She is currently the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of the arXiv overlay journal: Machine Learning for Biomedical Imaging (MELBA).

Loni Mahanta is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Legal Officer for aiEDU: The AI Education Project. In her role, she oversees finance, HR, operations, legal affairs, advocacy, external relations and communications. Loni is also a Nonresident Fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings, where she focuses on tech policy and emerging tech. Loni most recently served as the Vice President, Policy and Government Affairs at OpenSea.io, an NFT marketplace. Loni previously served as the VP, Government Relations and Public Policy at Zillow, where she worked to modernize and simplify the real estate journey for consumers by building a seamless end-to-end experience. Prior to Zillow, Loni spent six years at Lyft, serving, among other roles, as the Vice President of Future of Work, navigating the complexities of the gig economy and the changing nature of work.

Hadi Skalli is a Managing Director for Accenture Data & AI in Quebec, where he leads a team of Data, Analytics, and AI practitioners working closely with industry, functional and technology experts. Hadi has more than 15 years of experience helping clients to strategize, plan, and execute large transformation programs aiming at re-inventing their businesses using Data and AI. Prior to leading the Quebec practice, he has worked with clients across industries in Canada, US, and Europe. Hadi is passionate about motivating and engaging his team to tackle exciting challenges together and is dedicated to delivering the greatest value to clients faster than ever before. Hadi has an Engineering degree in Electrical Engineering.

As the managing director of the IAPP’s AI Governance Center, Casovan serves as the primary thought leader and public voice for the IAPP on AI governance, while providing strategic direction and contributions to the development of practical, relevant and timely content for the AIGC. Casovan will lead the AIGC engagement efforts with industry leaders, senior policy makers, regulators and international organizations to ensure AI governance is top of mind when discussing AI’s potential.

Through roles in the public sector at the municipal and federal levels, Casovan developed expertise in responsible AI, standards, policy, open government and data governance. As the former director of data and digital for the government of Canada, Casovan previously led the development of the world’s first national government policy for responsible AI.

Building from this work, Casovan served as the Executive Director of the Responsible AI Institute, a multi-stakeholder non-profit dedicated to mitigating harm from the use of AI systems, a member of OECD’s AI Policy Observatory Network of Experts, a member of the World Economic Forum’s AI Governance Alliance, an Executive Board Member of the International Centre of Expertise in Montréal on Artificial Intelligence and as a member of the IFIP/IP3 Global Industry Council within the UN.

Marc Silberman is a Partner at Comcast Ventures, where he focuses on AI and cybersecurity investments. Prior to CV, Marc led Corporate Development at FirstMark Capital, where he partnered with the firm’s portfolio companies to drive top-line growth and accelerate go-to-market initiatives. He has nearly a decade of experience both operating and investing in high-growth technology businesses. On the operating side, Marc has held roles spanning growth strategy, operations, and finance at several New York-based technology companies, including CLEAR (NYSE: YOU), a biometric technology platform, and BuzzFeed (NASDAQ: BZFD), the global news and entertainment company. He was also previously a venture investor at Time Warner Investments, a media-focused corporate venture capital fund. Marc holds a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University with a double major in Applied Economics & Management and Communication.

Patrick St-Amant is the Chief Technology Officer and cofounder of Zetane Systems based in Montréal where he leads teams of Data Scientists and AI practitioners. Patrick is the inventor of Zetane’s technology and built the first MVP of ZetaForge, Zetane Protector and Zetane Insight Engine. He has led many end-to-end machine learning projects with industrial clients and partners in the fields of defense, aerospace, construction, simulation and manufacturing driving immense value and innovation through explainable solutions for high stakes AI applications.

Patrick has been a popular guest speaker at previous WSAI conferences, at ONNX community meetings and at the US AI for Defense summit additionally a workshop facilitator to senior leadership teams in the industry. Before founding Zetane, he was a mathematics professor at the Collégial international Saint-Anne and researcher in number theory, set theory and the foundations of mathematics. He pursued doctoral studies in mathematics, category theories and foundation of computing at the University of Ottawa. He was invited to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton where he presented his work on a universal mathematical language. He holds a M.Sc. in computer science and foundational mathematics from UQAM and is the inventor behind the patent “Scalable Transform Processing Unit for Heterogeneous Data”.

Aleksandra Faust is a Director of Research at Google DeepMind. Her research is centered around safe and scalable autonomous systems for social good, including reinforcement learning, planning, and control for robotics, autonomous driving, and digital assistants. Previously, Aleksandra co-founded Reinforcement Learning Research in Google Brain, founded Task and Motion Planning research in Robotics at Google, and machine learning for self-driving car planning and controls in Waymo, and was a senior researcher in Sandia National Laboratories. She earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of New Mexico with distinction, and a Master’s in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Aleksandra won the IEEE RAS Early Career Award for Industry, the Tom L. Popejoy Award for the best doctoral dissertation at the University of New Mexico in the period of 2011-2014, and was named Distinguished Alumna by the University of New Mexico School of Engineering. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, The Economist, Forbes Magazine, PC Magazine, and ​was awarded Best Paper in Service Robotics at ICRA 2018, Best Paper in Reinforcement Learning for Real Life (RL4RL) at ICML 2019, Best Paper of IEEE Computer Architecture Letters in 2020, and IEEE Micro Top Picks 2023 Honorable Mention.

Guillaume is a serial corporate entrepreneur who brings 25 years of leadership experience from technology-driven industries, including aerospace, healthcare, defense and modeling and simulation. He was President and CEO of Presagis, Founder and CEO of CAE Healthcare, held various senior leadership roles at CAE Inc., is a highly sought-after consultant in strategic planning and innovation, and successfully published Winning at Intrapreneurship. Guillaume has also been very active mentoring founders of technology start-ups at FounderFuel, Techstars, Concordia District 3, and CTS Health and is Chairman of the Board of CTS Health and CMLabs.

Peter is a Partner in the Risk Services practice of PwC Canada with over 25 years of experience. He leads PwC’s National Digital Risk Services practice and is a member of the Extended Assurance Leadership Team.

Peter has taken on several leadership roles in both PwC Canada and the PwC global network in the areas of enterprise transformation, cybersecurity compliance, AI Trust and cloud technology enabled risk offerings. He has been appointed Global Enterprise Technologies Risk Capability Leader. He also leads PwC Canada’s emerging digital technologies markets and risk assurance delivery strategy. Has consulted with provincial regulators and standard setters in helping to shape evaluation criteria for new markets entrance in the emerging tech space. Speaker on various emerging technology topics at Audit Committees and marquee business conferences.

Peter is also the global IT audit partner for some of PwC most iconic audit clients focused on security, risks and controls associated with enterprise systems. He led various ERP implementations, go live support engagements and post implementation reviews across clients pursuing transformation.

Peter volunteers in his community, has been appointed Board Director of Mackenzie Health and Chair of the Finance & Audit Committee and member of the HR Committee. Contributes to the accounting profession as member of CPA Canada’s Audit & Assurance Technology Committee and CPA & AICPA AI Trust Task Force. He was also a member of York University’s advisory panel for Graduate program in Professional Accounting. Had served on the Board of IT Alliance for CPA Canada.

Peter was recognized by CPA Ontario as Fellow CPA- CA in 2021 due to his substantial contributions to the profession, academia and community.

Bruce has led digital and AI/data organizations across a variety of high-technology companies in the Aerospace, Video Game and Telecom sectors over the last 20 years. Most recently, Bruce was the Managing Director, Enterprise Data and Artificial Intelligence at Air Canada, where he led a team of Data, Analytics and AI professionals that built and deployed into production more than 15 AI-based solutions across the airline in the last 4 years. Based in Montreal, Bruce currently works in an advisory role to companies at the early stage of adopting AI, and specifically Agentic AI, in their organization. Bruce holds bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics from Bishop’s University in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

Scot Bryson is a sustainable infrastructure architect and the founder of Orbital Farm, an industrial project development company focused on designing circular industrial projects decarbonize critical infrastructure. His work spans energy, water, thermal management, sustainable chemistry, food and the built environment, which are directly relevant to the future of high-efficiency, low-impact data center design.

As General Partner at Impactful Capital, Scot leads investments into transformative industrial projects, with a focus on projects that reduce emissions at scale. He works closely with global partners to advance the deployment of sustainable hydrogen production, next-gen cooling systems, waste heat reuse technologies and modular infrastructure, key components for the data centers of tomorrow.

Scot is also an advisor to NASA supporting advanced technology initiatives and systems integration. He has authored peer-reviewed publications in the field of life support and space systems engineering, and he co-authored an upcoming book alongside NASA scientists.

By bridging space-grade systems thinking with terrestrial industrial design and large infrastructure finance, Scot is helping redefine what sustainable infrastructure can be.

Shalaleh Rismani is the Executive Director of the Open Roboethics Institute (ORI), a Canadian nonprofit dedicated to examining the ethical and societal implications of robotics and automation. She leads ORI’s efforts in fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, building learning communities, and developing resources to help stakeholders assess the impact of robotics on society.

Beyond her work at ORI, Shalaleh is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer and Electrical Engineering at McGill University and Mila Quebec AI Institute. Her research focuses on system safety and human-computer interaction, with an emphasis on enhancing safety engineering frameworks to address risks in increasingly autonomous systems.

Luke Ballantine is a passionate technologist, futurist, and AI advocate serving as the Technology Director for AKQA, the renowned global design and innovation company.

Based in New Zealand, he leads the technology offering across both Auckland and Wellington studios, and chairs the company’s AI Guild for the APAC region.

Luke has over 30 years of experience at the forefront of technology innovation, and has worked for companies of varying sizes in both the UK and New Zealand.

He will be sharing his insights on one of the most challenging and innovative AI projects ever delivered by AKQA – a unique blend of art, science and cutting edge AI for Netflix that was It’s What’s Inside: The Game.

Alyssa Lefaivre Škopac is the Director of AI Trust & Safety at the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii), one of Canada‘s leading research institutions for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. In this role, Alyssa bridges the gap between groundbreaking AI research and its responsible real-world application, ensuring that innovations in AI are developed and deployed ethically, safely, and with public trust at the forefront.

Alyssa plays a pivotal role in Amii’s contributions to the Canadian Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute (CAISI), a national initiative dedicated to addressing the risks posed by advanced AI systems and fostering public trust in AI. She provides strategic leadership, champions responsible AI practices, and engages with national and global stakeholders to position Amii as a key voice in international AI safety conversations. Her work involves building partnerships with researchers, industry leaders, and policymakers to develop practical frameworks for responsible AI governance.

Biography: Comp. Sci. Dipl. Eng. from the National Institute for Applied Sciences, Jérémie Farret specializes in complex computing and simulation architectures. He has worked for more than 30 years in France, the United States and Canada in parallel processing, high performance computing, and real-time applications for visual and physics simulation in Medical Imaging, Intelligent Networks, Transportation, Tele-Operation and Robotics, Supply Chain and Industry 4.0. Jérémie is recognized for his involvement in several high-profile AI and Cybersecurity projects, including Scale AI projects in supply-chain optimization as well as cybersecurity projects in telecommunications in Canada and abroad (south-east Asia), and currently a transatlantic LLM project supported by the Sargasso program, GALICIA, with Italian structures Novareckon and HAL Service. Jérémie is also active in international standardization with contributions to the Standard Council of Canada activity since 2005, and ongoing activities in Additive Manufacturing (ISO/TC 261 and ASTM F42).

With over 30 years of leadership experience spanning telecommunications, healthcare, business consulting, and higher education, Dr. Kevin Jones brings a unique, cross-sector perspective to the evolving conversation on AI and organizational transformation. His areas of expertise include organizational change, performance improvement, and strategic innovation.
A sought-after speaker and recognized thought leader, Dr. Jones has presented at global conferences in Canada, the UAE, Qatar, and the Netherlands. He frequently contributes to academic and industry publications, offering bold insights that challenge traditional thinking and promote transformative approaches. He has also appeared on prominent podcasts, including the Regulating AI Podcast with Sanjay Puri.
At Indiana University Columbus, Dr. Jones serves as Associate Professor of Management and Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning. He co-led the Indiana University Generative AI Task Force, playing a pivotal role in guiding the university’s strategy for responsible and effective integration of AI technologies in teaching, learning, and research.
Blending extensive industry experience with academic depth, Dr. Jones is a leading voice at the intersection of management, AI, and organizational performance, advancing critical dialogue around the competencies, structures, and cultures needed to thrive in the Age of Accelerated Transformation.

Brad is the Director of Wireless Technology at Bell Canada where he is responsible for developing and introducing new wireless technology into the radio access network (RAN). Key aspects of his development programs are applying AI and ML into the RAN.

Lewis Stott works at the intersection of AI, business strategy, and global partnerships. An early hire at Cohere following its Series A raise, he has been working in the LLM space long before it became widely recognized. Over the past three years, he has played a key role in shaping Cohere’s growth, working with some of its largest international customers across enterprise and government.

His work includes securing investment from major international VC firms and sovereign wealth funds, developing go-to-market strategies, and refining pricing models to drive adoption. He also navigates complex partnerships and procurement processes, helping scale AI deployment for enterprise and public-sector clients worldwide.

Before Cohere, Lewis worked in AI consulting and technical delivery, collaborating with global financial institutions, technology firms, and policymakers. He holds an MSc in Management from the University of Bath, UK.

Dr. Nadia Naffi is an Associate Professor of Educational Technology at Université Laval and holds the Chair in Educational Leadership in Innovative Pedagogical Practices in Digital Contexts – National Bank. She also co-leads the Education and Empowerment axis at the International Observatory on the Societal Impacts of AI and Digital Technologies (OBVIA).
Her current research is twofold. First, she investigates how to ethically and inclusively integrate AI into organizational learning by empowering leaders in capacity development by, through, and with AI—enabling them to design agile, human-centered, and future-proof learning ecosystems. Second, she explores how education can foster digital agency to counter AI-generated disinformation and malicious deepfakes, helping individuals across generations build critical resilience in an age of synthetic media.
Bridging human performance improvement, digital capacity building, and societal well-being, Dr. Naffi’s work redefines what it means to learn, lead, and collaborate in AI-powered environments. She is dedicated to cultivating an interdisciplinary, multigenerational, and globally competent workforce ready to thrive in human-machine symbiosis. Her leadership has earned her prestigious distinctions, including the Governor General’s Gold Medal of Canada, the SALTISE Award for Pedagogical Innovation, and the John F. Lemieux Young Alumni Medal from Concordia University.

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.

As Chief Decision Scientist at Google Cloud, Cassie Kozyrkov advises leadership teams on decision process, AI strategy, and building data-driven organizations. She is the innovator behind bringing the practice of Decision Intelligence to Google, personally training over 20,000 Googlers. Prior to joining Google, Cassie worked as a data scientist and consultant. She holds degrees in mathematical statistics, economics, psychology, and neuroscience.

Daphne Koller brings to insitro her many years of experience in the areas of machine learning, statistical modeling, computational biology, and computational medicine. She was the Rajeev Motwani Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where she was hired as the first machine learning professor in 1995 and served on the faculty for 18 years. Her work in machine learning spans a broad range of topics, including probabilistic graphical models, structured prediction, active learning, time series modeling, reinforcement learning, and many more. She was also one of the pioneers in applying machine learning to biomedical data sets and has worked on topics such as reconstruction of regulatory networks, phenotypic effects of genetic variation, and interpretation of microscopy images in cancer. She is the author of over 200 refereed publications appearing in diverse venues such as NIPS, ICML, Science, Cell, and Nature Genetics, and has an h-index of over 120. She is also the author of the leading textbook on Probabilistic Graphical Models.

Daphne co-founded Coursera in 2012, where she served as the company’s Co-CEO until 2014, and then as President until 2016. Coursera is the world’s largest online education platform with over 30 million learners worldwide, and over 150 university partners in six continents. She is currently the Co-Chair of the Coursera Board. Most recently, Daphne served as the Chief Computing Officer at Calico Labs, an Alphabet (Google) company that is using advanced technology to understand aging and design interventions that help people lead longer, healthier lives.

Daphne was recognized as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2012 and Newsweek’s 10 most important people in 2010. She has been honored with multiple awards and fellowships during her career including the Sloan Foundation Faculty Fellowship in 1996, the ONR Young Investigator Award in 1998, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 1999, the IJCAI Computers and Thought Award in 2001, the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2004, and the ACM Prize in Computing in 2008. Daphne was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2011 and elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014 and of the International Society of Computational Biology in 2017.

Dr. Steve Chien (ai.jpl.nasa.gov) is a JPL Fellow, Senior Research Scientist, and Head of the Artificial Intelligence Group, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.  He has led the deployment of AI software to a wide range of missions including: Autonomous Sciencecraft on EO-1, Earth Observing Sensorweb, WATCH on MER, IPEX, ESA’s Rosetta, ECOSTRESS, OCO-3, and the M2020 Perseverance Rover.

 
Dr. Chien has received numerous awards for these efforts.  He has been recognized four times in the NASA Software of the Year competition (1999, 1999, 2005, and 2011).  He has received four NASA Medals for his work in AI for Space (1997, 2000, 2007, 2015).  In 2011 He was awarded the inaugural AIAA Intelligent Systems Award, for his contributions to Spacecraft Autonomy.

Dr. Chien has advised numerous entities including the U.S. Office of the Undersecretary of Defense, the Defense Sciences Board, USAF Scientific Advisory Board, National Research Council, and the United States Senate.  He was a Commissioner for the National Security Commision on Artificial Intelligence (nscai.gov).

Dr. Alejandro Correa Bahnsen is the Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer at RappiBank. With a passion for machine learning, he considers himself a technology evangelist of data science. He has more than a decade of experience applying the use and development of Artificial Intelligence to real-world issues such as cybersecurity, risk management, and marketing.

In addition to advising the RappiBank executive team and its partners on unique data science challenges, Alejandro manages the AI and risk teams. He creates and develops machine learning algorithms related to credit risk, customer churn, user identification, fraud detection and growth. He is constantly working to improve RappiBank’s products with data science and artificial intelligence capabilities. Prior to joining Rappi, he worked at Cyxtera Technologies as Vice President of Research, a leading cybersecurity company, where he was responsible for the creation of next generation anti-fraud tools and algorithms. 

Alejandro is also an Adjunct Professor in the Industrial Engineering department of Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, where he teaches Deep Learning and Applied Data Science classes for the undergraduate and masters programs. He holds a PhD in Machine Learning and Pattern Recognition from Luxembourg University and has published over 20 academic and industrial papers in noteworthy, peer-reviewed publications. Furthermore, he holds 7 US patents on the usage of Artificial Intelligence in Fraud and Cybersecurity.

Dr. Vindell Washington joined Verily in January 2020 as the Chief Clinical Officer for the Verily Health Platforms group, as well as the CEO for Onduo. In these roles, Dr. Washington is responsible for clinical thought leadership, strategic planning, and high level product development. He focuses on strategies that will enable advanced technology solutions for healthcare transformation, engaging internal and external partners in developing tools and platforms for improving health outcomes and reducing costs of care.

Previously, Dr. Washington worked as the Chief Medical Officer for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana from 2017-2019, where he served as clinical thought leader and spokesperson and was responsible for developing and executing a strategy that both improves the quality of health care delivered to the company’s members and improves cost and efficiency. As CMO, he was directly responsible for managing an integrated clinical operation that includes utilization management, case management, population health management, quality management and pharmacy management. In addition, he was responsible for network management, provider contracting, and value based payment innovation.

Prior to his tenure at BCBS, Dr. Washington led clinical teams and health IT initiatives as national coordinator for healthcare information technology in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Prior to that, Washington was at the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System in Baton Rouge for more than seven years, leaving as president of the medical group, which includes more than 500 medical providers and 1,400 employees. While at the health system, he also served as vice president of performance excellence and technology and chief medical information officer.

Washington is a board-certified emergency medicine physician and a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians. Before coming to Baton Rouge, he served as chief executive officer of Piedmont Emergency Medicine Associates, a large private group in Charlotte, North Carolina.

He received his undergraduate degree from Pennsylvania State University and his medical degree from the University of Virginia. He also received a Master of Science degree in healthcare management from the Harvard University School of Public Health.

Washington and his wife, Kimberly, live in Baton Rouge and have four daughters, two of whom work in medicine.

Doina Precup splits her time between McGill University, where she holds a Canada-CIFAR AI chair in the School of Computer Science, and DeepMind Montreal, where she has been leading the research team since its formation in October 2017. 

Dr. Precup obtained her Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2000. She became a senior member of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in 2015, Canada Research Chair in Machine Learning in 2016 and Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research in 2017. Her main research interests are in reinforcement learning, focusing on temporal abstraction and improving generalization and efficiency, as well as applying machine learning to real-world problems, especially in the medical domain. Dr. Precup’s research has received outstanding paper awards at AAAI’2017 and NeurIPS’2021, as well as the Classic Paper award of the Artificial Intelligence Journal in 2019.

Dr. Precup is co-founder and advisor of the AI4Good Lab, an outreach program which aims to improve gender diversity in machine learning since 2017. Dr. Precup is also a core member of Mila (the Quebec AI Institute), and is involved in activities supporting the wider Montreal and Quebec AI ecosystem.

Deepak Agarwal is a vice president of engineering at LinkedIn where he is responsible for all AI efforts across the company. He is well known for his work on recommender systems and has published a book on the topic. He has published extensively in top-tier computer science conferences and has coauthored several patents. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and has served on the Executive Committee of Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD). Deepak regularly serves on program committees of various conferences in the field of AI and computer science. He is also an associate editor of two flagship statistics journals.

Dr. Shalini Ghosh is a Principal Research Scientist at Amazon Science in the Alexa AI team. She has 15+ years of experience as an ML researcher, specializing in machine learning/deep learning with applications to various domains, e.g., natural language, speech, computer vision, multimodal AI, security, and trustworthy systems. Previously, Dr. Ghosh was a Director/Principal Scientist in Samsung Research America for 2+ years, where she led a Multimodal AI team and R&D team for video understanding in Samsung Smart TV. Prior to that, Dr. Ghosh was a Principal Scientist at SRI International where she worked on applying machine learning to a broad set of domains. She was also a Visiting Scientist at Google Research, where she worked with the Google Brain team on large-scale language understanding and dialog modeling. Dr. Ghosh got her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. She serves as Area Chair for multiple ML conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML), and her research has won a Best Paper award and a Best Student Paper Runner-up award for applications of ML to dependable computing. She is the lead/co-author of 45+ publications, was selected as one of the “30 Influential Women Advancing AI” in 2019, was an Invited Speaker at the KDD Conference, and her ReWork talk was selected as one of the “Top 5 AI talks” in 2020.  More information about her work can be found at http://shalinighosh.com/.

Alex `Sandy’ Pentland directs MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory and the MIT Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program, co-leads the World Economic Forum Big Data and Personal Data initiatives, and is a founding member of the Advisory Boards for Nissan, Motorola Mobility, Telefonica, and a variety of start-up firms. He has previously helped create and direct MIT’s Media Laboratory, the Media Lab Asia laboratories at the Indian Institutes of Technology, and Strong Hospital’s Center for Future Health. 

He is on the Board of the UN Foundations’ Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, co-led the World Economic Forum discussion in Davos that led to the EU privacy regulation GDPR, and was central in forging the transparency and accountability mechanisms in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.  He has received numerous awards and prizes such as the McKinsey Award from Harvard Business Review, the 40th Anniversary of the Internet from DARPA, and the Brandeis Award for work in privacy.

In 2012 Forbes named Sandy one of the `seven most powerful data scientists in the world’, along with Google founders and the CTO of the United States, and in 2013 he won the McKinsey Award from Harvard Business Review.  He is among the most-cited computational scientists in the world, and a pioneer in computational social science, organizational engineering, wearable computing (Google Glass), image understanding, and modern biometrics. His research has been featured in Nature, Science, and Harvard Business Review, as well as being the focus of TV features on BBC World, Discover and Science channels.  

A former Deputy Minister at the Treasury Board of Canada, President and CEO, Alex now leads Microsoft’s global strategies for government cloud adoption. Prior to this, he led the national digital transformation practice at a Big Four firm. 

Alex Benay is an expert in the digital economy, digital strategy, and digital policy. Alex is known for his ability to lead and execute complex transformations, uniting diverse stakeholders from multiple levels and industries, often with divergent interests, to drive results quickly. 

Fluent in English and French, as well as a published author, he is a recognized global leader in digital transformation with senior level experience in both the public and private sectors. 

Alex serves on the board of the World Wide Web Foundation, an international not-for-profit organization established in 2009 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee (the inventor of the web). The World Wide Web Foundation, is the leading advocate for a web as a public good and basic right for everyone and its initiatives include the Contract for the Web, the Alliance for Affordable Internet, and the Women’s Rights Online network, For more information, see https://webfoundation.org/. 

Finally, he is also the co-founder (alongside Jim Balsillie), of the CIO Strategy Council, a group of 70+ CIOs from various industries, which helps to shape the national technology agenda of Canada, including national technology standards to increase global competitiveness in banks, governments, and other sectors.

Tobias Rees is Founding Director of the Transformations of the Human program at the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles; Reid Hoffman Professor at Parsons/the New School in New York; and a Fellow of the Canadian Institute For Advanced Research (CIFAR).

Previously he held positions at the University of Zurich/Switzerland and at McGill University in Montreal/Canada, where he served as William Dawson Chair.

He holds degrees in philosophy (Heidelberg/Germany); anthropology (Berkeley/USA); and neurobiology (Paris/France).

Rees is a globally recognized expert on the history of thought – on how the categories that silently structure our ways of thinking and doing emerged and changed over time.
His research focuses on how events –– the sudden or slow and accumulative emergence of the unanticipated –– undermine such categories of though and transform the previously taken for granted into questions no one has answers for.
More specifically, he is interested in how such events reconfigure or render obsolete the categories of the human, of nature, and of technology.

Alone and together with colleagues Rees has sought to build new conceptual and institutional possibilities for rendering visible the philosophical, aesthetic, and political stakes of contemporary technology and science.

He has worked as advisor to many North American and European Universities on how to re-invent the human sciences and has collaborated with curators and museums around the world.

Rees has a long-standing history of working with artists.