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).

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 15,000 Googlers. Prior to joining Google, Cassie worked as a data scientist and consultant. She holds degrees in mathematical statistics, economics, psychology, and neuroscience.

Renée Cummings is a criminologist, criminal psychologist, therapeutic jurisprudence specialist, AI ethicist and the historic first Data Activist in Residence, at The School of Data Science, University of Virginia. 

Renée is also a community scholar at Columbia University. Advocating for AI we can trust, more diverse, equitable, and inclusive AI, she is on the frontline of ethical AI, generating real time responses to many of the consequences of AI.

Renée also specializes in AI risk management, justice-oriented AI, social justice AI, AI policy and governance, and using AI to save lives. She is committed to using AI to empower and transform communities by helping governments and organizations navigate the AI landscape and develop future AI leaders.

Renée works at the intersection of AI, criminal justice, racial justice, social justice, design justice, epidemiological and urban criminology, and public health. She has extensive experience in trauma-informed justice interventions, homicide reduction, gun and gang violence prevention, juvenile justice, evidence-based policing and law enforcement leadership. Her work extends to rehabilitation, re-entry and reducing recidivism. 

Renée is committed to fusing AI with criminal justice for ethical real time solutions to improve law enforcement accountability and transparency, reduce violence, enhance public safety, public health, and quality of life. 

A thought-leader, motivational speaker, and mentor, Renée is an articulate, dynamic, and passionate speaker who has mastered the art of creative storytelling and deconstructing complex topics into critical everyday conversations that inform and inspire.

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.

Sam is responsible for delivering innovations in the 25Bn Beauty and Personal Care business across the Skin Care & Cleansing, Prestige, Deodorants, Hair and Oral Care categories. This includes disruptive technologies, external facing scientific authority, insights and claims, underpinned by leading edge scientific expertise and enabling capabilities. She is also responsible for clinical testing across the business which supports disruptive superior claims, and new fundamental understanding.

Prior to Unilever, Sam has over 20 years of experience across Pharmaceuticals and Consumer Healthcare, all focused on innovation. She spent a decade at Johnson & Johnson leading discovery research in the consumer sector, initially on beauty/skin needs then later leading innovation and claims strategy for the baby business. Sam became a fellow of J&J in 2009 and won the prestigious Johnson’s Medal in 2014. Prior to J&J, Sam spent 11 years at Merck focusing on infectious disease, in the area of Malaria, and natural product antibacterial discovery.

She received her MS from Seton Hall University, her PhD from University of Dundee and became a fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 2016. When she is not learning something new in science, she spends time with her husband, three children, a goofy dog, and as much outside time as possible, for where there is nature there is beauty.

Michael Gilfix is the VP of Product Management for Data & AI and Chief Product Officer for Cloud Paks. His product management responsibilities cover a range of software technologies from data management, data integration, MDM, metadata management and privacy, data science, business analytics, and Watson technologies. In his Chief Product Officer role, he is responsible for defining and driving the next generation platform across all of Cloud & Cognitive software at IBM. In prior roles, he led product management for the Automation division, affecting the change in strategy from focus on cloud integration technologies to automation of all types. Prior to that he had general management responsibility for Digital Business Automation, overseeing product management, engineering, support, and design. He has had numerous roles throughout his career at IBM from software development to sales to services.

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.

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. 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/.

Dr. Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR). A sociologist by training, her work centers on the data used in new computational technologies, and the ways in which these data exacerbate racial, gender, and class inequality. She also works in the area of social movements, focusing on the dynamics of anti-racist campus protest in the US and Canada.

Dr. Hanna has published widely in top-tier venues across the social sciences, including the journals Mobilization, American Behavioral Scientist, and Big Data & Society, and top-tier computer science conferences such as CSCW, FAccT, and NeurIPS. Dr. Hanna serves as a co-chair of Sociologists for Trans Justice, as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies, and sits on the advisory board for the Human Rights Data Analysis Group and the Scholars Council for the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. FastCompany included Dr. Hanna as part of their 2021 Queer 50, and she has been featured in the Cal Academy of Sciences New Science exhibit, which highlights queer and trans scientists of color.

Krish Banerjee, is the Country Managing Director for Accenture Applied Intelligence 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 & Analytics 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.

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.

Betsy Greytok is Vice President of Ethics & Policy in the Chief Privacy Office for IBM. She works closely with the IBM AI Ethics Board developing principles, practices and policies driving the ethical development and deployment of technology. Prior to joining the CPO, Betsy was Senior Counsel for IBM and lead a legal team providing business unit support for IBM global mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IP Partnerships, and other complex alliance transactions. She was Synergy Counsel for the Red Hat acquisition, aligning key compliance measures while maintaining Red Hat’s separate identity and culture. Betsy joined IBM in 1999 after working as a trial lawyer. She has provided legal support for various IBM practices & offerings including OEM Channel Sales, Cloud & Cognitive Systems, Power Systems, and the AIX operating system.

As one of Forbes “15 AI Ethics Leaders Showing The World The Way Of The Future”, Elizabeth M. Adams is a highly-sought-after resource in business and professional circles for executives, small business owners, non-profits, institutions of higher learning, and community leaders from all sectors of society, looking to expand their knowledge of AI Ethics and Leadership of Responsible AI™. For over two decades, she has studied the science of business and technology influences on society while leading large-scale technology initiatives for Fortune 500 companies and various government organizations. As a scholar-practitioner, Elizabeth has developed her expertise by interviewing, observing, advising, and working alongside successful technical and non-technical leaders, creating alliances with community that translate theory into results. Elizabeth is pursuing a doctoral degree at Pepperdine University with a research focus on Leadership of Responsible AI™. Elizabeth serves as the Global Chief AI Culture & Ethics Officer for Women in AI, where she volunteers her time building a world-class team and program to support the needs of 8,000 women worldwide.

With more than 20 years of international experience in both the academic and private sectors, Catalina Lopez-Correa’s deep understanding of genomics and innovation has inspired leaders in science and industry to collaborate toward solving some of the world’s greatest challenges.

Before taking on her role as Chief Scientific Officer in July 2021, she served as Executive Director of the Canadian COVID-19 Genomics Network (CanCOGeN).

Dr. Lopez-Correa holds a Medical degree from the UPB in Colombia, a Master’s degree in Human Genetics from Paris V University in France, a PhD in Medical Biosciences from the KULeuven in Belgium, a mini MBA from McGill University in Canada and has trained in innovation leadership at Singularity University.

Before joining Genome Canada, Dr. Lopez-Correa was Chief Operating Officer at Ruta N Medellin. In this capacity, she coordinated the operations of a world class innovation hub that uses cutting edge technologies and approaches to solve the city’s most pressing social and economic challenges. With Ruta N, she supported SMEs, universities and governmental initiatives aiming at putting innovation at the forefront of economic and social development. Prior to joining Ruta N, Dr. Lopez-Correa was the CSO and Vice-President Sectors at Genome British Columbia (2016-2019) and  CSO and Vice-president Scientific Affairs at Genome Quebec (2008-2015), where she was instrumental in developing competitive teams for national and provincial research and innovation initiatives raising the profile of Canadian genomics on the global stage.

Before becoming one of Canada’s leading advocates for genomics, and an international leader in using innovation to solve world challenges, Dr. Lopez-Correa held senior research positions with pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly in the US, the renowned deCODE genetics lab in Iceland and two biotech companies in the UK (Genomica and Informax).

As part of her commitment to international development, Dr. Lopez-Correa has championed several initiatives aimed at demonstrating the impact of genomics and innovation in developing countries. She is also fully committed to advance equity, diversity and inclusion, with a particular interest in gender equity in science that led her to be a co-founder of the IWS Network (International and Immigrant Women in Science).

Dr. Lopez-Correa’s work has been recognized with several awards. In 2017 she received the Canadian Senate 150th Anniversary Medal. In 2013 she was recognized by National Order of Merit Award in the Rank of Officer, appointed by the Honorable President of the Republic of Colombia. In 2012 she was recognized as one of the 100 Colombians living abroad that have been highly successful on their professional career.

Dominique Malenfant was appointed Executive Vice-President and Chief Information and Technology Officer in September 2020. Based in Montreal, Dominique is responsible to deliver CN’s technology strategy, with a focus on automation technology and the digitalization of CN’s network and operations.

Dominique has spent nearly 30 years in global leadership roles in the transportation and rail industries. In his most recent role, Dominique was Senior Vice-President, Engineering and Chief Technology Officer at Wabtec Corporation. Prior to his position at Wabtec Corporation, Dominique held the position of Vice-President of Global Technology at GE Transportation.

During his tenure at Wabtec Corporation and GE Transportation, Dominique was focused on the next generation of Precision Scheduled Railroading and Positive Train Control technologies and spearheaded a major digital industrial evolution in rail.

Previous to GE Transportation, Dominique served as Vice-President of Product and Engineering for the Transportation Propulsion and Control Business at Bombardier Transport. He also managed Bombardier Transport’s North American group, where he was responsible for Product Management, Engineering and Supply Management. He also led the Center of Expertise R&D group, and has experience in Plant Management, Engineering Quality Assurance, Systems Engineering, and Project Management.

Dominique holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Laval University, Quebec.

Dorothy is Convoy’s CTO, overseeing Convoy’s Product and Engineering group and technology strategy, shaping and scaling the company’s innovation and industry-defining technology platforms.

Prior to Convoy, Dorothy held leadership roles at Amazon, most recently as Vice President of BI and Analytics at AWS. During her more than 20 years at Amazon, Dorothy helped build out Amazon’s ecommerce platform and also led and collaborated on products that had visibly impacted customers around the world – from the initial launch of Amazon Prime, to Kindle, and at AWS where she focused on data analytics and BI. Dorothy received her Bachelor of Science at Brigham Young University and studies at Shanghai International Studies University.

Ben is the Co-Founder and General Partner of BootstrapLabs, a leading venture capital firm, based in Silicon Valley and focused on Applied Artificial Intelligence.

Ben has been actively investing in Applied AI software technology startups for nearly a decade and is actively managing a venture portfolio whose aggregate enterprise value grew by nearly $2Bn (~10x) in the last 5 years.

Select investments include: Aeye (IPO NASDAQ: LIDR), Roger.ai (acquired by NYSE: FLT), Indus.ai (acquired by NYSE: PCOR), Qurious (acquired by NASDAQ: PEGA), Fortella (acquired by 6Sense), iUNU, GetAccept, Mendel, Sibly, Myia Health, Hayden.ai, Southie.ai, and many others.

Born in France and living in Silicon Valley for the past 25 years, Ben is a repeat entrepreneur who launched, built, and exited two startups in the financial technology space. Praedea Solutions, a data mining software company using machine learning and image recognition technology, that was acquired by Mergent in 2005, and InsideVenture, a financial social network for the founders of venture-backed pre-IPO startups and long-only institutional investors on Wall Street, that was acquired by SecondMarket in 2009 (and is now part of NASDAQ).

Earlier in his career, Ben was a Technology, Media, and Telecom Investment Banker who advised CxOs of Fortune 500 companies and startup founders on corporate strategy, financing, and M&A. Over a period of 10 years, Ben helped his clients raise over $300M from institutional investors and close over $5B in M&A transactions. His banking experience spans across firms like Lazard, SG Cowen, Houlihan Lokey, Wedbush Securities, and QuantumWave Capital.

Ben is also a member of AAAI (Association for the Advancement of AI), and a frequent keynote speaker on innovation, technology investing, entrepreneurship, and artificial intelligence in the US, Europe, and Asia.

Baiju has led data science, product, and engineering teams to bring data-driven decision making to a range of industries from capital markets to insurance. He is a seasoned executive and entrepreneur with over two decades of experience working with startups, scaleups and large enterprises.

As head of Machine Learning at TD Group, Baiju is responsible for at-scale development and deployment of machine learning algorithms across multiple lines of businesses and that positively impacts millions of customers in North America.

Prior to TD, as SVP of Data Science at Aviva, Baiju built a 120+ strong team of actuaries, product managers, data scientists and engineers and led Aviva’s $100M+ digital and data transformation which resulted in over 160 AI/ML models in production with real-time deployment capabilities. This created end-to-end enterprise value from optimizing customer acquisition costs, product pricing and efficient claims adjudication in a $5B+ business. Baiju was also at OANDA, a FinTech startup that disrupted retail foreign exchange market where he led data science and business growth and was part of a team that scaled the organization from a startup to a 400+ employee global business. Baiju is a is a computer scientist by training and completed his undergraduate and graduate at Queen’s University.

Jack McCauley an Innovator in Residence at Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation at UC Berkeley, Professor at UC Berkeley, Co-Founder of Oculus, an American engineer, hardware designer, inventor, video game developer and philanthropist. Jack is best known for designing the guitars and drums for the Guitar Hero video game series, and as a co-founder and former chief engineer at Oculus VR. At Oculus, Jack designed and built the Oculus DK1 and DK2 virtual reality headsets. Oculus was acquired by Facebook for $2 Billion.  McCauley holds numerous U.S. patents for inventions in software, audio effects, virtual reality, motion control, computer peripherals, and video game hardware and controllers. Jack was awarded a full scholarship to attend University of California, Berkeley where he earned as BSc., EECS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1986.  Jack has authored numerous research papers in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and mathematical modelling of AI-based systems and is currently pursuing new projects at his private R&D facility and hardware incubator in Livermore, California.

Erik J. Larson is a computer scientist and tech entrepreneur. The founder of two DARPA-funded AI startups, he is currently working on core issues in natural language processing and machine learning. He has written for The Atlantic and for professional journals and has tested the technical boundaries of artificial intelligence through his work with the IC2 tech incubator at the University of Texas at Austin.

Carolina is a visionary scientist with a strong business acumen, with 20+ years of experience in research, development, and broad programming. Carolina holds a PhD in fundamental physics and was an award-winning professor and researching before transitioning to industry full-time. A leader in the space of Artificial Intelligence, Carolina was the Director of the Nonlinear Phenomena Lab in Venezuela before moving to Canada. Today, she applies her extensive experience in machine learning to create, innovate, and develop technologies that solve real-world problems.

Vilas Dhar is President and Trustee of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, a 21st century philanthropy advancing artificial intelligence (AI) and data solutions to create a thriving, equitable, and sustainable future for all. A leading voice on equity in a tech-enabled world, Vilas champions a new social compact for the digital age that prioritizes individuals and communities in the development of new products, inspires economic and social opportunity, and empowers the most vulnerable. Vilas also serves as a Trustee of the Christensen Fund, Advisor to MIT SOLVE, Director of the Network of Engaged International Donors, Expert Contributor to OECD.AI, and previously as a Senior Fellow of the Berggruen Institute. Vilas holds a J.D. from NYU School of Law, a Master’s in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and dual Bachelor’s degrees in Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Illinois.

Luc Rabouin was elected mayor of Le Plateau-Mont-Royal in October 2019. Since December 2019, he has been responsible for economic and business development, and design on the city’s executive committee. Prior to that, Mr. Rabouin was the director of strategic development at the Caisse d’économie solidaire Desjardins, where he held the position for three years. He has also led several organizations, including the Centre d’écologie urbaine de Montréal, Communauto France, as well as the Corporation de développement économique communautaire (CDEC) Centre-sud/Plateau-Mont-Royal, now known as PME MTL Centre-ville.

Meredith M. Broadbent is a Senior Adviser (Non-resident) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. A former Chairman of the U.S. International Trade Commission and Commissioner (2012-2017), she served as Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Industry, Market Access, and Telecommunications from 2002-2008. In that position, she was responsible for developing U.S. policy that affects trade in industrial goods, telecommunications, and e-commerce. She led the U.S. negotiating team for the Doha Round negotiations to reduce tariff and nontariff barriers on industrial goods. From 2008 to 2010, she was a Trade Advisor at the Global Business Dialogue. Earlier in her career, she served as a senior professional staff member with the Committee on Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives. In that position, she drafted and managed major portions of the Trade and Development Act of 2000, legislation to authorize normal trade relations with China, and the Trade Act of 2002, which included trade promotion authority. She was instrumental in the development and House passage of the implementing bills for the North American Free Trade Agreement and Uruguay Round Agreements. Broadbent holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Middlebury College and a Master of Business Administration degree from the George Washington University School of Business and Public Management.

Elena Fersman is a Vice President and Head of Global AI Accelerator at Ericsson. She is responsible for a distributed team based in USA, Sweden, India and Canada .

Elena is a docent and an adjunct professor in Cyber-Physical Systems specialized in Automation at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from Uppsala University, an MBA from St. Petersburg Polytechnic University and did a postdoc at the University Paris-Saclay.

At Ericsson, she had various positions ranging from product management to research leadership. Elena is a member of the Board of Directors of RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. Elena has co-authored over 50 patent families.

Bruce Stamm is the Senior Director, Application Development & Maintenance and Artificial Intelligence at Air Canada. Bruce has over 20 years of experience leading software development and data engineering teams in a variety of hi-tech industries including flight simulation, video games and more recently, the airline industry. He currently leads application development and AI teams at Air Canada with a principal mandate to broaden the use of machine learning, simulation, and optimization in different areas of the company including Cargo, Operations, Revenue Management and Maintenance in order to drive revenue, reduce costs and enhance the customer experience. Bruce has degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from Bishop’s University.

Rebecca Finlay is the CEO at Partnership on AI overseeing the organization’s mission and strategy. In this role, Rebecca ensures that the PAI Team and our global community of Partners work together so that developments in AI advance positive outcomes for people and society. 

Most recently, Rebecca was Vice President, Engagement and Public Policy at CIFAR. In this role, Rebecca founded the Institute’s global knowledge mobilization practice, bringing together experts in industry, civil society, and government to accelerate the societal impact of CIFAR’s research programs. In 2017, she was responsible for the launch of CIFAR’s AI & Society program to support international working groups on the questions AI poses for all aspects of policy and society. 

In 2019, she launched CIFAR Solution Networks to support multi-year, international teams in the development of responsible approaches to real-world applications of AI. She led CIFAR’s partnerships with governments and public sector organizations, diversifying the organization’s funding sources internationally. 

Prior to joining CIFAR, Rebecca held leadership roles in research and civil society organizations including as Group Director, Public Affairs and Cancer Control for the Canadian Cancer Society and National Cancer Institute of Canada. She began her career in the private sector building strategic partnerships, including as First Vice President, Financial Institution and Partnership Marketing for Bank One International. 

In 2019, Rebecca was honored as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She holds degrees from the University of Cambridge and McGill University. She is an active volunteer and lives with her family in Toronto, Canada.

Markku has over 35 years’ experience both as an award-winning designer and as a thought-leader on design and construction industry transformation issues. His background as a practice owner and industry subject matter expert with strong relationships across disciplines and organizations uniquely positions him to assist in shaping responsive strategies to forces driving change in business and culture today. In his current role, Markku heads up Chandos’ innovation initiatives. 

He is a past president of the Integrated Project Delivery Alliance (www.ipda.ca) in Canada which published “IPD: An Action Guide for Leaders” (Markku was a co-author) as well as several influential IPD research studies, and provides IPD training for industry. Markku also held positions at the American Institute of Architects, where he was instrumental in developing the AIA’s “Integrated Project Delivery: A Guide” in 2007.

Prof Dr. Konrad Tollmar is the Research Director at SEED Electronic Arts. He is also co-leading the focus area Gaming at WASP Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program. His current research is focused on driving innovative AI for computer games and future interactive entertainment. Prior to EA, he was an Associate Professor at KTH and lead the Mobile Service Lab, a faculty member at Ingvar Kamprad Design Centre – Lund University, Research Scientist at MIT CSAIL, a Postdoc at MIT AI-Lab, and Research Scientist at the Interactive Institute.

Mauritz Kop is a Stanford Law School TTLF Fellow, Founder of MusicaJuridica and strategic intellectual property lawyer at AIRecht, a technology consultancy firm based in Amsterdam. His work on regulating AI, machine learning training data and quantum technology has been published by Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley and Yale scholarly journals.

Mauritz delivered copyright expertise to the European Parliament during the EU Copyright Directive legislative process, and provided recommendations to the European Commission during the codification of the Artificial Intelligence Act, and the Data Act. He held IP, music and technology law guest teaching positions at Leiden University, Utrecht University and Maastricht University, and provided postdoctoral legal training to Supreme Court justices and lawyers at Radboud University.

Mauritz teaches AI, Data & IP law at CEIPI, University of Strasbourg, and is a member of the European AI Alliance (European Commission), IPREDICT (United Nations), the Dutch Copyright Society (VvA), CLAIRE, ECP, and the World Economic Forum (WEF). Mauritz is a frequently asked international conference speaker on topics in the nexus of AI, Data, Quantum and Law. His present cross-disciplinary, comparative research focuses on human-centered AI, quantum-ELSPI and sustainable disruptive innovation policy pluralism.

In his free time Mauritz enjoys tennis, yachting, long walks on the beach, and performing classical & electronic music. 

https://law.stanford.edu/directory/mauritz-kop/  

Bill has 20+ years of AI and data analytics experience from his technical and consulting roles at Dell Technologies, Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM. He currently leads the AI and Data Analytics practice in Canada for Dell Technologies, and spends his time working with healthcare and life sciences research organizations to define their AI strategy and deploy data-centric solutions to accelerate business insights. He is the writer and editor for an quarterly AI newsletter that is distributed worldwide, authored a number of books on advanced analytics, including a book focused on Bioinformatics and Proteomics, and recently became a contributing author for a paper published in Chemical Science, with researchers from UBC, focused on advancing drug discovery techniques by accelerating molecular docking with machine learning.

John is Boomi’s Global Healthcare CTO.  With over 30 years of experience in IT infrastructure and organizational management experience has held roles in Product Management, Healthcare Solutions Development and Chief Technology Officer.  In addition to Boomi, he has worked for technology OEMs: Dell, EMC, Lenovo, IBM, Motorola, and government agencies across different industry verticals.  John is focused on cloud, analytics and security solutions and manages Healthcare ISV relationships and their solutions efforts within the HCLS ecosystem.  His 20 years of software development efforts in the areas of healthcare standards and interoperability has created products focused on clinical information sharing and clinical imaging integration efforts.  In non-vendor roles, John has worked for payors and providers and has held positions as CTO/CISO for Healthcare Delivery Organizations focusing on technical transformation initiatives to support system wide clinical initiatives. He holds a Master of Science in Health Informatics from Northeastern University.

Dr. Sasha Luccioni is a Research Scientist working at Hugging Face. Her work aims to study the societal and ethical impacts of AI, and her goal is to find ways to maximize the positive effects of AI while minimizing the negative ones, be it from a research or application perspective. Sasha’s work has been featured in various news and media outlets such as MIT Technology Review, WIRED and the Wall Street Journal, among others, both her projects on the environmental impact of AI and those on how to reduce it. She is also a 2020 National Geographic Explorer and a founding member of Climate Change AI. 

Rahul G. Krishnan is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Medicine (Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology).

He is a member of the Vector Institute where he holds a CIFAR AI Chair. His research has developed new algorithms for probabilistic inference, and applied machine learning to problems in healthcare such as modeling disease progression and risk stratification.

He received his MS from New York University and his PhD in computer science from MIT in 2020. His research has been published in top machine learning venues such as NeurIPS, ICML, AISTATS and AAAI.

Gillian K. Hadfield is the director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. She is the Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society, professor of law and of strategic management at the University of Toronto, a faculty affiliate at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and a senior policy advisor at OpenAI. Her current research is focused on innovative design for legal and regulatory systems for AI and other complex global technologies; computational models of human normative systems; and working with machine learning researchers to build ML systems that understand and respond to human norms. Her book, Rules for a Flat World: Why Humans Invented Law and How to Reinvent It for a Complex Global Economy, is now available in paperback and on Audible.

Mo Chen is an Assistant Professor in the School of Computing Science at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada, where he directs the Multi-Agent Robotic Systems Lab. He is also a CIFAR AI Chair, Amii Fellow, and NCRN Distal Fellow. Mo completed his PhD in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department at the University of California, Berkeley in 2017, and received his BASc in Engineering Physics from the University of British Columbia in 2011. From 2017 to 2018, He was a postdoctoral researcher in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department at Stanford University. Mo’s research interests include optimal control, multi-agent systems, safety-critical systems, reinforcement learning, and human-robot interactions.

Dr. José-Marie Griffiths is president of Dakota State University in Madison, South Dakota.  President Griffiths has spent her career in research, teaching, public service, corporate leadership, workforce and economic development, and higher education administration, with special focus on work in STEM fields.  She has served in presidential appointments to the National Science Board, the U.S.  President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee, and the U.S.  National Commission on Libraries and Information Science.  She is a member of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, part of the John S.  McCain National Defense Authorization Act for 2020. She has led projects for over 28 U.S.  federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Department of Energy, and various intelligence and military agencies, with over 20 major corporations such as AT&T Bell Laboratories, IBM and Apple, in over 35 countries, and has worked with seven major international organizations, including NATO and the United Nations.  She has received over 20 significant awards in science, technology, teaching, and the advancement of women in these fields. 

President Griffiths has a B.Sc. (Honors) in Physics from University College, London; a Ph.D. in Information Science from University College, London; and completed a Post-Doctoral fellowship in Computer Science and Statistics at University College, London. She was also awarded an Honorary degree (D.Sc.) from University College, London for her career and success in science & technology, higher education, and regional/national leadership.

Davood Shamsi is a Senior Engineering Manager in Apple specialized in Optimization, AI and ML. He has led many projects that require in-depth interaction of real-world data, optimization and machine learning. Previously, he worked at advertising.com and developed various large scaling algorithms for ad optimization in digital advertising.  He received his PhD from Stanford University in Management Science and Engineering, and his Master’s degree from Rice University in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Caroline Schuerger is a Biotechnology Research Fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), where she works on emerging issues in biotechnology and AI. Her work at CSET focuses on bioeconomy, biosecurity, gain of function research, dual use research of concern, and genetic editing technologies. In addition to researching and publishing on these topics, Caroline has testified before the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense.

Prior to joining CSET, Caroline earned her PhD in Molecular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, where she researched epigenetic targets for non-toxic bladder cancer therapies to translate into the clinic. She was a 2020 Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Caroline also interned with the French Consulate of Atlanta as a Policy Analyst in the Office of Science and Technology. She has earned Bachelor degrees in Biology and Chemistry from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

Dr. Matthew E. Taylor is a Fellow-in-Residence and Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) and an Associate Professor of Computing Science at the University of Alberta. He is the Director of the Intelligent Robot Learning (IRL) Lab and a Principal Investigator at the Reinforcement Learning & Artificial Intelligence (RLAI) Lab, both at the University of Alberta. Matt is also Adjunct Professor at Washington State University and was formerly the Principal Researcher at Borealis AI in Edmonton, the artificial intelligence research lab for the Royal Bank of Canada. He has been a PI or co-PI on over $6M USD in competitively awarded research funding from federal, state, and industrial sources, including the National Science Foundation CAREER award. He has (co-)supervised seven graduated PhD students and six graduated MS students, as well as published over 100 peer-reviewed papers in conferences and journals. Please see Matt’s complete list of publications: https://irll.ca/publications

Deval is Director of AI Engineering at Vector Institute and Member of task force for Digitalisation of Energy at UN Economic commission of Europe.  He is passionate about building Responsible Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning systems. He and his team are focused on building tools and implementations that lower the barrier to adoption of breakthrough AI research at Vector.  Prior to joining Vector, Deval was leading the Data Science team at Shell focusing on application in New Energies and Asset management. During his career, he has led the development of scalable machine learning applications in the domains of nature-based solutions, predictive maintenance, e-mobility, microgrid optimizations and hydrogen value chain.  He mentors and advises various startups at the intersection of AI and Climate change and is also a mentor at Creative Destruction Lab. Deval always makes time to cook and travel.

Claude Théoret is the founder and CEO of X Machina-AI. He had previously founded and exited Nexalogy, one of Montreal’s first AI companies. He played an active role in the birth and growth of Québec’s startup ecosystem. He is one of the top 40 startup mentors in the worldwide Founder Institute network. And is now an angel investor and mentor of several data oriented startups.

A former Astrophysicist he forged his technical skillset at the inception of bigdata and the web, while working with CERN he built his first website in 1994.

Previously, Claude was an astrophysicist with expertise in the management of innovation. One of the founding members of McGill University’s astronomy department, Claude was ranked first in the astronomy and astrophysics postdoctoral fellowship competition in Québec. He conducted his postdoctoral research at the Collège de France as a member of the prestigious HESS Collaboration (where he published twice in Nature and once in Science). After teaching as a professor of physics and statistics at the American University in Paris, Claude focused his analytical expertise on Co-Word Analysis, Actor Network Theory and their practical applications. Claude has done deep AI driven political and military intelligence work and has a “secret” level clearance with the CAF.

In 2019 he was appointed COO of Intema Solutions Inc ($ITM.V) and engineered a growth by acquisition strategy.

He is now a partner in his own micro VC and is an LP in several Canadian VC funds.

Claude has been an invited speaker at SXSW, InfoPresse and Creative Mornings, Datavore, TEDxMcGill, BigData Toronto, StartupFest, New York Internet week and many more conferences. Nexalogy finished 5th in the CIX top 20 startups in Canada in 2011 and won the best startup demo prize at the inaugural Startup Festival.

http://www.techvibes.com/blog/nexalogy-2014-11-07

http://www.montrealintechnology.com/inspiring-founders-nexalogys-claude-theoret-dusts-his-shoulders-off/

Dr Loubna Bouarfa is a machine learning scientist turned entrepreneur. She is an electrical engineer with a Doctorate in machine learning for healthcare applications. Dr Loubna Bouarfa is the founder and CEO of OKRA.ai – a leading artificial intelligence (AI) company for life sciences, that supports the industry in bringing the right drug to the right patient at speed. Prior to OKRA.ai, Loubna led different machine learning positions in startups and academia. Loubna was a member of the European Union High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, where she particularly focused on achieving competitive business impact with AI.

She was named an MIT Technology Review Top Innovator Under 35, a Forbes 50 Top Women In Tech, and won several prizes, including CEO of Year 2019 at the Cambridge Independent Science and Technology Awards and Best Female-Led Startup at the StartUp Europe Awards in 2019. Recently, Loubna has been selected as a European Young Leader (EYL40) for 2022. 2018-2021 Loubna contributed as a thought leader within European institutions, by supporting the European Commission and member states in the drafting of ethical guidelines for the future of artificial intelligence. She has also acted as an adviser in the recent work UN has undertaken on AI, which will lead to the creation of guidelines for the use and application of AI by SMEs in developing countries.

On a personal level, she is a strong advocate for diversity, women and challenging the status quo.

Patrick St-Amant is the CTO and co-founder of Zetane that patented the company’s technology underlying its software products for visual, intuitive displays of AI.

Previously, he was a mathematics professor at Collège International Saint-Anne and an independent researcher in numbers theory, set theory and fundamentals of mathematics. He also founded and managed the innovation Makerspace at College Saint-Anne where he guided and mentored over 100 student projects in mathematics. He received the Virtual and Augmented Reality Grant from Entente Canada-Quebec in 2016 to support the development of virtual and augmented reality applications for learning languages.

Patrick advanced research in mathematics, categories theories and foundation of computing groups at the University of Ottawa (2007). He was an invited scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (2006 & 2007) where he studied neural sciences. He holds a M.Sc. in computer science and fundamental mathematics from UQAM (2007) and a Bachelor of Mathematics and Physics from UQAM (2004).

Topher White is a Conservation Technologist and the Founder / CEO of Rainforest Connection. As an inventor, field engineer and social entrepreneur, his accolades include such titles as WEF Young Global Leader, ROLEX Associate Laureate, NATGEO Explorer, DRK Fellow and an IEEE Engineering Hero.

Topher’s background is primarily in Physics, software development and Communication, having received a degree in Physics at Kenyon College and going on to work for years at SLAC Natl Accelerator Lab (High Energy Physics) and the ITER Organization (Fusion Power) in France. Along the way, he also served as CTO for two start-ups in San Francisco, where he obtained industry-level experience in software development–the foundation of the Rainforest Connection platform. 

His love of nature brought him to Borneo, Indonesia in 2011, where he came face-to-face with rampant tree poaching in reserves actively under protection by paid guards. The conclusion was that literal protection could only be possible if surveillance and accountability were made real-time, globally accessible, and inexpensive. From a technological standpoint, the solution to real-time detection was clear, but the true power rested in the potential of such technology in finally leveraging modern social paradigms and global enthusiasm to incentivize a decrease in deforestation at the local level. To realize this potential, Rainforest Connection was born.

Noha is the CEO for the Institute for Transformative Technologies (ITT) whose mission is to develop breakthrough technologies and spin-off businesses to address issues affecting low-income communities. ITT’s portfolio spans energy access, sanitation, food security and health. She also serves as President of Oxygen Hub, an initiative of ITT.

Prior to ITT, Noha served as founder and president of Engineering for Change, LLC (E4C), a global alliance of 15 organizations and 1 million+ individuals dedicated to promoting sustainable and accessible technology-based solutions for under-served communities worldwide. Noha also served as the Executive Director of the ASME Foundation in New York City, focusing on K-16 STEM education, innovation, and sustainable design.

Noha earned her BS and MS degrees in mechanical engineering from Columbia University and has two U.S. patents related to broadband equipment design. She served as Adjunct Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of NYU in Brooklyn, N.Y. Noha currently chairs the External Advisory Board of Columbia University’s Mechanical Engineering Department. In 2013 she was named the recipient of the American Association of Engineering Societies’ Kenneth Andrew Roe Award and more recently, she was selected as one of New York Business Journal’s Women of Influence.

Olivier is co-founder and VP of decision science at Moov AI. He is the editor of the international ISO standard that defines the quality of artificial intelligence systems, where he leads a team of 50 AI professionals from around the world.
His cutting-edge AI and machine learning knowledge have led him to implement a data culture in various industries and support digital transformation projects in many companies such as Pratt & Whitney, Metro, Sharethrough, and Premier Tech.

He is a mentor for in AI for Creative Destruction Labs and coaches several start-ups. As a speaker, his topics of choice are adopting and applying AI and responsible AI.

Olivier is the recipient of the prestigious “30 under 30” award (Infopresse – 2019) and is co-author of a patent for an advanced algorithm that evaluates a borrower’s creditworthiness.

Hunter is a co-founder and the CEO of Terrafuse. Before Terrafuse AI, Hunter worked at Ajax Strategies, where she invested in early stage climate technology companies, seven of which have since exited including three public offerings. She also served on the philanthropy team at Energy Innovation supporting nonprofits focused on decarbonization. Prior to that, Hunter designed solutions for climate change adaptation and habitat restoration as an environmental engineer. Hunter studied business at The Wharton School’s MBA program and Environmental Science at UCLA.

Dorian Kieken is a tech leader and entrepreneur who founded AIR (AI Redefined). The company leverages the advent of AI to the benefit of humankind through human-AI collaboration technology. AIR’s platform Cogment has been recognized with the 2021 AI TechAward for “Best in Open Source AI Technology”, among other accolades. Prior to founding AIR, Dorian held multiple leadership roles at DC Studios, Minority Media and BioWare, where he co-founded and developed the company’s Montreal studio into a thriving enterprise. His passion for strategic team building and collaborative innovation has yielded multiple Game of the Year awards. An active member of the Montreal AI Ethics Group, Dorian is a strong believer in taking key actions today to nudge humanity towards a good future.

Highly qualified Chief Technology Officer and Technology Strategist with more than 20 years of experience in IT strategy formulation, business strategy formulation, business scenario development, and innovation. Profound knowledge of service architecture development, IT governance formulation, new technology evaluation, and IT risk management. Competent in planning, execution, and lead of complex technology programs in different sectors (Financial, Mining, Education, Engineering, & Telecommunication).Certifications:Electrical & Electronic Engineering, from Middle East Technical University, Turkey; Mini-MBA, Executive Development, from McGill University; Strategic Leadership & Innovation, from York University; Economy of Artificial Intelligence, from University of Toronto; Design of Digital Building, from Harvard University; More than 50 technical certificates from PMI, Microsoft, CISCO, AWS, IASA, C|EH, APC

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.

During her career, she has performed the role of director, manager, consultant and clinician. Wherever she has worked, she has created and has piloted projects that go beyond the framework. She has also excelled at team management and organizational development.

She is a passionate person who acts to transform health systems for the benefit of the patients, the public and health teams. Currently, her greatest, most central challenge is to make the CHUM one of the best places in the world to learn, teach and create the health of the future. 

Natalie Mayerhofer is Associate to the Chief Learning Officer at the CHUM. During her international career, she has developed expertise in innovation policy, program evaluation, and strategic planning. She thrives on innovative projects, including her greatest challenge, the development of CHUM’s School of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare.

Todd Coleman is the Founder, President and CEO of eStruxture. Todd brings more than 25 years’ experience in the IT, data center and telecommunications industries. Previously, Todd was the Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of Cologix. He has also held several senior positions at Level 3 Communications, a global telecommunications company, including Senior Vice President of Data Centers, Senior Vice President of Media Operations, and President of Level 3 Communications Europe. Todd holds a juris doctorate and a bachelor’s degree in computer information systems. Todd is a sought-after industry speaker and an advocate of sustainable digital infrastructure ecosystems, as well as DE&I. At the same time, Todd is an accomplished race car driver, competing in the Ferrari Challenge and the GT4 Challenge.

Michael Akinwumi leads NFHA’s Tech Equity Initiative. The Tech Equity Initiative (TEI) is a multi-faceted effort launched by NFHA to increase the fairness of and re-shape the design of algorithmic systems in the housing and financial services industries. Conducting research to advance the AI fairness field is a cornerstone of the TEI.

Dr. Akinwumi coordinates stakeholder activities involving identifying, testing, validating, and publicizing AI-centric underwriting and pricing methodologies which responsibly advance fair lending and fair housing. He is responsible for acquiring and managing data and technologies for the Initiative while managing cross-functional relationships to ensure that solutions that result from the Initiative meet needs across NFHA and of other stakeholders. Previously, Dr. Akinwumi led governance engineering efforts at a FinTech by minimizing exposures to regulatory risks, managed a machine learning-powered recommender system that presents product and service offers to retail customers of a bank, and pioneered the use of machine learning solutions in auto and property insurance pricing of a P&C insurance company. Dr. Akinwumi lives his belief that “only a life lived for others is worth living.”

As a Tech Equity Analyst and FairOps Team Lead, Snigdha manages policy and development requests related to tech equity from within and outside NFHA. She also researches regulations that are applicable to works within the Tech Equity department and assures solutions developed within the department pass FAIR (Fairness, Auditability, Interpretability, and Responsibility) checks.

Courtney Cole is the Founder and CEO at ForaHealthyMe Inc. The ForaHealthyMe AI Tele-Rehab solution is multi-language cloud-based platform. It is an open intuitive AI platform, with all-in-one applications for remote therapy management and proven efficacy in physical rehabilitation support.  The solution utilizes AI, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Conversational Computing and Gaming technologies. The platform addresses gaps in care during the discharge and home care phases of care. It delivers all-in-one comprehensive care tools to address the complex needs of patients with Musculoskeletal, Cardiology, Neurological and Cognitive health issues.  

As an entrepreneur and founder, he has worked with partners and customers in the United States, Europe, and Asia to solve complex health challenges for mental health, spinal cord injury, musculoskeletal, cardiac, long COVID and related issues. His collaborations and products have resulted in system improvements and demonstrated costs savings and health outcomes improvements for patients. Output has included multiple publications in international academic journals.  

As a thought leader and panelist, he has presented at several international trade shows. These conferences including the Canadian Space Agency Annual Colloquium Healthcare Without Boundaries, and the Digital Therapy Industry in China Forum. He mentors and coaches STEM students and graduates on applying skills in software development, AI, UX Design and biomedical engineering to solve complex health issues.  

Aurélie Labbe is a full professor at HEC Montréal in the Department of Decision Sciences. After receiving her PhD in statistics in 2005 from the university of Waterloo , Ms. Labbe was hired as an associate professor in Université Laval’s math and statistics department, where she taught until 2009. During her four years at Université Laval, she consolidated her knowledge and expanded her network of partners in the field of genetic statistics. In 2009, she joined the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University, where she was first an assistant professor, then an associate professor until 2016. She was also a researcher at The Douglas Hospital Research Centre, a McGill affiliate. She has developed her research portfolio as a lead researcher on several projects funded in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) with the goal of developing statistical tools for analyzing gene data and methylation. These tools have further applications in neuroscience. She has also taken part in a number of collaborative projects in these fields.

In 2016, Ms. Labbe joined the Department of Decision Sciences at HEC Montréal as an associate professor. She has since branched out to other fields of data science, focusing on the analytical challenges generated by data from intelligent transportation systems. In 2019, she was awarded a FRQ-IVADO research chair in data science.

A former rector of Université de Montréal as well as Vice-Principal (Academic) and Provost of McGill University, Dr. Luc Vinet has been Director of the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) since 2013.

He is also Aisenstadt Professor of Physics at Université de Montréal. Dr. Vinet was a founding director of MITACS, Canada’s national network of centres of excellence, and has also been instrumental in the creation of many other leading research networks in Québec and the rest of Canada. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an Officer of the Ordre National du Québec, and the recipient of multiple distinctions in Québec, Canada and internationally for his achievements, including the Government of Québec’s prestigious Armand-Frappier Prize. He has made many scientific contributions in various fields of theoretical physics and mathematics.

In August 2021, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of IVADO, the Institute for Data Valorization, a joint initiative of HEC Montréal, Polytechnique Montréal and Université de Montréal. IVADO, comprising more than 150 industry, institutional and government partners, is an institute for research and advanced transfer in data science, operations research and artificial intelligence with more than 1,400 scientists in its network.

Born in Montréal, Dr. Vinet holds a doctorate (3rd cycle) from Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris) and a PhD from Université de Montréal, both in theoretical physics. After two years as a research associate at MIT, he was appointed as assistant professor in the Physics Department at Université de Montréal in the early 1980s and promoted to full professor in 1992. His research work focuses generally on the exact solution of physical models through the study of symmetries and their description in terms of algebraic structures.

His numerous distinctions include the prestigious Armand-Frappier Prize, awarded by the Government of Québec in 2009, and the CAP-CRM Prize, which he received in 2012 in recognition of his work in theoretical and mathematical physics. Dr. Vinet also holds an honorary doctorate from Université Claude-Bernard in Lyon, France.

Rahul Raina is a Senior Data Scientist at Microsoft focussed on Power & Utilities, Retail, Manufacturing, Healthcare and Financial Services verticals in Canada. Previously, Rahul has implemented AI, Blockchain, Big Data & Analytics solutions at firms such as the Bank of America, Bell Canada, Deloitte and Ernst & Young (EY). Rahul holds MSc and BSc in Computer Science from the University of Oxford, and the University of Toronto, respectively. He also holds MBA from York University.

Maxime is the Scale AI Chair Professor of Retail and Operations Management and co-director of the Retail Innovation Lab at McGill University. He is the Chief AI Officer of ELNA Medical and a Scientific Advisor in AI and Data Science at IVADO Labs. He is actively advising corporations, retailers, and startups on topics related to pricing, retail, and data science. He has collaborated with many companies including Google, Waze, Oracle, IBM Research, Via, Spotify, Aldo Group, CoucheTard and he is on the advisory board of several startups.

Marie-Claude is an artificial intelligence and operations research specialist, mainly focused on retail and supply chain applications. Before joining IVADO Labs, she created and developed Element AI’s AI core group, the principal group responsible for building the AI technology for the company’s products, as well as led JDA Labs’ data science team. She is co-inventor of more than 10 patents and holds a PhD in applied mathematics from École Polytechnique de Montréal.

With 20+ years experience developing enterprise-grade supply chain technology solutions for Fortune 1000 clients, Serge has proven he can build and run global technology organizations. Most recently, he was the global CTO for JDA. He was also a member of the Google Cloud Advisory Board for several years and co-authored the book “Supply Chain for Dummies”.

Ainesh Pandey is a Senior Data Scientist on IBM’s Data Science Elite Team. Ainesh holds Bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and Business Data Analytics, and he has a Master’s in “data science-y stuff” from Carnegie Mellon University. He’s been an individual contributor and led engagements on the DSE for over four years, with a focus on forecasting and ML models for various manufacturing, retail, marketing, finance, telecommunications, and government clients.

Sarah Jenna is the co-founder and CEO of My Intelligent Machines Inc. (MIMs) and was also an associate professor specialized in genomics and genetics at the department of biochemistry at UQÀM.  

Sarah received her Ph.D. in Cell and Structural Biology, from Aix-Marseille University in France. She completed her postdoctoral training in cell signalling at McGill University and was also platform manager of the Montréal Proteomic Network. In 2006, her dual expertise in cellular and genomic signalling led her to be awarded a NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) Junior Canada Research Chair in Integrative Genomics and Cell Signaling at UQÀM, where she also co-founded and was the director of Pharmaqam, a university research center focusing on drug development. 

As a principal investigator at UQÀM, Sarah directed a research laboratory developing new integrative genomics strategies to better understand the functional interactions between genes in model organisms and in breast cancer in humans. As co-founder and CEO of MIMs, she translates her 20 years of experience and expertise to provide MIMs’ clients with cutting edge integrative genomics strategies & systems biology while paying particular attention to the specific needs of life scientists working in BioPharma, and research institutes.

Sarah is a board member of CQDM, PINQ and BioQuebec.

Aaron Labbé is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of LUCID, an AI digital music therapy startup. LUCID is working to revolutionize mental health through the power of music and machine learning. Their mission is to transform music into medicine, and create a more empathetic approach to mental health care through personalized music-based interventions.

 
After facing severe mental health battles in his youth, Aaron developed the initial concept for LUCID during his thesis in New Media and Computational Art at Ryerson University. He is the recipient of several Canada Council awards. He has guest lectured at Ryerson University, and spoken at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, Dutch Design Week, Toronto Interior Design Show, and Wallifornia Music Tech.

 
Aaron has authored three patents, including the Affective Music Recommendation System (AMRS) which is the core of LUCID’s therapeutic music technology. AMRS is a deep reinforcement learning system that predicts and generates playlists to help users move towards their target mood state.

An experienced Analytics Leader & Strategist with 10+ years of working in the consumer goods industry, Daniel Lavinskas has been involved in various branches of BRP from M&A to Strategic Planning. For the last 2 years he has been leading the strategy & implementation of the Analytics & AI Centre of Excellence for BRP. His focus has been on enabling innovation and AI transformations by building development teams from the ground up. Daniel has been instrumental in identifying and spearheading the AI initiative(s) at BRP and as CoE Lead will be heavily involved in the project to ensure its success by steering the team towards the right business value and by participating in key workshops and model and output review sessions providing the expertise which bridges the AI and business strategies.

Kenny Chen is a Master in Public Policy student at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a student researcher at Harvard’s Technology and Public Purpose Project, where he explores trustworthy human-AI systems and evaluates pathways for improving the governance of digital platforms. He also works as a graduate intern at the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), where he analyzes interventions and countermeasures against mis-/dis-/malinformation. In 2018, Kenny co-founded the Partnership to Advance Responsible Technology (PART), a nonprofit think tank that engages diverse stakeholders in guiding the responsible development and governance of data-driven technologies.

Kenny received a bachelor’s degree in social psychology from UC Berkeley in 2012, and has spent the last decade working across a wide range of sectors and industries, including education, behavioral research, federal government, local government, philanthropy, nonprofits, economic development, investment, and entrepreneurship. Going forward, his key concerns and interests lie at the intersection of US-China relations and technology governance, where he is dedicated to helping mitigate global catastrophic risks.

Patricia Thaine is a Computer Science PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto and a Vector Institute alumna doing research on privacy-preserving natural language processing with a focus on applied cryptography. She also does research on computational methods for lost language decipherment. Patricia is a recipient of the NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship the RBC Graduate Fellowship the Beatrice “Trixie” Worsley Graduate Scholarship in Computer Science and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. She has eight years of research and software development experience including at the McGill Language Development Lab the University of Toronto’s Computational Linguistics Lab the University of Toronto’s Department of Linguistics and the Public Health Agency of Canada. 

Marie-Paule holds a Master’s in International Affairs, with a focus on international finance and economic policy, from Columbia University-SIPA, and a Bachelor of Laws from Université de Montréal. Marie-Paule took over the leadership of the Forum after working on the adoption of research, science and innovation policies within the Quebec government. Previously, she was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company and a commercial litigation lawyer at Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg. Between 2016 and 2018, Marie-Paule took part in Québec’s first efforts to structure its rising AI ecosystem.

Ellen Xu is the youngest deep learning student researcher at the UCSD Kawasaki Disease Research Center/Rady Children’s Hospital. She has pioneered the development of the first AI image recognition algorithm for Kawasaki disease early diagnosis, starting when she was 14. Her research has been recognized by the Scripps “Young Scientist” Award, International Science & Engineering Fair Grand Award 3rd place, and induction into the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Honor Society.

Ashley has been at the forefront of building tools and policy interventions to support the responsible use and adoption of innovative technologies, both with her work at the Government of Canada, and as the Executive Director of AI Global, a multi-stakeholder non-profit dedicated to mitigating harm and unintended consequences of AI systems. As a recognized leader in the social tech community she has developed a strong reputation for developing workable governance for data, artificial intelligence, and open source tools. Her work and ability to bring experts together to solve important challenges has led to meaningful change in government and beyond. Her work helps to inform government, industry, and academic research. She is currently a member of the following initiatives:

• Chair, Responsible AI Certification Working Group, World Economic Forum
• OECD’s Network of Experts, AI Policy Observatory
• Canada’s AI Strategy Council Public Awareness Working Group
• The Canadian Data Governance Collaboration Steering Committee
• Responsible AI Advisor to the United States Government Accountability Office
• Responsible AI standards – ISO JTC1/SC42, IEEE, CIO Strategy Council
• The Open Community for Ethics in Autonomous and Intelligent Systems (OCEANIS)
• Advisor to InnSoTech project for Alberta “HelpSeekers” Initiative
• Member of Advisory Board for NSERC research project at University of Toronto, “CREATE Responsible AI”
• Industry Advisor for independent study, “Current Health Regulations and their impact on AI,” University of Texas, Faculty of Law

Raed Abdullah has worked in the energy field for over 30 years, and almost all of it for Hydro Ottawa, in various capacities. Hydro Ottawa is Canada’s National Capital’s electricity distributor for over 340,000 customers. He’s been fortunate to have led, participated or witnessed the utility advance with many innovative projects over his career, the most recent the EV Everywhere project led by BluWave-ai and funded by the IESO Grid Innovation Fund. Raed is a professional engineer in Ontario, an IEEE Senior Member, and a humble member of his family of a professional wife and two teenage boys. As a continuous learner, he’s here to learn from you through the Q&A and other interactions too.

Devashish Paul founded BluWave-ai after an extensive career in the semiconductor industry focused on supercomputing, artificial intelligence, and networking. He is a life-long cyclist and nature enthusiast using human powered energy for personal transportation to explore the world. Devashish founded the company combining his interest in clean energy technologies with advanced computing and networking technologies.

During his 20+ years in the tech world, Devashish has led successful innovations in a diversity of markets at Canadian start-ups, Toronto Stock Exchange-listed, and Silicon Valley public companies, most recently at Integrated Device Technologies as Director of Strategic Marketing. He has grown businesses in Europe, Asia, and North American from the startup level to $110M annual revenue. In industry leadership roles, he ran the High Performance Computing Group in the Open Compute Project (started by Facebook) to create open industry computing platforms for low latency workloads. Devashish also served as an advisory board member for the CERN OpenLab.

Devashish earned a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Royal Military College followed by a Masters in Electrical Engineering (Digital Signal Processing) and an MBA in Marketing, both from the University of Ottawa. He is a veteran of the Royal Canadian Air Force.  

Devashish is a 31-time Ironman triathlon finisher, has coached masters athletes to 100+ finishes, was a coach for 14 years with the Kanata Nordic Ski Club, and has raced for Canada in 10 world championships. He is also a world traveler who loves connecting with people in diverse cultures both for personal interests and driving BluWave-ai’s goal to become the premier global renewable energy AI company.

Anshika Khandelwal is an Associate Technical Architect at Quantiphi, an award-winning AI-first digital engineering company. She is a Subject Matter Expert for ML and DL solutions with a major focus on Forecasting and Operations Research projects across the organization. With a formal background in Statistics and expertise in the retail sector, she has shaped enterprise Supply Chain solutions for several Fortune 500 clients. She has led the initiative on the research and development of statistical and deep learning methods in forecasting and operations and has successfully productionalized them on cloud infrastructures. Along with huge improvements in cost and time, these solutions have helped firms understand the changing consumer behavior and move towards a more sustainable future.

Parag has over 15 years of consulting and corporate experience in the energy, utilities and infrastructure sector in alternative energy business development, strategy and mergers and acquisitions. In his current role at PowerON which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ontario Power Generation, Parag leads the development, acquisition and deployment of transit and fleet electrification infrastructure and energy management systems across Canada. In his previous role at Aecon Group, Parag led the mergers and acquisitions group as well as the development of corporate strategy. Previously, Parag has led strategic business development for Enbridge Gas in non-traditional markets and fuels (Hydrogen, Geothermal).

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.

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.

With over 15 years in the electricity sector, Patrick is an experienced people and thought leader in the areas of innovation, long term strategy, and partnerships. He is currently the Senior Manager of Partnerships in Innovation, Research, and Development at the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) where he oversees the Grid Innovation Fund and its $55M portfolio of active projects which funds innovative and clean technologies with significant potential to enable ratepayer cost savings and improved reliability. Prior Patrick held various positions at Hydro One, including leading its 10 year distribution strategy and advising on grid modernization through SCADA technologies to improve system reliability. Patrick currently represents Canada as a National Expert in the areas of Transmission-Distribution Power Systems and Flexibility Markets at the International Smart Grid Action Network (ISGAN) as a part of the Internal Energy Agency (IEA). He sits on the boards of both Mohawk College’s Energy, Power, Innovation Centre (EPIC) and the DesignLights Consortium (DLC).

Dr. Victor Lee is the VP of Machine Learning and AI at TigerGraph. He brings a strong academic background, decades of industry experience, and a commitment to quality and service. Victor was a circuit designer and technology transfer manager at Rambus, before returning to school for his computer science PhD, focusing on graph data mining. He received his BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley, MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and PhD in Computer Science from Kent State University. Before TigerGraph he was a visiting professor at John Carroll University.

George Korkejian is the Director of Ventures at Next AI – Montréal, the leading accelerator and founder development program for artificial intelligence-based ventures. George oversees the recruitment, the selection and the guidance ventures receive throughout the 6-month intensive program, leading startups to develop their technical, business and entrepreneurial skills. George has been actively involved within the startup ecosystem and has previously held roles such as Product Manager Consultant for different Montreal startups, as well as active investment roles within Montreal-based venture capital funds including BCF Ventures and Amorchem. He is also a Mentor for the Founder Institute and Fintech Cadence cohorts. George holds an M.Sc. in health economics and market access from the University of Montréal.

Farmer by nature, technology enthusiastic by trade, Yves Daoust is a graduate in engineering from Polytechnique. He has devoted his career to solving challenges for industries undergoing drastic changes, such as telecommunications and information technology. Yves founded Winter Farm in 2018 with the ambition to solve worldwide challenges such as food security and climate change. Since then, he has been using technology for the benefit of market gardeners in order to enhance agricultural work and ensure the sustainable development of our food resources.

Ian is the Founder of IJW & Co. and serves as Managing Director and CEO of the firm. He has advised hundreds of corporations around the globe across numerous industries on matters of corporate divestitures, mergers and acquisitions, negotiation strategy and business valuation. Ian has developed a specialization in the technology sector and has been fortunate enough to work on transactions alongside some of North America’s top tech companies. Ian is also the co-founder and former board member of the M&A Club, a networking group comprising of 15 chapters with over 400 M&A professionals. He also sits on the board of various technology and consumer product-based companies. In 2013, Ian was awarded the prestigious Top 40 Under 40 by the M&A Advisor, winning in the dealmaker category.

Ian holds an undergraduate degree from the John Molson School of Business with a major in Finance, graduating with distinction, holds the Chartered Business Valuator (CBV) designation, and is a Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (MRICS).

Sacha Leprêtre is Presagis’ Chief Technology Officer leading the company’s Innovation and Technology effort to create a Next Generation 3D Digital Twins and simulations platform using Artificial Intelligence (AI). He has deep knowledge and expertise in AI, Deep Learning, Cloud Technology and 3D. Before joining Presagis, he was Director of Innovation Development & Technology at the Mila AI Institute, working on innovative projects with Prof. Yoshua Bengio one of the deep learning godfathers, along with Hinton, and LeCun. Sacha also worked for the software company Autodesk, in M&E, AEC and manufacturing industries leveraging AI and Cloud for products with millions of customers such as 3dsMax, Maya, Revit, Autocad, and Fusion. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sachalepretre/

Paul Hake is a Principal Data Scientist on the IBM Data Science and AI Elite Team and has 15 years’ experience in client facing technical roles. Paul is commercially focused and has deep expertise in communicating the business benefits and technical aspects of solutions to business, technical, and data science audiences. 

He is an expert across the AI and data engineering spectrum with a recent focus on client projects involving: 

Trustworthy AI, Machine Learning Operations ,and AI Governance 

Natural Language Processing (NLP) – e.g. Risk adjusted scoring, prior authorization 

Predictive Analytics/Machine Learning – e.g. ICU Demand forecasting (COVID) 

Risk Modeling – morbidity and mortality modeling 

Deep Learning – Epilepsy Seizure detection/prediction

Alain Silverwood is Technical Director with the Technology & Innovation group at Evoqua Water Technology in Montreal.  He has over 40 years of experience in water treatment, including filtration and separation. He actively participated to the development of several water treatment technologies, like: biofiltration for BOD, TSS and nitrification in cold water, biofiltration of iron and manganese, ballasted rapid settling, electro-dewatering of sludges, and the Vortisand® Cross-Flow Microsand Filter.  Now looking to develop technologies that will aim to the future of water treatment and the contaminants of emerging concerns while integrating to our installation’s better knowledge with AI.

Sarah Larose is a Director, Business Development, Foreign Attraction Investment at Investissement Québec. She is responsible for the elaboration and roll-out of customised strategies required to attract and retain foreign investment. These include structuring viable financial solutions by showcasing all the financial tools managed by Investment Quebec and its partners.

Prior to joining Investissement Québec, Sarah worked for three years at Element AI, an artificial intelligence startup, both as a Strategic Account Executive and later, as a Government Relation Manager. Her first role was to engage with Csuite and VP level executives at global companies to generate new business revenue, while also building rapport with senior level executives and advising on best practice business solutions. As a founding member of Element AI’s Government Relations and Public Policy team, she informed governments and regulators regarding the significant future implications of data and AI.

Previously, she also worked at Montreal International where she assisted and advised foreign companies looking to invest in the Greater Montreal region. She also was a Trade Commissioner at Global Affairs Canada where she assisted Canadian companies with export development, innovation, and with investment strategy and sourcing.

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.

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.  

Renée Cummings is a criminologist, criminal psychologist, therapeutic jurisprudence specialist, AI ethicist and the historic first Data Activist in Residence, at The School of Data Science, University of Virginia. 

Renée is also a community scholar at Columbia University. Advocating for AI we can trust, more diverse, equitable, and inclusive AI, she is on the frontline of ethical AI, generating real time responses to many of the consequences of AI.

Renée also specializes in AI risk management, justice-oriented AI, social justice AI, AI policy and governance, and using AI to save lives. She is committed to using AI to empower and transform communities by helping governments and organizations navigate the AI landscape and develop future AI leaders.

Renée works at the intersection of AI, criminal justice, racial justice, social justice, design justice, epidemiological and urban criminology, and public health. She has extensive experience in trauma-informed justice interventions, homicide reduction, gun and gang violence prevention, juvenile justice, evidence-based policing and law enforcement leadership. Her work extends to rehabilitation, re-entry and reducing recidivism. 

Renée is committed to fusing AI with criminal justice for ethical real time solutions to improve law enforcement accountability and transparency, reduce violence, enhance public safety, public health, and quality of life. 

A thought-leader, motivational speaker, and mentor, Renée is an articulate, dynamic, and passionate speaker who has mastered the art of creative storytelling and deconstructing complex topics into critical everyday conversations that inform and inspire.

Pierre Fitzgibbon was born in Montréal. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management from École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Montréal (HEC) and is a Quebec Chartered Professional Accountant. Before becoming involved in politics, Mr. Fitzgibbon served as managing partner at Walter Capital Partners, a private equity Firm, between 2015 and 2018. From 2007 to 2014, Mr. Fitzgibbon assumed the role of president and chief executive officer at Atrium Innovations, a company that develops, manufactures and markets value-added products for the health and nutrition industry.

From 2002 to 2007, he put his skills to work at National Bank Group, where he occupied the position of vice-chairman of National Bank Financial, where he mainly acted as head of investment banking and corporate finance services. He was also senior vice president of finance, technology and corporate affairs at National Bank of Canada.

Previously, Mr. Fitzgibbon also held executive positions in finance, as well as in company and business development at Télésystème Mobiles International, Chase Capital Partners Hong Kong, Domtar and Peerless Carpet Corporation. He began his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers in auditing and consulting services.

Over the last few years, Mr. Fitzgibbon has served on several boards of directors, including that of Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, WSP, Héroux-Devtek, TC Transcontinental, Cycle Capital Management, Neptune Technologies, Lumenpulse and Arianne Phosphate.

This committed businessman is involved in his community and in several organizations, including until recently, the Fondation du Dr Julien.

Valerie Pisano is President and CEO of Mila – Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute. Founded by Professor Yoshua Bengio, Mila is a global pole for scientific advances that inspires innovation and the development of AI for the benefit of all – namely through training talent, advanced research, collaboration projects and dialogue about the ethical and responsible development of AI. Valerie was previously Chief Talent Officer at Cirque du Soleil and cofounded The Mobïus Bias Project, an initiative focused accelerating the dialogue on female leadership roles. She began her career at McKinsey & Company after a Master Degree in Economics at HEC Montreal.

Phil Vokins runs Intel’s Americas and Canada AI business. He is a North American subject matter expert in the arena of Analytics, Artificial Intelligence and Public Policy and is a founding member of Intel’s Global AI Centre of Excellence.  He is a passionate believer in educational initiatives and has spent much of his free time working with young people in his home of Toronto, Canada, teaching programming and ethics in technology. 

He holds a first degree from the University of Huddersfield (UK), Post Grads from both Thames Valley University, London (UK) and the University of Washington (US), and an MBA from the Henley Business School.

Wendell Wallach is a scholar at Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, where he chaired Technology and Ethics studies for eleven years. He is also a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, and a senior advisor to The Hastings Center. His latest book, a primer on emerging technologies, is entitled, A Dangerous Master: How to keep technology from slipping beyond our control.  In addition, he co-authored (with Colin Allen) Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right From Wrong.  The eight volume Library of Essays on the Ethics of Emerging Technologies (edited by Wallach) was published by Routledge in Winter 2017.  He received the World Technology Award for Ethics in 2014 and for Journalism and Media in 2015, as well as a 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, and he is presently a member of their AI Council. Wendell is the lead organizer for the 1st International Congress for the Governance of AI (ICGAI).

Francesca Rossi is a professor of computer science at the University of Padova, Italy. Currently she is on sabbatical at Harvard with a Radcliffe fellowship.

Her research interests include constraint reasoning, preferences, multi-agent systems, computational social choice, and artificial intelligence.

She has been president of the international association for constraint programming (ACP) and she is now the president of IJCAI. She has been program chair of CP 2003 and of IJCAI 2013.

She is in the editorial board of Constraints, Artificial Intelligence, AMAI, and KAIS. She has been the editor in Chief of JAIR since 2015.

She has published over 160 articles in international journals, in proceedings of international conferences or workshops, and as book chapters. She has co-authored a book. She has edited 16 volumes, between conference proceedings, collections of contributions, and special issue of international journals. She has co-edited the Handbook of Constraint Programming (Elsevier, 2006).  Her h-index is 27. Her most cited papers have more than 560 citations. She has more than 100 co-authors.

Ryan Anderson has enjoyed a career as an expert in leading organizations through technology disruptions, focussing the last eight years on leading digital and analytics transformations.  He now leads Accenture’s Applied Intelligence practice in Canada. Ryan is committed to helping companies realize the promise of combining data, analytics and human ingenuity to reshape traditional business models. In his current role, he helps clients define an effective end-to-end strategy for adopting advanced analytics capabilities into their business with a focus on developing the analytics transformation strategy.

With proven sales and technical skills, Ryan has directed numerous large-scale business transformation solutions for various Fortune-500 companies. He has Held senior roles in top consulting and product development firms.

In his spare time, Ryan enjoys “non-digital” activities such as building furniture and traveling with his family.

Dr. Kathryn Hume is the interim Head of Borealis AI, the machine learning research lab backed by the Royal Bank of Canada. Prior to joining Borealis, Dr. Hume held leadership positions at Integrate.ai and Fast Forward Labs, where she helped over 50 Fortune 500 organizations develop and implement AI programs. Dr. Hume is a widely respected author and speaker on AI, with work appearing at TED, HBR and the Globe and Mail. She has taught courses on digital transformation and legal ethics at the business and law schools at Harvard, MIT, the University of Toronto and the University of Calgary. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Stanford University and speaks seven languages

Craig is Head of Machine Learning at Lyft. He is also an adjunct professor of machine learning for Northeastern University’s Align program. Prior to joining Lyft, he was Head of Machine Intelligence at Dropbox and led a number of AI teams and initiatives at LinkedIn, including the development of the LinkedIn AI Academy. In an earlier life, he was a tenured professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania and is the co-author of the MIT Press book Great Principles of Computing.

Robert Thomas is Senior Vice President of IBM Cloud and Data Platform. He directs IBM’s product design and investment strategy, expert labs, global software product development, marketing and field operations across the company’s vast software portfolio. 

With a portfolio of over 1000 products, IBM has emerged as a leader in cloud, data and AI, spanning databases, data integration and governance, business intelligence, planning, data science and AI tools, and AI applications. Major product brands under Rob’s leadership include Watson, Db2, Cognos, QRadar, and Cloud Paks. He has overseen 4 acquisitions representing over $2.5B in transaction value.

Dr. Danny Lange is Senior VP of AI and Machine Learning at Unity. As Senior VP of AI and Machine Learning, Danny leads Unity’s efforts around AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Machine Learning. He joined from Uber, where he was Head of Machine Learning. At Uber, Danny led the efforts to build the world’s most versatile Machine Learning platform to support Uber’s hyper growth. Previously, Danny was General Manager of Amazon Machine Learning — an AWS product that offers Machine Learning as a Cloud Service. Before that, he was Principal Development Manager at Microsoft where he led a product team focused on large-scale Machine Learning for Big Data. Danny spent eight years on Speech Recognition Systems, first as CTO of General Magic, Inc., then through his work on General Motors OnStar Virtual Advisor, one of the largest deployments of an intelligent personal assistant until Siri. Danny started his career as a Computer Scientist at IBM Research.

Danny holds MS and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the Technical University of Denmark. He is a member of ACM and IEEE Computer Society and has several patents to his credit.

Dr. Mallory Freeman is the Principal Data Scientist of the UPS Advanced Technology Group. She has spent years researching and implementing data-driven solutions to complex problems. In her current role, she leads teams focusing on Simulation/Operations Research, Analytics/Machine Learning, and Visual Analytics / Mixed Reality working on R&D projects for UPS’s smart logistics network. Freeman is also an advocate for data for social impact

Matt Galvin is the Global Vice President of Ethics and Compliance for AB InBev, the world’s leading brewer. Matt is also the Vice-Chair of the Business Advisory Group (BIAC) on Anti-Corruption for the OECD.  Matt’s team covers anti-corruption, litigation, sanctions, anti-money laundering, data privacy, human rights and internal investigations. He is recognized as a leader in the application of data analytics to solve compliance problems and streamline compliance systems and processes. Matt is a New York and Hong Kong qualified lawyer who spent ten years in private practice before joining AB InBev in 2015.

Miriam is the President and CEO of EqualAI, a non-profit that was created to address and reduce unconscious bias in artificial intelligence (AI). Miriam is also a Senior Advisor to WestExec Advisors and teaches Technology Law and Policy at Georgetown University Law Center.

Previously, Miriam served in U.S. government leadership, including positions in the three branches of federal government. Most recently, she served as Associate Deputy Attorney General, where she advised the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General (DAG) on a broad range of legal, policy and operational issues. Under the direction of DAG Sally Yates, Miriam led the creation and development of the Implicit Bias Training for Federal Law Enforcement. Miriam also spearheaded the Department’s Intellectual Property (IP) efforts to identify and dismantle IP theft domestically and internationally and worked with the DAG to manage Department divisions’ multibillion-dollar budgets, resolve high-level challenges, and represent the Department in briefings for White House, Congressional and GAO staff on policy initiatives and oversight matters.

Miriam served in the White House in two Administrations, most recently as the Acting Director of Justice and Regulatory Affairs. She led the President’s Equal Pay Task Force to promote equality in the workplace. She also advised White House leadership on regulatory, women, economic, food safety and LGBT policy and a wide array of criminal justice matters.

Federico is a leader in McKinsey’s Financial Services Practice and leads McKinsey’s global Digital Service Operations/AI group, with a focus on financial institutions and corporate business functions across sectors. He serves numerous major financial institutions on a broad range of disruption, automation/AI implementation and transformation, innovating partnerships, finance transformation, operational efficiency, resilience, and future of work, and technology-related initiatives.

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.

Matissa Hollister is an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University. Professor Hollister’s research examines how the employer-employee relationship has changed over the past five decades in developed countries. Particular areas of focus include the rise of job instability and the impact of technology and artificial intelligence on employment practices and outcomes. She is currently serving as the McGill University Fellow with the World Economic Forums’ Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where she is leading an initiative on the responsible use of AI in Human Resources.

In his current role, Francis is responsible for leading Walmart Canada’s fleet and transportation operations. 

Prior to joining Walmart in 2018, Francis held a number of leadership roles including Vice President Operations for Eastern Canada with Sysco and Director of Integrated Business Planning for Dyno Nobel, one of the top three explosives manufacturers globally. 

With extensive experience in both retail and distribution operations, Francis’ passion for the business, operating a safety-first organization, focus on continuous improvement and commitment to investing in people is second to none. 

Francis holds a master’s degree in international relations, a bachelor’s degree in political science, and is also a six-sigma green belt.

Esther Lee is a Senior Product Manager in the AWS AI team focusing on language and speech services. Prior to joining AWS, she worked at a number of technology start-ups in a variety of management roles across product, marketing and business development. Esther started her career at Lucent Technologies and Apax Partners, where she focused on investments in the technology and telecommunications sectors. Esther holds a B.S. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an M.S. from Babson College.

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.

Omar Benomar is the Director of AI and Software Engineering at Group Dynamite, a privately held company that creates, designs and distributes fashion clothing. He is also a lecturer at the Université de Montréal where he teaches Computer Science courses. Previously, Omar worked at IVADO Labs, a leading AI solution provider in the supply chain sector. Prior to IVADO Labs, he worked as Senior Research Scientist in the Search Engine Relevance Optimization team at Yellow Pages Group. He was involved in the management and implementation of several AI projects in various domains such as education, marketing, telecommunications and retail. As an AI advocate, Omar strives to bridge the gap between academia and industry and adapt theoretical AI aspects to real world problems. He holds a doctorate degree from the Université de Montréal where he studied the application of AI and Optimization techniques to solve Software Engineering problems. After his PhD, Omar pursued a postdoctoral fellowship at UQAM in the field of Software Quality. He has also published his research in peer-reviewed articles in renowned international scientific conferences.

After years of frustration with the available “solutions” in the fraud and financial analytics space, Solon founded MindBridge in April 2015 to address gaps in the industry. In addition to building the company’s first products, Solon attracted investors and assembled the management team, creating an organization focused on making the world a stronger, safer place by augmenting human potential with AI. Solon holds an MSc in Business Administration and Management from the Léonard de Vinci Management School (EMLV) in Paris and a Masters Certificate in Project Management from Carleton University.

“If a need exists in the market, it’s the responsibility of entrepreneurs to figure out a way to address that need. There is nothing more noble than innovation that helps people do their jobs better and that makes the world a safer place.”

Marie-Paule holds a Master’s in International Affairs, with a focus on international finance and economic policy, from Columbia University-SIPA, and a Bachelor of Laws from Université de Montréal. Marie-Paule took over the leadership of the Forum after working on the adoption of research, science and innovation policies within the Quebec government. Previously, she was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company and a commercial litigation lawyer at Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg. Between 2016 and 2018, Marie-Paule took part in Québec’s first efforts to structure its rising AI ecosystem.

Ryan Den Rooijen joined Chalhoub Group to lead the data transformation stream with a goal to make using analytics as natural to the organization as using the Internet. 

Ryan has previously worked at Dyson and Google; he has been recognized for exceptional achievements and he brings a wealth of knowledge in the tech industry. Ryan spent four and a half years at Google, where he helped turn big data into big insights for international brands, he introduced their global sales analyst skills curriculum where he managed global analytical initiatives aimed at driving revenue and relationships.

Ryan completed an MSc in Social Science of the Internet at the University of Oxford. He is now an advisory board chair of MSc/DPhil in Social Data Science contributing to the development of the Oxford Internet Institute’s newest degrees. DataIQ repeatedly named him one of the most influential people in data-driven business. Most of his work involves the practical application of analytics and AI – impact, not buzzwords.

In line with the Chalhoub Group strategic transformation plans, Ryan’s mission will be instrumental to operationalize analytics & AI capabilities, and to develop data products for the Group and its trusted partners. Ryan’s recruitment marks another step towards building a sustainable and future-proof organization by welcoming the best-in-class talents.

Jeremy Bornstein leads Mastercard’s Data & Services business in Canada leading a team of 65 professionals helping partner banks, acquirers and merchants identify and execute loyalty, payment strategy, marketing, analytics and digital initiatives to enhance their business. Jeremy also serves as an Advisory Board member to four fintech companies in Toronto, San Jose, CA and Barbados. Prior to joining Mastercard, Jeremy was a Managing Director in Accenture’s Financial Services practice; the Head of Payments Innovation at RBC; and the Managing Director of Corporate Strategy at RBC. He holds a MBA and HBA degree from The Richard Ivey School of Business at The University of Western Ontario.

Nathalie joined Schneider Electric, through the acquisition of Invensys, and currently serves as the global President of Process Automation. Process Automation (PA) delivers market leading offers in system controls (EcoStruxure, Foxboro DCS), safety systems (Triconex) and SCADA. In addition, PA has an extensive portfolio of digital offerings including software and services employing the latest in IIoT, connectivity and cyber security.

Prior to leading the Process Automation business, Nathalie most recently held the role of SVP Industrial Automation Services, which included leadership of Schneider Electric’s transverse Global Cybersecurity Services and Solutions business. Other previous roles within Schneider and Invensys, which she joined in 1996, include VP of Global Performance and Consulting Services, VP of Marketing, North America, GM for the Canadian Business, and VP of Marketing, Systems Business Globally. Prior to joining Schneider, Nathalie spent over a decade in different roles, including Marketing and Engineering at ABB, and in the Process Industry as a Control Engineer.

With her diverse career, Nathalie brings extensive experience including P&L management, business development, services and marketing strategy, OT cyber security, finance, project management, engineering, customer services, supply chain management, staff recruitment, deployment and motivation. Nathalie holds a master’s degree in Applied Sciences along with an Engineering degree.

Dr Anurag Agrawal is Director of the CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology. After completing graduate medical education at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi (1994), he further trained in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA (2003), followed by a PhD in Physiology from Delhi University. His primary research is in respiratory biology and broader interests are in smart deployment of emerging technologies towards healthcare, where he serves on national thinktanks, co-chairs the Lancet and Financial Times commission on Governing Health Futures, and serves on related expert groups at the World Health Organisation and Global Partnership for Artificial Intelligence. He received the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Prize, the highest govt scientific award of India, in 2014, and is an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Academy of Sciences.

Luc Sirois holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from McGill University and an MBA from Harvard University. Recognized in Canada and around the world for his creative approach to innovation, M. Sirois is a leader and entrepreneur in digital technology, with investments in numerous startups and non-profit organizations focused on youth, health, science and education. He co-founded the health innovation movement Hacking Health as well as its digital health accelerator and pre-seed fund. He is co-founder of Resonant Medical, now Elekta Canada, a leading manufacturer in the field of radiation oncology and image-guided treatments. He has also served as Vice President of Consumer Health at TELUS Health, Telesystem and Nightingale, and as Manager at McKinsey & Company with offices in Montreal, Toronto, Zurich and Paris. 

Until recently, he was Managing Director of Prompt, a not-for-profit organization that facilitates R&D partnerships between the industry and research institutions to improve the competitiveness of companies in the ICT, artificial intelligence and other digital technology markets. Mr. Sirois is also strategic advisor to the Minister of the Economy and Innovation of the Quebec government. As such, he currently works on deploying new tech transfer models, on the culture of innovation in institutions, on issues of business creation and scientific entrepreneurship, as well as on the transfer of social innovations and their adoption in society.

In December 2020, he was appointed Chief Innovator of Quebec and Director General of the newly created Quebec Innovation Council.

Wendy Gonzalez is an executive passionate about building high-performing, high-functioning teams that develop and scale innovative, impactful technology. With two decades of managerial and technology leadership experience for companies including EY, Capgemini, Cycle30 (acquired by Arrow Electronics) and General Communications Inc, Gonzalez is currently the CEO of Sama, the provider of accurate data for ambitious AI, used by leading technology companies such as Walmart, Google, Nvidia and Getty. Before taking on her role as CEO, Gonzalez spent 5 years at Sama as COO, and is an active Board Member of the Leila Janah Foundation.

Frank Mühlon was appointed President of ABB’s E-Mobility division in 2017. 

For more than a decade, the global business has provided a complete range of charging and infrastructure solutions from slow AC charging, DC fast charging and Ultra-fast charging to eBus / heavy vehicle charging.. All chargers are cloud connected, offer a lot of additional functionality for the user as well as the operator, and are easily serviceable. With charging at the center, ABB offers also a whole range of low- and medium switchgear for larger sites, battery-energy storage and site load- and energy management controls.

Prior to this role, Frank was Global Head of the Low Voltage modular devices unit and Managing Director of ABB Stotz-Kontakt GmbH in Heidelberg, which is one of the manufacturing sites of those products. 

Before joining ABB in 2014, Frank had several global general management positions within the Automotive Division of Bosch and worked in Germany, China and the US. 

Frank has a master’s degree in mechanical engineering and business from the University of Darmstadt, Germany and lives close to Frankfurt, Germany.

Laurie has been the Director of Hydro Ottawa’s Distribution Engineering and Asset Management group since July 2019. Prior to joining Hydro Ottawa in 2017, Laurie held a number of leadership and continuous improvement roles within the manufacturing industry, most notably with Kraft Heinz (formerly Kraft Foods). 

Laurie holds an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering and is also a black belt in lean six-sigma. With her diverse background, Laurie brings a unique approach and perspective to the utility industry, which is currently undergoing significant transformation. Laurie is passionate about continuous improvement and is committed to driving change in a collaborative manner that leads to long-lasting and positive outcomes.

Jason Millar holds the Canada Research Chair in the Ethical Engineering of Robotics and AI, and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with a cross-appointment in the Department of Philosophy. He has authored book chapters, policy reports, and articles on the ethics, ethical design, and governance of robotics and AI. Jason consults internationally on policy, and ethical engineering issues in emerging technology. His work is regularly featured in the media, including articles in publications such as WIRED and The Guardian, and interviews with the BBC, CBC and NPR. He recently authored a chapter titled Social Failure Modes in Technology and the Ethics of AI: An Engineering Perspective, for the Oxford Handbook of Ethics of AI (OUP). He also authored a chapter on Ethics Settings for Autonomous Vehicles in Robot Ethics 2.0 (OUP), and co-authored a chapter on Hacking Metaphors in technology governance for the Oxford Handbook on the Law and Regulation of Technology (OUP). His research interests include developing tools and methodologies engineers can use to integrate ethical thinking into their daily engineering workflow, and focuses on applications in automated vehicles, artificial intelligence, healthcare robotics, social and military robotics.

Adrien Gaidon is the Machine Learning Lead at the Toyota Research Institute (TRI) in Los Altos, CA, USA. Adrien is working on open research problems in world-scale learning for automated driving, especially self-supervised learning and other techniques to go beyond supervised learning. He received his PhD from Microsoft Research – Inria Paris in 2012 and has over a decade of experience in academic and industrial Computer Vision, with over 40 publications, top entries in international Computer Vision competitions, multiple best reviewer awards, international press coverage for his work on Deep Learning with simulation, and was a guest editor for the International Journal of Computer Vision.

You can find him on Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrien-gaidon-63ab2358/) and Twitter (@adnothing).

Olivier is co-founder and VP of decision science at Moov AI. He is the editor of the international ISO standard that defines the quality of artificial intelligence systems, where he leads a team of 50 AI professionals from around the world.
His cutting-edge AI and machine learning knowledge have led him to implement a data culture in various industries and support digital transformation projects in many companies such as Pratt & Whitney, Metro, Sharethrough, and Premier Tech.

He is a mentor for in AI for Creative Destruction Labs and coaches several start-ups. As a speaker, his topics of choice are adopting and applying AI and responsible AI.

Olivier is the recipient of the prestigious “30 under 30” award (Infopresse – 2019) and is co-author of a patent for an advanced algorithm that evaluates a borrower’s creditworthiness.

Carina practises in all areas of intellectual property litigation, with a focus on IP litigation and applications under the Patented Medicines Notice of Compliance Regulations. She has an in-depth knowledge of Canadian administrative law and practice, including judicial review.
Carina’s background in computer engineering allows her to be of particular assistance to technology clients in patent, copyright and intellectual property licensing matters.
She has appeared before the Trademarks Opposition Board, the Federal Court, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal and the Federal Court of Appeal.
Carina served for two terms as a Tribunal Member for the Military Grievances External Review Committee, adjudicating disputes in the federal government context.
Prior to her legal career, she was an aeronautical engineering officer with the Canadian Forces and an engineering contracting officer and project manager for the Department of National Defence.
Carina is fluent in English and French

Bob leads the WW ML Services Specialist team, responsible for the AWS ML Services go-to-market strategy.  Bob has been leading teams focused on helping customers adopt machine learning at AWS for the past 3 years, having joined AWS in mid-2017 focused on AWS Strategic Accounts, then heading up the Americas’ Machine Learning BD Specialist team in 2019 prior to taking on his current role.  Prior to AWS, Bob ran corporate strategy for two start-ups, and held various executive positions at HP, including heading up the HP / Microsoft FrontLine Alliance, and leading the strategy & operations team for the x86 server division which included running HP’s server OEM business. A USNA Graduate with an MBA from University of Virginia, Bob began his professional career as a business consultant at Coopers & Lybrand Consulting.

A visionary with a relentless will to spark entrepreneurial spirit within large organisations, Federico Puebla is the head of SNC-Lavalin Innovation Lab in Montreal. SNC-Lavalin is one of the world’s largest engineering firms with offices in over 50 countries. 

Federico was the craftsman behind Desjardins Lab, the first innovation lab at Desjardins Group, Canada’s largest financial coop. In 2018, Desjardins Lab won the Corporate Champion of the Year Award at the Montreal Startup Community Awards. Federico was also the co-creator of Cooperathon, Canada’s largest open-innovation challenge, and the director of Start-up in Residence Incubator. In addition, Federico is a guest blogger at Journal Les Affaires

Dr. Padmashree Gehl Sampath brings over two decades of experience in policy forecasting and analysis, policy design and implementation of relevance to global and national governance in various sectors, particularly the digital economy, life sciences and renewable energy. As a widely renowned thought leader in these areas, she influences policy and strategic decisions by assessing and predicting the emergence of new market opportunities, current and future competition patterns, and identifying strategic areas of intervention to promote change. Most recently, she served as Head-Policy of the International Renewable Energy Agency, and at the Berkman Klein Center, Harvard University, her work particularly focuses on the ways in which the digital technologies can be leveraged through new business models in the public and private sectors. Topics of work include leveraging AI for growth and prosperity, government-as-a-platform in the global South, digital development strategies, privacy and control for the public good, and new business and governance models for plural, participatory futures in the digital economy. 

She works with industry leaders and private companies, market makers, regulators from national governments globally and international agencies. In the past, she has advised the national governments of Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, USA, UK, apart from a range of African, Asian, and Latin American governments, international policy organizations such as World Intellectual Property Organization, World Health Organization and various other United Nations organizations, regional agencies and regional banks, and other associations which influence business and government policies. She has authored over sixty publications on these topics, including five widely acclaimed books, white papers and position papers that have been implemented widely, and other publications.

Debbie Gamble is the Chief Officer, Innovation Labs and New Ventures at Interac. A seasoned digital commerce executive, entrepreneur and thought leader with over 30 years of experience, Debbie has been involved in early iterations of the digital economy including crypto currency, mobile commerce and digital ID on an international scale. Recipient of numerous industry awards including, ‘FemTech Leader of the Year’, ‘Most Influential Women in Payments’, ‘Top 50 Women in FinTech’ and ‘Distinguished Payments Professional’, Debbie is passionate about digital innovation and business transformation.

Debbie sits on the Board of Communitech and holds advisory roles at MaRS Discovery District, Luge Capital, Women in Payments, FINCA and is a founding member of Verity Women’s Club in Toronto

Yuhong Guo is a Professor in the School of Computer Science at Carleton University, a Canada Research Chair in Machine Learning, and a Canada CIFAR AI Chair at Amii.  Her research interests span machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing, with an emphasis on expanding the autonomy of machine learning methods by reducing dependence on extensive human guidance and extending applicability to more diverse annotation scenarios.  Prof. Guo received her PhD in Computing Science from the University of Alberta, and previously worked at the Australian National University as a research fellow and at Temple University as an assistant then tenured associate professor.  She has received paper awards from multiple international conferences, including IJCAI and AAAI. Prof. Guo is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, serves on the Editorial Board of the Artificial Intelligence Journal, and has also served as an Area Chair for AAAI and IJCAI. 

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.

Mari Joller is the Founder and CEO of Snackable AI, content discovery engine for the audio-first world. She is known for her ability to translate market insights into product vision and build high-performing teams to deliver against the opportunity.

Mari is a repeat entrepreneur in the audio-meets-AI space. For the past six years, she has been in the trenches driving AI-based startups, observing first-hand the psychology of how people interact with machines and its impact on designing AI-powered products.

Snackable uses artificial intelligence to add structure and metadata into spoken word audio / video, transforming monolithic content blocks into neat packages that are transparent, easy to search, access and share.

Before Snackable, Mari successfully founded and sold her company Scarlet, a cloud platform for delivering personal and branded content to the emerging audio ecosystem. Prior to Scarlet she co-founded Snazz, software for powering live events for businesses and brands. She previously built and scaled products at Virgin Mobile and Nokia.

Mari has an MBA from Harvard and a BA from Middlebury College.

Gabe Batstone is the co-founder & CEO of contextere. He brings to the company two decades of experience in implementing emerging technology into complex regulated environments. This has included industrial innovations in AI, ML, IoT, VR, and AR. Gabe has worked for technology leaders in the aerospace & defense and automotive markets including NAVTEQ, CAE, and NGRAIN.

Gabe serves on the Board of Directors of the Canadian American Business Council (CABC) promoting continental trade policy. Gabe also founded Teagan’s Voice a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting children’s rights following the murder of his 8-year-old daughter in 2014.

Gabe holds a Bachelor of Applied Arts, specializing in Geographic information Systems, from Ryerson University in Toronto and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Baltimore. Gabe is a frequent public speaker, published writer, and has completed postgraduate studies at the United Nations Institute for Training & Research, University of Chicago, and Harvard Law School.

Jean-Simon Venne is a co-founder and CTO of BrainBox AI. As a technology expert specializing in the fast and efficient migration of technological innovations to commercial applications, Jean-Simon has over 25 years of experience developing and implementing new technology to solve long-standing commercial issues in the fields of telecommunications, biotechnology, and energy-efficiency.

Prior to joining BrainBox AI, he was responsible for the successful integration of M2M technology in over 200 Smart Buildings across North America, Europe, and the Middle East. Jean-Simon holds a B.Eng. in Industrial Engineering from École Polytechnique de Montréal and a Certificate in Logistics from the University of Georgia Tech.

Sarah Larose is a Director, Business Development, Foreign Attraction Investment at Investissement Québec. She is responsible for the elaboration and roll-out of customised strategies required to attract and retain foreign investment. These include structuring viable financial solutions by showcasing all the financial tools managed by Investment Quebec and its partners.

Prior to joining Investissement Québec, Sarah worked for three years at Element AI, an artificial intelligence startup, both as a Strategic Account Executive and later, as a Government Relation Manager. Her first role was to engage with Csuite and VP level executives at global companies to generate new business revenue, while also building rapport with senior level executives and advising on best practice business solutions. As a founding member of Element AI’s Government Relations and Public Policy team, she informed governments and regulators regarding the significant future implications of data and AI.

Previously, she also worked at Montreal International where she assisted and advised foreign companies looking to invest in the Greater Montreal region. She also was a Trade Commissioner at Global Affairs Canada where she assisted Canadian companies with export development, innovation, and with investment strategy and sourcing.

Dr. Nasrin Sadeghianpour is a Senior Smart Grid & AI Scientist at BluWave-ai. Prior to that, she was a Ph.D. scholar at the smart grid team in IDLab. During her tenure in IDLab, Nasrin successfully applied AI in four major industry projects, developing solutions using statistical modelling, machine learning, and deep reinforcement learning, to facilitate practical demand response algorithms for residential customers and electric vehicles in the smart power grid.

Nasrin’s Ph.D. research led to several high impact international publications. She obtained her Ph.D. in computer science from the Faculty of Engineering, Ghent University, Belgium, in 2018.  

Nasrin loves travelling, exploring different cultures, and meeting new people.

Curtis is passionate about innovation, design, technology and intellectual property strategy. Innovative companies, their investors and advisors trust Curtis to help them strengthen their competitive advantage and create barriers to entry for competitors. He works with clients in areas from telecommunications and medical devices to autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence and 3D printing.

He has developed an innovative suite of strategic intellectual property advisory services, to help companies use IP to drive business success.

Curtis, one of the top 300 IP strategists in the world according to the IAM Strategy 300, is a professional engineer, registered patent agent and design expert. His more than 20 years’ experience brings a unique combination of deep expertise and board-level strategic insights to startups, scale-ups and world-leading multinationals. Companies rely on Curtis’ strategic thinking, curiosity, problem solving expertise and investment in long-term relationships.

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Curtis is a director of the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada (the voice of intellectual property professionals in Canada) and treasurer of AIPPI Canada. He is a member of BLG’s Innovation Thought Leadership Committee, chair of BLG’s Ottawa Charitable Donations Committee, and a former member of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee (2008-2018).

Prior to joining BLG, Curtis was a senior patent examiner at the Canadian Intellectual Property Office.

Patrick St-Amant is the CTO and co-founder of Zetane that patented the company’s technology underlying its software products for visual, intuitive displays of AI.

Previously, he was a mathematics professor at Collège International Saint-Anne and an independent researcher in numbers theory, set theory and fundamentals of mathematics. He also founded and managed the innovation Makerspace at College Saint-Anne where he guided and mentored over 100 student projects in mathematics. He received the Virtual and Augmented Reality Grant from Entente Canada-Quebec in 2016 to support the development of virtual and augmented reality applications for learning languages.

Patrick advanced research in mathematics, categories theories and foundation of computing groups at the University of Ottawa (2007). He was an invited scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (2006 & 2007) where he studied neural sciences. He holds a M.Sc. in computer science and fundamental mathematics from UQAM (2007) and a Bachelor of Mathematics and Physics from UQAM (2004).

Ciara Riordan is an award-winning journalist, presenter, reporter and producer. The Irish native is currently the social news editor at BBC News. This involves overseeing some of the largest social media accounts in the world including the BBC News Facebook page, @BBCBreaking, @BBCNews and @BBCWorld on Twitter, and the BBC News Instagram account. She manages a global digital news team with hubs in Washington DC, Toronto and Singapore.

You can see Ciara presenting on BBC News digital platforms to millions of views. Her interview with Sir David Attenborough went viral when she asked him what animal would he be for a day! (Answer: A sloth!).  

She has also reported live from major breaking news stories including the Westminster and Manchester attacks.

Before her current digital role, she was a reporter with BBC World TV News, a producer on BBC Breakfast TV and LBC Radio. Ciara started her career in Ireland at Newstalk radio, had her own breakfast show on Radio Kerry, worked for RTE, and even did a stint at Australia’s ABC NewsRadio.

James Briggs is the founder and CEO of AI Collaborator. An innovation-driven entrepreneur and technologist, James has spent 20+ years translating new technology innovations into impactful businesses and products that have helped enterprises globally adapt to win the future. At AI Collaborator, James is committed to helping enterprises of all sizes leverage a collaborative, responsible approach to AI deployment to enhance digital transformation. Passionate about diversity and inclusion, James seeks to bring greater awareness to the potential negative ramifications of unmonitored artificial intelligence initiatives on the lives and livelihoods of underrepresented communities. James received his BS degree from Purdue University and an MBA from The Pennsylvania State University. James is a frequent presenter at conferences globally and has been a contributor to top publications, including Forbes, Ad Age, Entrepreneur, Inc., WSJ, and Huffington Post.

Nush founded Naaut which provides a 360 approach to innovation strategy to space agencies, startups, academia, AI accelerators, primes, and tech companies. As well as Naaut, Nush co-founded the London Space Network (LSN) in Jan 2019, the London Space Network organises monthly networking events across London to build and strengthen the UK space community. Recognised as one of the Top 100 most influential BAME tech leaders in the UK. – Financial Times. Nush has been active in the tech ecosystem across the UK, Europe, and the USA. Nush has championed diversity across the global space and tech ecosystem. She was appointed POC tech community ambassador for Google for Startup Campus and has been a key figure across the ecosystem connecting people to networks. She champions diversity of perspectives to drive and foster collaboration to drive innovation as we take our steps to go back to the Moon, Mars and beyond. Nush is and Advisory Board member of YSYS -Your Startup, Your Story is a startup community for founders, developers, creatives, investors and more on a mission to make a difference.

Dr. Alexis Hannart, Chief Scientific Officer and partner is in charge of Axionable scientific activities which aim at developing sustainable AI solutions for our clients across several sectors and geographies. Alexis has more than 20 years of experience in the academic and private sector across Europe, South America and North America, focusing on the development of AI methods for use in the realm of climate science and climate change mitigation/adaptation.

Kristen earned her JD degree at the University of Ottawa, and holds a BA (Hons.) in Anthropology from McMaster University and an MA in International Affairs from Carleton University. She is currently completing her PhD in Law at the University of Ottawa, where her dissertation focuses on public space privacy intrusions facilitated by robots/artificial intelligence (e.g. drones, facial recognition technology). Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, she served as law clerk to the Honourable Madam Justice Rosalie Abella at the Supreme Court of Canada and clerked for the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench, as well as articling for Alberta Justice. 

Kristen has published her research in several articles and book chapters, most recently a piece on “Robots, Regulation, and the Changing Nature of Public Space” in the Ottawa Law Review. She is a regular public commentator in the mainstream media and other channels and serves on the Legal Expertise Committee of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics, as well as the International Committee for Robot Arms Control. At Windsor Law, she taught in the areas of privacy law, torts, and robotics law and policy. At Allard Law, she will be teaching “Special Topics in Law and Technology: Law, Robotics, and Society” in Winter 2021.

Giovanna graduated as a Civil Engineer from Politecnico di Milano and has a wealth of professional experience within the P&C insurance sector. Over 10 years, she progressed in technical and underwriting within the mid-corporate sector at Zurich in Milan. 

In 2011, Giovanna joined Allianz in Munich, where she headed the technical management of SME insurance for the Group within Global P&C center of competence. 

She moved to France in 2013 and spent 5 years as Technical Director for Property within the Mid Corporate sector, before becoming Director of Climate and Emerging Risks for a newly formed team in late 2018.  The aim of the department, directly attached to a member of the Executive Committee, is to develop a steering strategy for the P&C book of business in relation to its exposure to natural hazards, taking into account climate change effects and their impact on insurance’s social responsibility. 

François Croteau completed his bachelor’s degree in history, art history and sociology at the Université de Montréal. He continued his studies at ESG-UQAM, where he received an MBA in 2007, and a doctorate in urban studies in 2017 under the supervision of Pierre Delorme. His thesis focused on the urban governance of Montréal and the management of stakeholders.

He was first elected as Mayor of the borough Rosemont− La Petite-Patrie in 2009, and was re-elected in 2013 and 2017. He is known for his innovative environmental policies, particularly in the areas of urban agriculture, sustainable transportation, urban planning and effective management of public services. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the City of Montréal, responsible for Information Technologies, Innovation, Smart City and Higher Education.

Krishna is the co-founder and CEO of Fiddler, an Explainable AI Monitoring company that helps address problems regarding bias, fairness, and transparency in AI. Prior to founding Fiddler, Gade led the team that built Facebook’s explainability feature ‘Why am I seeing this?’. He’s an entrepreneur with a technical background with experience creating scalable platforms and expertise in converting data into intelligence. Having held senior engineering leadership roles at Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Microsoft, he’s seen the effects that bias has on AI and machine learning decision-making processes, and with Fiddler, his goal is to enable enterprises across the globe solve this problem.

Max Jarvie is a senior associate in the Privacy and Data Protection practice group at BLG LLP. He provides assistance and strategic advice to organizations relating to privacy and data protection, the use of machine learning, distributed ledgers and other technologies, information governance, data trusts, technology licensing, consumer protection, and corporate commercial matters.

Max is sought after as a public speaker on privacy law and the legal implications of technology, including artificial intelligence, privacy-protecting technologies, distributed ledger technologies, IoT and smart cities, and has taught students on the tax implications of cryptocurrencies at McGill’s Faculty of Law. Max also publishes regularly, most recently two book chapters contributed to Eloïse Gratton’s and Elisa Henry’s Managing Privacy in a Connected World (2020) and two articles relating to decentralized automatic exposure notification and contact tracing systems in The Lancet Digital Health (June 2020) and the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (June 2020). He has also served as a law clerk at the Supreme Court of Israel for Justice Hanan Melcer and at the Court of Appeal of Québec for the Honourable Nicholas Kasirer.

Prior to joining BLG, Max practiced business, privacy and technology law at the Montreal office of a national law firm. During his legal studies, Max worked as an editor for both the McGill Law Journal and the McGill Journal of Law and Health, and edited and published the 8th edition of the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation. Before studying law, Max worked in information technology as a project manager and departmental director at a number of private companies and public institutions.

Daniel Otzoy is an international digital transformation specialist with more than 15 years of experience working in Latin America and the Caribbean in Digital Health projects (up to 15 years) funded by PAHO/WHO, Inter-American Development Bank, CDC, Global Fund, USAID and other more, implementing digital technologies in public health and healthcare sectors, and promoting the adoption of digital health strategies like EHR/EMR, telemedicine, mHealth, among others.

Nowadays, he works with the PAHO/WHO as Health Informatics Consultant for the Immunization Unit in the Headquarter in Washington D.C. , with the IDB in several countries in LAC region as digital health and digital transformation consultant, and with the UNDOC as senior digital transformation advisor for the ROPAN Office. 

He is co-founder partner and coordinator of the Central American Health Informatics Network (RECAINSA) an initiative founded in 2013 with the purpose to support the national digital health strategies in the Central American countries, and currently is a Latin American network with the participation of people from all the Latin American region.

Vasco Pedro is the co-founder and CEO of Unbabel. Originally from Lisbon, Portugal, Vasco holds a Ph.D. in Language Technologies from Carnegie Mellon University and is a faculty member of Singularity University. Vasco has played a key role in strengthening the Portuguese tech ecosystem, through mentorship initiatives including Beta-i, Startup Portugal, and the Founders Initiative. Under Vasco’s leadership, Unbabel has raised a total of $91 million in funding to enable enterprises to serve customers in their native languages, with always-on, scalable translation across digital channels.

Harish Doddi graduated with a Masters in Computer Science degree from Stanford. He specialized in the Systems and Databases field. He started his career in Oracle. Then, he moved to Twitter to work on open source technologies. He managed the Snapchat stories product from scratch. He also managed the pricing team at Lyft. He has finished his undergrad in Computer Science from International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-Hyderabad).

Beatriz Botero Arcila is an affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and an incoming professor of Cyberlaw at Sciences Po Law School. Her research and expertise focus on the governance of smart city technologies and the data they produce. She holds an LLB from Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia, and an LLM and SJD from Harvard Law School. 

Minetou has strong experience in insurance particularly in products & services and regulatory topics. She supports insurers in their transformation & remediation projects. She works with departments such as compliance, risks, innovation & offers and helps them to design, upgrade or realign their services or rules. Currently, she focuses on sustainable insurance and how AI & innovation can address, manage & monitor risks and opportunities associated with environmental, social and governance issues.