Shakir Mohamed works on technical and sociotechnical questions in AI research and development, working on problems in foundational AI, applied problems in healthcare, education and environment, and participation and responsibility. Shakir is a Research Director at Google DeepMind in London, an Associate Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, and an Honorary Professor of University College London. Shakir is a founder and trustee of the Deep Learning Indaba, a grassroots charity whose work is to build pan-African capacity and leadership in AI. In 2023, Shakir was included in the TIME 100 most influential people in AI. He serves on several boards, including the oversight board of the Ada Lovelace Institute, as the Chair of the international scientific advisory committee for the pan-Canadian AI strategy, the Royal Society Diversity and Inclusion committee, and the AI field’s leading conferences (ICLR, ICML, NeurIPS). Shakir is from South Africa, he completed a postdoc at the University of British Columbia, received his PhD from St John's College in the University of Cambridge, and received his masters and undergraduate degrees in Electrical and Information engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

Dr. Minas Liarokapis is the CEO and CTO of Acumino, where he leads the company's strategic vision and technology development. He has been serving in this dual role since April 2025, after initially joining as CTO in March 2024. Dr. Liarokapis is also an Associate Professor at the National Technical University of Athens, an Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Auckland’s Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, and he also directs the New Dexterity Research Group (www.newdexterity.org). His research focus includes dexterous robotic manipulation, human dexterity restoration and augmentation, and AI-powered robotic systems for industrial automation.

A research and scientific leader in Artificial Intelligence, Alessandra is the Sr. Director of AI and Data Science at Shutterstock. Alessandra has over 18 years’ experience in research and innovation gained while working in academic and commercial environments. Alessandra is passionate about AI models, data science, and computational models, with a focus on transferring innovation from research to products. Alessandra chairs the AI and Multimedia Authenticity Collaboration, which brings together IEC, ISO, ITU, and other standards organizations to foster a unified response to deepfake technology. As Co-chair of the UNESCO Women for Ethical AI Platform, Alessandra works with a strong community of women to foster diversity, inclusion, and equality for women and minorities. As Global President of Women in AI, a non-profit do-tank working towards gender-inclusive AI that benefits global society, Alessandra leads a community of women from 150 countries. This community empowers women and minorities to become AI & Data experts, innovators, and leaders. In an advisory capacity, Alessandra also serves as the Governance Committee Chair at the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Research Training in Machine Learning. Among several awards, Alessandra won the 2024 Grace Hopper award and the 2021 XV International Prize "Le Tecno-visionarie" in the AI - Industrial Research category. In her previous role, Alessandra was Head of Analytics Research at Nokia Bell Labs. There, she led research teams in several locations while driving changes across different activities, such as her contributions to the Nokia AI Ethics Advisory Board.

Charis (Harry) Sfyrakis is founder and CEO of Algomo, where he builds AI systems for website personalization and lead generation. He has a track record of working on AI applications before they become mainstream—in 2013 at Sandtable Ltd, he built agent-based simulations commercially, over a decade before AI agents became the industry's obsession. Harry previously served as VP of Data Science at Barclays, processing behavioral data for 24 million customers, and led HSBC's global chatbot framework as lead data scientist, a system now deployed worldwide across HSBC operations. He holds dual master's degrees in AI from the University of Patras and the University of Edinburgh (First Class Honours). Harry founded Algomo in 2020, initially focused on multilingual AI customer service supporting 109 languages—more than twice the 45 languages supported by major tech companies combined. The company won HackerNoon's Startup of the Year 2023 for London and was named by Sifted among the top 59 generative AI startups to watch in 2024. In 2024, after watching customers hack the product to generate leads rather than answer support questions, Harry pivoted the entire company to website and chat personalization. Operating as a solo founder between Greece and the UK, he has raised $3 million proving that you don't need a co-founder, VC backing, or Silicon Valley to build AI companies.

Dr. Roman V. Yampolskiy is a tenured faculty member in the department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Louisville. He is the founding and current director of the Cyber Security Lab and an author of many books including “AI: Unexplainable, Unpredictable, Uncontrollable”. Dr. Yampolskiy’s main area of interest is Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security.

Maria Papadopouli (Ph.D., Columbia University, 2002) is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Crete, a Research Associate at the Institute of Computer Science, FORTH, a Lead Researcher at the Archimedes Research Unit, Athena Research Center, a Fulbright Scholar, and an ELLIS member. She has been a MSCA Fellow at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School (2022-2025), a Fulbright Scholar at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), MIT (2017), and at the School of Electrical Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. From July 2002 until June 2006, she was a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), on leave from July 2004 until June 2006. She is interested in understanding the underlying dynamics of various complex real-world networks, from the Internet to the brain. Recently, her focus is on neuro-AI. Her research has been supported by several awards (e.g., IBM Faculty Awards, Google Faculty Award) and national, EU, and international grants. She is a co-founder of the grassroots initiative Greeks in AI.

Paul Cheek is a serial tech entrepreneur, entrepreneurship educator, software engineer, author, and patented inventor. He is the Senior Advisor for Entrepreneurship & AI at MIT, former Executive Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, a Senior Lecturer in the MIT Sloan School of Management, and the author of Disciplined Entrepreneurship: Startup Tactics. Paul was MIT’s first Hacker in Residence and has since taught, mentored, and advised thousands of entrepreneurs around the world. Paul was named to Forbes 30 Under 30, the definitive list of young people changing the world. Paul is a co-founder of Oceanworks, a for-profit company with a mission to end plastic pollution and previously co-founded Work Today, a venture-backed digital staffing and recruiting company. Paul advises startups and both speaks and consults with Fortune 500 companies and universities globally to advance entrepreneurship.

Jurgi Camblong, Ph.D., M.B.A., is a visionary entrepreneur who is pioneering the data-driven medicine movement around the world. In 2011, he founded SOPHiA GENETICS with Dr. Pierre Hutter and Prof. Lars Steinmetz and has successfully led the development of the company as CEO ever since. Jurgi was a member of the Advisory Council on Digital Transformation to the Swiss Government, is a board member of the Swiss Biotech Association and was personally recognized by EY as Emergent Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017, listed among the 50 Smartest Companies by the MIT Technology Review. Jurgi has been a member of the board of directors since March 2011. He is a molecular biologist (published in Cell, Science and Nature), has a Ph.D. in life sciences from the University of Geneva and an Executive M.B.A. in management of technology from EPFL/HEC Lausanne.

Léa Peersman is the founder of CIEL Studio, a next-generation talent agency advising AI pioneers and emerging leaders on how to design their careers, grow their influence, and shape the future. She also leads Lign.ai, the first AI-native talent intelligence platform built to power her agency’s work and shared with forward-looking HR teams, executive search firms, coaches, and talent development leaders seeking to invest in people with the same rigor as capital. An MIT alumna, Léa has nearly two decades of international leadership experience across education, luxury, consulting, and technology. She has scaled organizations on four continents, advised CEOs and boards on culture and talent strategy, and introduced the paradigm of “talent investment” as a decisive lever for growth in the AI economy. Her work explores the frontier where AI meets human intelligence: building infrastructures that enable organizations and individuals to align, grow, and perform in a world of accelerating change. Beyond her business practice, Léa is also deeply engaged in questions of parenting in the AI era — transmission, preparing the next generation of talent, and understanding what it means to nurture intelligence for the future. For her, the defining advantage of this new economy is not algorithms or capital, but the ability to orchestrate and invest in ecosystems of human potential.

Dr. Pearlson is an expert in managing and using information, specializing in cybersecurity leadership, management and governance. She is currently a Principal Research Scientist at MIT's Sloan School of Management, and the previous Executive Director of CAMS, a research consortium at MIT Sloan focused on cybersecurity. Dr. Pearlson is a thought leader in cybersecurity culture, resilience, supply chain, and board leadership. One of her current projects studies the executive considerations of cybersecurity from AI. Her work has been widely published including articles in the Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, the Wall Street Journal, and many other managerial and academic outlets. Dr. Pearlson serves as an independent director at cybersecurity firm Barracuda and at medical industry company TMF. She participates as an advisory board member for the Society for Information Management (SIM)'s Research Institute and the ADGM Academy Research Center. Prior to her work at MIT, Dr. Pearlson held positions in academia and industry, and created and sold several entrepreneurial ventures. She is also the coauthor of a popular textbook on information systems management. She holds a doctorate from the Harvard Business School and master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Stanford University.

Professor Georgios Chalkiadakis (Phd University of Toronto, 2007) is a faculty member of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the Technical University of Crete (TUC) since Μarch 2011. Prior to this, he was (2007-2011) a Research Fellow at the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, UK. After joining TUC, Georgios has paid research visits or sabbatical time at IIIA-CSIC (ES), Université Paris-Dauphine (FR), and the Università di Verona (IT). Georgios research interests research interests lie mainly in the area of Multiagent Systems (MAS) - and more specifically on decision making under uncertainty and reinforcement learning in MAS environments; coalition formation and cooperation in MAS; and cooperative game theory. He is a co-author of the graduate level textbook “Computational Aspects of Cooperative Game Theory” (Morgan and Claypool, 2011). He has also co-authored 4 book chapters in scientific collections, and more than 100 peer-reviewed research papers in journals and conferences in his areas of expertise (several of which have received awards or award nominations). He has so far graduated 3 PhD, 11 MSc, and more than 50 MEng-level students. He has extensive teaching experience in Greece and abroad, including several invited tutorials in top AI venues such as AAMAS and IJCAI. Georgios has participated in 17 national or European research projects, and is currently (2025) the PI of DEEP-REBAYES, a basic AI research project on intertwining deep reinforcement learning, Bayesian learning, and game theory, which is funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation. Georgios has served in the Editorial Board of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR), and in several reviewing roles in various journals and conferences. Between 2019-2022 he served as the Deputy Chair and then the Chair of the European Association for Multi-Agent Systems (EURAMAS). Between 2015 and 2019 Georgios served as the General Secretary of the Hellenic Artificial Intelligence Society (EETN). More details on Georgios and his research can be found at: http://www.intelligence.tuc.gr/~gehalk

Robert is Director of Trend Micro's Forward Looking Threat Research (FTR) and Adversary Intelligence and Monitoring (AIM) teams, where he is involved in analysing and monitoring the latest Cybercrime threats - specializing in researching the future threat landscape, Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) and coordinating investigations with international law enforcement. Robert is a regular presenter for the press and at security conferences. He also has lectured in Malware Analysis and Cybercrime Investigations on MSc modules at Munster Technological University (MTU) and University College Dublin (UCD). He worries that his hobby and job are one and the same, and constantly wonders if "normal" people have that problem.

Dr. Kira Radinsky is the CTO of Diagnostic Robotics, where the most advanced technologies in the field of artificial intelligence are harnessed to make healthcare better, cheaper, and more widely available. Dr. Radinsky has founded SalesPredict, acquired by eBay in 2016 and served as eBay Chief Scientist (IL). She gained international recognition for her work at the Technion and Microsoft Research for developing predictive algorithms that recognized the early warning signs of globally impactful events, as disease epidemics and political unrests. In 2013, she was named one of MIT Technology Review’s 35 Young Innovators Under 35 and in 2015 Forbes included her as "30 Under 30 Rising Stars in Enterprise Tech”. She is a frequent presenter at global tech and industry conferences, including TEDx, Wired, Strata Data Science, Techcrunch and publishes in HBR. In 2022, Dr. Radinsky co-founded Mana.bio and serves as a board member in Esh Digital Bank and Nebius (NASDAQ:NBIS). In the past she served as board member in the Israel Securities Authority, Maccabi Research Institute, and technology board of HSBC bank. She also holds a visiting professor position at the Technion focusing on the application of predictive data mining in medicine.

Eduardo is Principal GenAI Go to Market at AWS for EMEA, where he assists customers in harnessing the full potential of artificial intelligence. With a strong technical foundation, Eduardo 15+ years experience in tech, blending sales, consulting, and AI passion. Recognized as the most influential person in AI in Spain and top 15 worldwide by Favikon, he's also a public speaker at international events and teacher in master’s and postgraduate programs. Eduardo also shares insights with a community of 200k+ followers on LinkedIn, helping shape the future of AI.

Professor Joseph Sifakis is Emeritus Research Director at Verimag. He has been a full professor at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) for the period 2011-2016. He is the founder of the Verimag laboratory in Grenoble, a leading laboratory in the area of safety critical systems that he directed for 13 years. Joseph Sifakis has made significant and internationally recognized contributions to the design of trustworthy systems in many application areas, including avionics and space systems, telecommunications, and production systems. His current research focuses on autonomous systems, in particular self-driving cars and autonomous telecommunication systems. In 2007, he received the Turing Award, recognized as the "highest distinction in computer science", for his contribution to the theory and application of model checking, the most widely used system verification technique. Joseph Sifakis is a member of the French Academy of Sciences, the French National Academy of Engineering, Academia Europea, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Joseph Sifakis is a frequent speaker at international scientific, technical and public forums. He is the author of the book “Understanding and Changing the World” published in English and Chinese.

Matina Charkoftaki was raised in Heraklion, Crete, and has been a journalist for the past 13 years. She studied at the Department of International and European Studies at Panteion University and later earned a master's degree in Economics. Her career in business reporting began in 2012 when she joined SBC TV, a stock market channel, where she worked for six years. She later worked at Boussias Communications, covering FOODReporter and Build, and also contributed to the Business Daily news website. In 2022, she joined the teams of Capital.gr, Kefalaio newspaper, and the Greek edition of Forbes magazine. Recently, she started working as a business journalist for Kathimerini.

Athanasios Katsikidis is a Greek Columnist - specializing in interviewing high-profile personalities. For the past three years, he has been collaborating with Kathimerini Newspaper, Kathimerini English Edition, "K" magazine, Economic Review (Greek), as well as with the newsletter Geotrends (geo-trends.eu). In 2022 he spent time in Israel while acting as a correspondent for Kathimerini Newspaper. His articles have also been published by ESTIA Newspaper. Part of his work has been translated into 8 languages. Interviews of his include conversations with high-rank politicians, military and intelligence officers, Nobel laureates, philosophers, tech experts, and more than 100 notable personalities.

Vassilis is a partner at Blue Dome Capital, investing in deep tech and innovation in Central and South-Eastern Europe. He is also the managing partner of P Square Ventures, leading digital transformation through AI, and co-founder of COGNITOR AI, developing a passive authentication platform using machine learning and behavioral biometrics. He has led multiple startup investments, achieving two multi-X exits, and serves on several boards. A research affiliate at MIT, he teaches entrepreneurship at NTUA and is an EIR at NCSR Demokritos. He holds degrees from NTUA and MIT and enjoys running and windsurfing.

Thelma Chatziathanasiou has a Bachelor of Laws from National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and a Master's degree in international political economy from King's College London. She works at Kathimerini since 2018, first in the print newspaper and then the website, focusing on business and finance

Despina Konti was born in Athens. She has studied at the Philology Department of the University of Athens and has completed postgraduate studies in Information and Communication and in Political and Social Communication at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University and at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris, respectively. She is a journalist at Kathimerini covering, among other topics, the startup and technology industry in Greece.

Iliana Magra is a journalist with Kathimerini, Greece’s leading daily newspaper, for which she has covered a wide variety of topics, ranging from the pandemic and the MeToo movement to the effects of climate change and this year's electoral race. In 2022, she broke the story of an abuse scandal in one of the country's most famous NGOs. In 2021, she was the only Greek journalist to accompany Pope Francis on his first visit to Cyprus and Greece. Previously, she was a staff journalist with The New York Times in London, while her words have also appeared in The Sunday Times and The Financial Times.

Yannis Palaiologos (b. 1979) is a correspondent-at-large for Kathimerini newspaper and the investigative website inside story (www.insidestory.gr) and a correspondent in Greece for the Wall Street Journal. Between January 2020 and mid-2022 he was EU and NATO correspondent for Kathimerini and SKAI TV & Radio. He is the author of “The Thirteenth Labour of Hercules”, a book on the Greek crisis, first published in September 2014 by Portobello Books in London, with an expanded second edition in the summer of 2016.

He has written op-eds for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The Financial Times. He has also reported on Greece for the websites of Time magazine, Politico, Politico Europe, The New Republic and The American Prospect. He has commented on Greek issues for the BBC, CNN, NPR, Al-Jazeera and other international outlets.

Between 2009-2012, he was the editor-in-chief of Free Sunday newspaper and between 2006-9 he was the special supplements editor of City Press newspaper. He got his start in journalism in London, notably doing work experience stints at the foreign desk of The Times and The Independent (both in 2004). He is a 2015-6 Marshall Memorial fellow for Greece, and the recipient of the Greek Citi journalistic excellence award (in 2012, the first time the competition was held in Greece).

Outside journalism, he co-authored a play, “Mama Ellada2”, which ran from 2009-2010 in Athens. It was a satire about Greek corruption and the alienation of youth, which attracted strong reviews and widespread international attention, including from the BBC, The Economist, a number of German media, and many others. He was educated at Athens College and Oxford University, where he received a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (first class honours) and a B.Phil. (postgraduate degree) in Philosophy.

Apostolos Mangiriadis is the Central News Bulletin’s newscaster at the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) and presenter of two political talk shows (Epilogue, ERTalks). He has worked as a political correspondent and newscaster at SKAI and MEGA tv networks and was a contributing writer at TA NEA and KATHIMERINI newspapers. In 2024 he was awarded with the highest distinction for journalists in Greece, the Botsis foundation award. He studied Political Science at the University of Athens and holds a Master in International Affairs (MIA) from Columbia University.

Margarita Pournara was born in Athens. She studied French Language and Literature at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens but began working as a television journalist even before completing her studies. In 1996, she pursued postgraduate studies in Media at City University London. Upon her return, she worked in radio, magazines, and the newspaper 'To Vima'. Since 1999, she has been a member of the editorial staff of the newspaper 'Kathimerini', specializing in cultural reporting with a focus in visual arts. Since 2017, she has been writing the 'Athenian' column and covering a wide range of topics; from gastronomy and travel to investigative journalism. In 2010, she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and conducted research on the new generation of Greek Americans at Queens College, New York. Since 2014, she has specialized in live interviews in front of an audience. In 2019, in collaboration with renowned American photographer Robert McCabe, she published the book 'Santorini,' featuring texts and photographs of the island before the arrival of tourists. In 2022, she wrote the book 'Adrias: They Were All Heroes. The Biography of the Destroyer,' about the most heroic ship of the Greek fleet during World War II, using previously unpublished photographic material. It was published by AMKE Cyclops Publications. Since 2023, she has been presenting a monthly profile of a city or island in Kathimerini's Sunday edition under the title 'Invisible Greece'.

Charlotte is MIT Technology Review's news editor. She has extensive experience as a writer, editor and journalist covering tech, and crops up regularly on broadcast media. Charlotte Jee is an acclaimed journalist specializing in technology and politics, currently serving as the News Editor at MIT Technology Review. She is known for writing Tech Review's daily newsletter, The Download, and has previously been the editor of Techworld. Jee frequently appears on broadcasters like the BBC and NPR, and has received the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) NEXT Awards for Journalists Under 30.

Ted Hu has been with MIT Technology Review for seven years and oversees and works with all the international partners and editions of the magazine. During this time, he has also helped organize and facilitate the international editions of EmTech, MIT Technology Review’s premiere conference, and Innovators Under 35, the magazine’s competition to find and highlight significant contributions to science technology, and society by young talent. Ted has presented and moderated at several conferences is delighted to be a part of this event as the bridge between the regions.