Adrian Bührer is co-founder and managing partner of Übermorgen Ventures, a Swiss early stage climate tech VC. He is also founding investor and chairman of Farmy.ch, one of Europe’s most successful sustainable food tech startups, and an active business angel.

I am a Belfast-based freelance journalist and commentator from the north of the city.

I am member of the National Union of Journalists Belfast branch.

For over a decade I have been working as a Northern Correspondent and Ireland Stringer for Irish, British and international media outlets.

My written work has appeared in: The Washington Post; Reuters; The Irish Times; The Sunday Times; The Guardian; New Statesman; Daily Mirror; The Irish News; and other publications.

My broadcasting and commentary work includes: BBC; UTV; RTÉ; Sky; LBC; and others.

I cover breaking news, features, politics, lobby, courts, business, social affairs, the arts, lifestyle, food, travel, reviews, and more.

Variety is one of the great joys of being an independent journalist and working for myself.

As well as being a writer and broadcaster I am also an: event host; panellist; fixer; producer; copywriter; and trainer.

Angela Brand, MD PhD MPH (USA) isFull Professor in the Department of International Health at Maastricht University as well as Professorial Fellow at UNU-MERIT (United Nations University – Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology), Maastricht, The Netherlands. She is also Head of the Department of Public Health Genomics at the Manipal School of Life Sciences as well as Adjunct Professor at the Prasanna School of Public Health at Manipal University (MAHE), India.

Before she worked in the clinics, at various academic institutions and in governmental bodies in the USA and Germany. She is Paediatrician, Specialist in Public Health Medicine, holds a PhD in pathology, and a Master of Public Health (MPH) from Johns Hopkins University, USA.

She has been the pioneer of Public Health Genomics in Europe. She is Fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation, USA, Fellow of the 21st Century Trust of the Wellcome Trust, UK, and Member of the New York Academy of Sciences.

For the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2017 she was leading Task Force 2 “Data Donors and Citizen-Controlled Data Governance”. She is Member of the Board of Directors of the Digital Health Society (https://thedigitalhealthsociety.com), Advisory Board  Member of the International Consortium Personalised Medicine (IC PerMed, www.icpermed.eu), and Member of the Expert Group “Global Health Foresight” of the Science Division of the World Health Organization (WHO).

She serves as Expert for the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the OECD, WHO, the EC, Genome Canada, Science Europe, among others.

Azeem Azhar is an entrepreneur, investor and author.

He is the founder of Exponential View, the leading newsletter and podcast. Exponential View explores the political economy of the Exponential Age. It reaches more than 200,000 readers around the world.

He is also an active startup investor, with investments in AI, work-from-home and climate change.

He is on the board of the Ada Lovelace Institute and sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Digital Economy & Society, on the board of the Ada Lovelace Institute. Previously, he founded PeerIndex, a big data analytics firm acquired in 2015. He has had senior roles in global media businesses and started his career as a journalist where he was a writer for The Economist and The Guardian.

In 2020, he co-authored the State of Climate Tech, a global analysis of venture capital trends in climate change investing, with PwC.

His first book, Exponential, which explores the transition to the Exponential Age will be published in autumn of 2021.

www.exponentialview.co

Bleddyn is a vastly experienced commercial and international healthcare lawyer with over 30 years advising on outsourcings, privatisations, complex contracting and projects. He has unique experience for a private sector lawyer having spent almost four years seconded to the Commercial Directorate of the UK Department of Health where he was General Counsel.

He is Chair of the Digital Health Society a legacy of the Estonian Presidency in 2017. Last year DHS and I~HD produced the Calls to Action on Health Data Ecosystems https://echalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/210201-CTA-Health-Data-Report.pdf

Bleddyn is Deputy Chair of the European Connected Health Alliance, on the Industry Advisory Board of Digital Health. London and the Commercial Board of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Brian developed his career as a consultant, manager and investor. He has worked in the UK, US and Hong Kong and has significant experience as a company director in a variety of industries.

He is currently providing strategic advice to Governments, International organizations and companies on the challenges facing healthcare in general and specifically on the Connected Health opportunity. He created the European Connected Health Alliance, a not for profit organisation which connects Governments, Industry,Research Institutes, Health Services, Patient Groups etc through a Global Network of Ecosystems.

He is Chair of a number of innovative companies and an investor in start ups.

After a scientific career at the Max Planck Institute in Marburg, Germany, and the Australian National University in Canberra, Britta founded Formo in 2019. She established Formo’s strain development and bioprocessing lab and works with a team of highly motivated scientists to produce milk proteins for tasty and sustainable dairy products.

Carsten is the Director of Future Technologies of Aggreko, a world-leading provider of mobile modular power, temperature control and energy services. In his role he is responsible for the development and evolution of Aggreko’s global technology strategy, a special focus area being the Energy Transition. Carsten’s Future Technologies team collaborates closely with internal and external partners to identify and promote the most suitable technologies at the right time and pace for a successful and economically viable decarbonisation of Aggreko’s services. He joined Aggreko in 2017 through the acquisition of Younicos, a Berlin-founded battery energy storage pioneer. As SVP Engineering of Younicos Carsten headed and grew an international engineering and software development team that delivered the first commercially operated utility-scale battery storage projects in Europe and the USA. Pre-Younicos, Carsten worked as consultant and advised top-tier German automotive OEMs on quality assurance of embedded software via automated testing. He is an Electrical Engineer by training and received his diploma and doctorate degrees in 2005 and 2011, respectively.

Clay is a founding partner at Lowercarbon Capital and, as the team’s most active investor, Clay identifies and supports the firm’s preposterously ambitious companies working to undo global warming while making real money in the process. He also advises climate nonprofits such as Silver Lining, who are working to avert dangerous climate tipping points. As climate tech’s growth has exploded over the past several years, Clay has shared countless lessons learned on topics from reflecting sunlight to the future of fusion energy with audiences ranging from startup conferences to ARPA-E summits. 

In parallel with co-leading the Lowercarbon strategy, Clay is also a partner at Lowercase Capital, one of the industry’s highest-performing early-stage venture funds, where he owns the firm’s primary relationship with dozens of technology and consumer startups. He works closely with founders on product, fundraising, messaging, and policy strategy. Clay serves on the board of Tala, a Lowercase portfolio company building financial services for individuals who’ve been frozen out of the formal banking system in emerging markets.

Daniele Pucci received the bachelor and master degrees in Control Engineering with highest honors from ”Sapienza”, University of Rome, in 2007 and 2009, respectively. In 2009, he also received the ”Academic Excellence Award” from La Sapienza. In 2013, he earned the PhD title in Flight Dynamic and Control with a thesis at INRIA Sophia Antipolis, France. From 2013 to 2017, he has been a postdoc at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) working within the EU project CoDyCo. Since August 2017, Daniele is the head of the Dynamic Interaction Control (DIC) lab. Among other research activities, Daniele and his DIC Lab are pioneering Aerial Humanoid Robotics, a new branch of Robotics envisioning jet-powered flying humanoid robots. For this research, in December 2019 Daniele was awarded as Pioneer of the Year Under 35 Europe from the MIT Technology Review magazine. Daniele is also the principal investigator of the H2020 European Project AnDy and the coordinator of the joint lab between Honda Japan and IIT. He’s also coordinating the 5 M€ ergoCub joint project between INAIL and IIT aiming at developing new wearable technologies and humanoid robots to support humans in different fields. Since 2020, Daniele is also a visiting lecturer at University of Manchester in the department of Machine Learning and Optimisation of Computer Science. Finally, in 2020 Daniele was selected as an Italian representative in the task force on the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) announced on the 2018 G7.

David graduated from the University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne as a Marine Engineer in 1980 and then joined the merchant navy to gain practical experience. He sailed with Ropners of Darlington for 2 years before commencing the Lloyds Register graduate training scheme and ultimately becoming an Offshore Surveyor responsible on behalf of the UK D.En/DTI for the hook-up and commissioning of 4 offshore oil and gas platforms: Shell Tern, Shell Kittiwake, Total North Alwyn B and BP Forties Echo. During this time David became increasingly alarmed about climate change and was ultimately motivated to make the jump from the oil industry into renewables. This was achieved by commencing a research project for Lloyd’s to establish rules and regulations to govern the standard of construction of wind turbines.

In 1992 David met Mike Harper, who was then the Renewable Energy Campaigner for Friends of the Earth, and together with 3 others formed the B9 Energy group of companies which developed and built 10 onshore wind farm projects and became the UK and Ireland’s largest independent operator of wind plant with 49 wind farms under contract. Wind farm commissioning, inspection and major component changeout services were also delivered across the USA from an office in Boulder, Colorado. In addition B9 developed and built Northern Ireland’s first utility scale anaerobic digestion power station with a capacity of 80,000 tons per annum of organic waste diverted from landfill. David is now carrying out extensive work on energy storage (including distributed scale Compressed Air Energy Storage and bulk hydrogen electrolysis), micro-grids and district heating systems with a view to disrupting the constraints associated with the operation of AD, wind, solar and tidal farms.

In 2000, B9 Energy commenced its involvement in renewably powered transport by investing in electric vans to support their wind farm maintenance work. This has progressed to the production and distribution of road mobile compressed biomethane for stationary power generation and fleet vehicle refuelling applications.

B9 is the proposer and lead developer of the ‘Belfast Power-to-X Project’ which involves over 20 partners in a project to be located in Belfast, Northern Ireland, which produces hydrogen, oxygen and heat at scale using electrolysis powered by renewable energy and subsequently stores and distributes these gases for later use in heat, power, transport and industrial applications.

The B9 Energy Group operates out of low emission offices in Larne, Northern Ireland. It is very much a community based business with exciting opportunities offered to local people.

David is past Chairman of the MATRIX Sustainable Energy Advisory Panel in Northern Ireland and current Chairman of the North South Market Development Steering Group (NSMDSG) on waste management. He was awarded an OBE in the 2015 birthday honours list for “services to renewable energy especially in Northern Ireland”.

Derek joined Energia Group in 2010 and has worked primarily in the areas of energy policy and regulation.  Last year he took up his current role as Head of Corporate Affairs.  Derek’s work is focussed on supporting the Group’s €3bn Positive Energy investment programme.

Derek represents Energia Group within a number of industry groups and is a regular participant at industry and policy forums.

Derek holds a MA in Economics from University College Dublin and a Barrister-at-Law Degree from King’s Inns.  He previously worked in academia and as a consultant, including with the EU Commission (DG Comp) and the UK’s competition regulator.

Iain is a four time Olympian, three time Olympic medallist and double Olympic champion.  He is also a veteran of four America’s Cup challenges, beginning in 2005 as helmsman for the +39 Challenge, before joining Great Britain’s America’s Cup challenge, Team Origin. After retiring from Olympic competition in 2012, he joined Artemis Racing as a tactician, and was appointed Team Manager in October 2013. Iain then went on to lead the team’s successful 35th America’s Cup campaign in Bermuda, reaching the Louis Vuitton Challenger Series final in 2017. Passionate about protecting the oceans, the economics graduate founded Artemis Technologies in 2017, with a mission to see how America’s Cup technology could play a part in the decarbonization of the maritime industry. He has overseen the company’s transition from a sailing services provider, to an applied technologies company focusing on green innovations for marine transportation.

Dr Jayne Brady, MBE is Belfast’s Digital Innovation Commissioner, a founding member of the Innovation City Belfast partnership and Digital Pillar Chair for the Belfast Region City Deal.

An engineer at heart, Jayne has over 20 years’ leadership experience. Deeply committed to delivering inclusive regeneration by harnessing innovation, Jayne is a member of the UK Innovation Experts Group, an Entrepreneurial Expert for the Said Business School at Oxford University, a UK Higher Education Commissioner and a board director on Queen’s University Belfast Spinout Fund, QUBIS.

Dr. Philippe Menu, MD, PhD, MBA, brings a unique blend of medical expertise across clinical medicine, fundamental research in molecular biology and business management consulting. He joined SOPHiA GENETICS in 2020 from McKinsey & Company, where he had spent the last 8 years serving dozens of clients in the BioPharma sector, advising global pharmaceutical companies, mid-size players and biotechs alike across the pharma value chain with a major focus on innovative therapies and diagnostics in oncology and rare diseases. Philippe obtained his MD and PhD from the University of Lausanne, and his MBA in life sciences from the Open University Business School.

Dr Robert Grundy is the founder of Anglezarke Life Sciences. He was previously CEO of CIGA Healthcare Ltd and Director of Commercial Development and Licensing at Almac Discovery.

Rob’s focus is on the commercial development of differentiating innovation across science and technology.

Rob also holds the position of Honorary Lecturer in the School of Medicine Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast.

Enric Asunción is Chief Executive Officer of Wallbox and co-founder with Eduard Castañeda. He has a degree in industrial engineering from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. Enric was Programme Director of Charging Facilities at TESLA Motors in Europe at their headquarters in Amsterdam. While there he developed his vision of how EV charging should be to encourage its uptake and make doing so easier. During a wedding in 2015, Enric and Eduard asked themselves “What if we could create really smart and efficient chargers?” And that’s what they did – both quit their jobs the following week and founded Wallbox.

His experience in the electromobility sector and his vision for the future led him to create Wallbox, in order to offer the best possible residential charging experience after identifying that existing options in Europe did not meet users’ needs. Since then, his vision for Wallbox has expanded beyond residential charging. Wallbox is now a leader in energy management that manufactures smart EV charging solutions, which improve how energy is managed, used and stored. These solutions are currently sold in more than 60 countries worldwide.

Eric Trusiewicz is a specialist on heavy industrial decarbonization, especially cement & concrete. He has worked on the topic as an entrepreneur in residence at the cleantech venture capital fund Breakthrough Energy Ventures, as a fellow at Stanford University, and prior to that has a decade of experience in the cement industry in a variety of executive roles across Europe and the United States. Eric holds a Master’s degree in Management from Stanford University Graduate School of Business, as well as a Bachelor’s degree from Yale University.

Gareth Graham is the Managing Director of Oakland Holdings, the development company behind Belfast’s most exciting commercial development, Merchant Square. The project was completed in Q1 2021, the 9 storey commercial building has transformed the centre of Belfast and is now let entirely to PwC in what will be the Firm’s largest premises in the UK outside London.

Gareth lives in Belfast and is a former pupil of St Malachys college. He is committed to the ongoing development of Belfast and to ensuring that the city meets its full potential.  Oakland is cuurently developing Northern Ireland’s first Aparthotel at the junction of Queen Street and College Street in the city centre. The ApartHotel  will  feature 189 apartments, a bar and restaurant, gymnasium, meetings rooms and event space.

Gareth has a young family and he enjoys a range of sports including gaelic football where he is an under age coach with with his local club St Brigids

Professor at Harvard & MIT, co-author of 590 papers, 155 patent publications & the book “Regenesis”; developed methods used for the first genome sequence (1994) & million-fold cost reductions since (via fluor-NGS & nanopores), plus barcoding, DNA assembly from chips, genome editing, writing & recoding; co-initiated BRAIN Initiative (2011) & Genome Projects (GP-Read-1984, GP-Write-2016, PGP-2005:world’s open-access personal precision medicine datasets); machine learning for protein engineering, tissue reprogramming, organoids, xeno-transplantation, in situ 3D DNA, RNA, protein imaging.

Henrietta Moon is the CEO and co-founder of Carbo Culture, a carbon removal company drawing down CO2 and storing it in a stable form for 1000 years. 

Carbo Culture’s unique biocarbons are used in climate adaptation applications such as  such as stormwater treatment and soil regeneration. 

Originally from Finland, Henrietta speaks five languages and has lived in four countries. 

Her prior experience includes growing two organisations in edtech: helping to katapult Rails Girls to global community with over 300+ cities on all continents, and founding Mehackit.org, a creative technology company. 

She’s an alumna of Singularity University’s Global Solutions Program and Stanford’s founder community StartX.  

Sailor, outdoors dirtbag.

Isabella has spent the last 15+ years in Tech, working for companies like Google and KAYAK across a broad range of business roles. In 2020, she joined the global addressing start-up what3words, where she leads the International Markets business development team.

Jeroen is an experienced global executive and entrepreneur with a track record of leading innovation in the healthcare, information technology and financial services industries. He clearly sees the tremendous value that information technology and data can add to managing health.

Leading the company’s global Innovation & Strategy organization, he is responsible for M&A strategy planning, R&D, solutions design, medical affairs, sustainability, technology platforms, ventures and emerging businesses. Creating a pipeline of innovative business propositions Jeroen will leverage emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, sensing technologies and the Internet of Things to reinforce the company’s health propositions aimed at supporting consumers, care professionals and health systems with personalized connected health solutions. Solutions that can deliver on the “quadruple aim”: improving health outcomes, improving patient experience, improving staff satisfaction and lowering the cost of care.

Joanna J Bryson is an academic recognised for broad expertise on intelligence, its nature, and its consequences. Holding two degrees each in psychology and AI (BA Chicago, MSc & MPhil Edinburgh, PhD MIT). Bryson is since 2020 the Professor of Ethics and Technology at Hertie School in Berlin, she is a founding member of their Centre for Digital Governance, and one of Germany’s nine nominated experts to the Global Partnership for AI. Bryson advises governments, corporations, and other agencies globally, particularly on AI policy. Her work has appeared in venues ranging from reddit to the journal Science. From 2002-2019 she was Computer Science faculty at the University of Bath; she has also been affiliated with Harvard Psychology, Oxford Anthropology, The Mannheim Centre for Social Science Research, The Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, and the Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy. Her present research focuses are the impacts of technology on human societies, and new models of governance for AI and digital technology.

Jonny is a partner at the Norwegian architecture company, Mad Arkitekter. He has extensive experience with complex buildings projects and urbanism of different scales. At Mad he has worked with several large scale projects within a variety of programs, such as media- and educational buildings as well as residential schemes and transformations of existing buildings.

He has been played an active role in the development of the Woho-project, as the responsible partner for the architects.

Naturally evolving in an international environment (fluent in English, French and Spanish), passionate about digital transformation & social impact, Julien is an experienced C-level executive with track records in large corporates, start-ups, governments & public authorities, hospitals, universities and non-profit organisations.

Highly-skilled in strategic thinking, Julien supports the innovation in public and private organisations, around public policies, services & investments design, business modelling, market access & business development tactics, ecosystems building, customers’ engagement, marketing & communication.

As an entrepreneur or intrapreneur, Julien is designing digital products and services aiming to improve people’s life such as personalised health and wellbeing programmes, behaviours change strategies and solutions, digital platforms and mobile apps, GovTech & CivicTech, smart human cities, etc.

As a researcher, Julien is affiliated to the United Nations University (UNU-MERIT), the University of Maastricht (Netherlands) and the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (India). His researches focus on digital transformation, data governance and digital trustworthiness, digital democracy, behavioural sciences, health and wellbeing, public and international health.

Involved in ECHAlliance almost since its beginning, Julien has been Director of Strategy and Innovation during 5 years and now he’s Board Director in charge of the Digital Health Observatory (DHO) and the scientific content of our activities, as well as of the deployment of partnerships and ecosystems in Latin America. He’s also Board member of the Digital Health Society (DHS) and member of the Council of the Global Health Connector Partnership.

Julien is also regularly speaking at international events.

The current Lord Mayor of Belfast is Councillor Kate Nicholl who took up office on 1 June 2021.

A member of the Alliance Party, she was elected as a representative for the Balmoral district at the 2019 Local Government Election.

Councillor Nicholl, 33, was born in Zimbabwe and moved with her family to Belfast when she was 12 years old. She attended Methodist College and University College London and is currently enrolled in a master’s degree at Ulster University.

Councillor Nicholl lives and works in South Belfast and is married with an 18-month-old son, Cian.

The theme for Councillor Nicholl’s year in office is ‘Our Belfast’, with a commitment to meet the people in every area, to recognise those who are making a difference in every quarter, and to find ways to work with them for the betterment of the city. She also wishes to highlight the voices of children and young people during her year in office and to champion action on climate change and the environment.

at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, since 2013. His area of expertise is cardiovascular science, and he has been credited with the discovery of the multipotent heart progenitors which build the human heart (1).  

Professor Chien is a third generation Harvard alumnus, following his father and grandfather (2), and earned a BA from Harvard College in Biology in 1973.  He earned his PhD and MD from Pennsylvania’s Temple University, and continued to study internal medicine and cardiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Chien became a member of the faculty at the University of California at San Diego, acting as director of the Institute for Molecular Medicine from 2000 to 2005, with an adjunct appointment as a Professor of the Salk Institute. Chien then worked as Scientific Director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital from 2005 to 2012, concurrent to directing the Cardiovascular Program of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute from 2007 to 2013. In 2013 Chien received a Presidential appointment as Professor of Medicine and Cell and Molecular Biology and Director or the Wallenberg-Cardiovascular Initiative at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden (1). 

He has over three decades of experience as a senior advisor-SAB member in the biotechnology sector (2), and his work as Director of the Cardiovascular Program of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, led to his co-founding, in 2010, of Moderna Therapeutics.  In 2011, the Chien Lab made the discovery of the high efficiency expression of VEGF mRNA in heart muscle, resulting in a patent on the discovery that triggered mRNA towards therapeutic applications. In 2013, Chien and his associates documented the ability of VEGF mRNA for coronary vascular regeneration and to reverse the onset of heart dysfunction, thereby opening the potential of using synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA) to produce therapeutic desired effects in a patient’s muscle cells. In February 2019, AstraZeneca and the Chien lab reported the first in human study of an mRNA therapeutic, noting reversal of vascular dysfunction in diabetic patients by VEGF mRNA (3). At Karolinska, the Chien lab documented the ability to generate large numbers of human Islet ventricular heart progenitor cells from human embryonic stem cells, which resulted in a partnership with Astrazeneca to move the project toward clinical application (4).

For his work, Professor Chien has received several awards (1). Chien is a recipient of the Walter Bradford Cannon Award of the American Physiological Society and the Pasarow Award.  He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and has received an honorary doctorate of science from the University of Edinburgh. 

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_R._Chien

2. https://www.eqtgroup.com/About-EQT/EQT-network/kenneth-chien/

3. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08852-4

4. https://www.genengnews.com/topics/drug-discovery/astrazeneca-swibco-launch-stem-cell-cardiovascular-therapy-collaboration/

Kevin’s responsibilities include the creation of new technology and manufacturing modalities to support the co-development and launch processes.  This function leads PGS Co-Development Teams and provides a single point of accountability for new product activities within PGS and to our internal stakeholders (WRD, Commercial Business Units).

Kevin joined Pfizer in 1980 at Groton, Connecticut, as a Production Supervisor in the penicillin area.  In 1985, he moved to R&D to work on azithromycin, danofloxacin and other projects.  Kevin managed the Groton Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient pilot plant until 1995, when he returned to manufacturing in a technical services position.  As manufacturing grew and became more specialized, he focused on technical and project management support for new products as part of Global Manufacturing Services (GMS).  For several years, he led a group within GMS working with Pfizer Global R&D and the PGS launch sites to develop and introduce new products. In his current position, Kevin leads the Global Technology Services organization in providing technical leadership and support for new and marketed products for all PGS customers.

Previous to his current role Kevin was Vice President, Global Technology Services.

Kevin holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware and an M.S. in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Leslie’s vision is to create the interface between people and machines that is as natural as possible. He has been trained as an Innovation Design Engineer at Imperial College London, the Royal College of Art and Delft University of Technology. In the course of his career he worked on several highly-innovative software and hardware technologies and human machine interactions, for which he got several design awards. A quirky fact is that he is the World Champion in building and racing a solar-powered car. Leslie got recognised as MIT European Innovator Under 35, Forbes 30 Under 30 and he contributes to the World Economic Forum and European AI Alliance. As the Chief Product Officer, he ensures that the Humanising Autonomy’s state-of-the-art technology is ready for use in the real world.

Liz Ashall Payne is co-founder and CEO of ORCHA, the world’s leading provider of digital health accreditation ad distribution services. A trained Speech and Language Therapist, for almost 20 years Liz led NHS transformation programmes, helping to unlock the power of digital across the UK and Europe.

In 2015 Liz founded ORCHA, attracting investment from Sir Terry Leahy and Bill Currie.  The organisation has grown exponentially, now providing digital health assessment and distribution services in eleven countries and in the UK to organisations in 50% of NHS regions.

ORCHA has won numerous awards, whilst Liz has been selected as a Tech Trailblazer by the BIMA 100, picked as a Healthcare IT Leader by the HIMSS Future 50, namedEntrepreneur of the Year by the British Chamber of Commerce and has featured within the LDC top 50.

Liz was appointed a NHS England NIA fellow, is a coach for the NHS England Clinical Entrepreneur program, a member of the OCS Advisory Board, the Tech UK Health and Social Care Council and is the Associate Vice Chair for Standards for the British Computing Society.

Louis Rosenberg is CEO of Unanimous AI, a US company that amplifies group intelligence. Rosenberg also founded the VR company Immersion Corp (NASDAQ: IMMR) and the AR company Outland Research.

Louisa Stüwe is international policy manager at the French Health Data Hub where she is in charge of international policy and partnerships, including French contribution to the European Health Data. Before joining the Hub, Louisa managed health, research and innovation programs and activities, funding, policy, projects and networks at the Pan American Health Organization/WHO, the French Ministry of Health and the World Bank Group. She has also gained experience in the pharmaceutical sector. Louisa studied Public Administration and International Politics at Sciences Po Paris and Georgetown University as well as Public Health at the French School of Public Health.

Luis Alonso is a research scientist in the City Science group and Principal Investigator of the Andorra Living Lab Project. He has a PhD in architecture and coordinates the Andorra Living Lab project. He oversees the integration of the group’s diverse research topics (energy consumption, city simulation, urban mobility, innovation district, and smart housing) in the City Science Network of Collaborative Cities, to provide comprehensive solutions for urban and country challenges, in order to transform cities into more diverse and vibrant “human scale ecosystems.”

Since he is focused on very different lines of research and work, his antidisciplinary approach fits on the Media Lab philosophy: City Science, urban indicators, big data analysis, urban planning, architectural robotics, building design and construction, new and smart materials (free-form transparent energy efficient envelopes and biomedical uses), energy simulation and building efficiency and sustainability, eco-innovation, e-learning and its impact on social networks, new technologies, IoT, etc.

Marga Hoek is a member of Thinkers50, she is that rare combination: a true visionary on sustainable business and capital and a successful, innovative business leader who understands and applies the commercial realities of business. Operating at the highest level with ministers and presidents, Marga is a global voice for G20, G7 Climat Change and if Cop 23; an award winning author and a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and other prestigious media.

She is a non executive director for various, international companies after a successful CEO, executive career as well an appreciated and sought after boardroom advisor. As the most appreciated speaker on sustainable business and capital and a multiple awarded author, she is considered one of the most influential thought leaders leading the way in the transition towards a sustainable world.

She is the unique in demonstrating in how today’s ICT’s and technological innovations can be a huge force for good and has a strong trackrecord in the financial sector.

Markus Kalliola is the project director in Health data 2030 project in The Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra and the coordinator of Joint Action Towards The European Health Data Space (TEHDAS). Prior to Sitra he worked in the European Commission in DG Health and food safety.

Michael Reilly leads MIT Technology Review’s editorial team, directing its coverage in all aspects of emerging technology. In his time as Executive Editor, Technology Review has twice been a National Magazine Award Finalist, a multiple Webby Finalist for its work online, and won numerous individual awards for its journalism in print, digital, and audio formats.

Michelle O’Neill was appointed deputy First Minister and joint head of government on 11 January 2020.

She is Vice-President of the Sinn Féin party.

She has served the constituency of Mid-Ulster as a Sinn Féin member of the Legislative Assembly since 2007.

Michelle served in local government as a member of Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council from 2005 until 2010 – becoming the first woman to hold the position of Mayor of the Dungannon council area.

Michelle has previously held a number of Ministerial posts in the Executive including Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development and Minister of Health

Michelle lives in Clonoe, County Tyrone and has two children.

Professor Máire O’Neill, FREng, FIAE, MRIA, has a strong international reputation for her research in hardware security and applied cryptography. She is Regius Professor in Electronics and Computer Engineering and Director of the Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT), QUB. She is also Director of the £5M UK Research Institute in Secure Hardware and Embedded Systems (RISE: www.ukrise.org) and is a member of the UK AI Council. She has received numerous awards which include a Blavatnik Engineering and Physical Sciences medal, 2019, a Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal, 2014 and British Female Inventor of the Year 2007. She has authored two research books and over 175 peer-reviewed conference and journal publications. She is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a member of the Royal Irish Academy and Fellow of the Irish Academy of Engineering.

Eleanor ‘Nell’ Watson is an engineer who lectures in machine intelligence research. She has contributed to IEEE SA ethics initiatives, including serving as vice chair of P7001 standard on transparency, and contributing to many ECPAIS certification working groups. Nell holds fellowships with the British Computing Society, Royal Statistical Society, The Atlantic Council, as well as holding Senior Membership within IEEE.

Nicole Eagan is Chief Strategy Officer and AI Officer of Darktrace. Her extensive career in technology spans 30 years working for Oracle and early to late-stage growth companies. Nicole identifies and shapes Darktrace’s strategic plan, leads the Company’s AI vision together with our CTO, and provides product strategy and direction. A core part of the executive team, during Nicole’s tenure, Darktrace has won more than 100 awards, and the company has been named one of WSJ’s ‘Tech Companies to Watch’, Fast Company’s ‘Most Innovative Companies’, and a CNBC ‘Disruptor 50’. Nicole was named ‘AI Leader of the Year’ and was awarded the top position on The Software Report’s ‘Top 25 Women Leaders in Cybersecurity’ in 2020.

Dr Nora Khaldi is the CEO and founder of Nuritas.

Using machine learning and AI, Nuritas is discovering life-changing ingredients with huge potential to improve global health in a sustainable way. Nora founded Nuritas with the mission to improve the lives of billions of people globally.

A pure mathematician with a PhD in Molecular Evolution and Bioinformatics, Nora is an extensively published author, a multi TEDx speaker and has won an accolade of awards including Woman of the Decade by the Women Economic Forum. She was inducted into the World Economic Forms’ Young Global Leaders in 2019.

Throughout her career, Nora’s ambition has been to disrupt the status quo in areas that have been void of technology by introducing new ways of thinking, big data, and new algorithms.

Previous to Nuritas™, Nora was the first scientist to show gene transfer between multi-cellular species. This ground-breaking find put into question many of the phylogenetic methods currently in use today.

Paul Duan is a social entrepreneur using technology to empower people at scale. As the co-founder of Bayes Impact, he is one of the pioneers in using algorithms to create social impact. Since 2014, Paul led multiple projects throughout the world, ranging from helping micro-finance institutions operating in Africa, to launching an online platform in partnership with the Department of Justice in California to collect police use-of-force data from more than 800 police agencies. In 2014 Bayes was one of the first non-profits to be admitted to Y Combinator, the world’s most prestigious technology incubator. To slow down COVID-19 infection rate, Bayes Impact also recently worked with French Health Administration to build a “private by design” and user-centric solution to ease the process of manual contact-tracing. This solution helped contact more than 1.5 million contact cases. It was the first NGO to be allowed access to the data from Pôle Emploi, the French national employment agency, to create Bob, an AI employability coach. Bob was launched in November 2016 and has helped 280 000 jobseekers to date.

Prior to Bayes Impact, Paul was the first data scientist at Eventbrite, where he built industry-leading fraud detection algorithms. He studied a mixture of mathematics, economics and political science at Berkeley, the Sorbonne University, and Sciences Po, where he delivered the school’s commencement speech in 2017.

Paul served as a member of Action Publique 2022, the French government reform group headed by Prime Minister Edouard Philippe. He is also a Forbes 30 under 30 recipient, MIT Innovator Under 35 Europe 2018 and the youngest Ashoka Fellow in France.

Paul Frew was appointed as Minister for the Economy on 14 June 2021.

He has been a Member of the Legislative Assembly for North Antrim since 2010.

Minister Frew is from Kells and an electrician by trade. He also served in the Royal Irish Regiment for seven years.

He joined the DUP in 2000 and was elected to Ballymena Borough Council in 2005.

Mr Frew previously held the positions of chair of the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Justice Committee and Agriculture and Rural Development Committee. He was also deputy chair of the Finance, Health, and Agriculture and Rural Development Committees.

The Economy Minister’s portfolio is wide ranging and includes economic policy, higher and further education, employment and skills programmes, employment rights, consumer affairs, energy, telecoms, tourism, minerals and petroleum, European Fund management, Insolvency Service, Credit Unions and Societies, and statistics and economic research.

Pekka Timonen is the Mayor of Lahti. He was elected in 2018. City of Lahti has 120 000 inhabitants and it is a centre for an urban region of 200 000 people. Lahti is a pioneer of sustainable urban solutions and the European Green Capital 2021.

Previously Mr. Timonen was General Secretary at Prime Minister´s Office. Earlier in his career he has been Cultural Director of Helsinki and served in managerial positions in private sector. He is the chairman of the board of the Finnish Event Industries and a board member in various foundations and associations.

Timonen holds MA in history.

As CEO, Peter is responsible for all strategic and business aspects of the company. As CTO, he is responsible for the creation and delivery of all Lucid products. He brings over 30 years of automotive industry experience to bear in these roles.

Prior to Lucid, Peter was Vice President of Vehicle Engineering at Tesla and Chief Engineer of the Model S, where he led the engineering of the Model S from a clean sheet to production readiness while building the engineering team.

A graduate of Imperial College, University of London, Peter was formerly Head of Vehicle Engineering at Corus Automotive, Chief Engineer at Lotus Cars, and Principal Engineer at Jaguar Cars.

Petrissa leads sus.lab at ETH Zurich, a team working with industry and start-ups on decarbonization and the circular economy. She worked at McKinsey for 5 years following a postdoc in energy systems analysis and holds a PhD in physics from ETH Zurich.

Prof. Dr. Hans Lehrach, Director em., Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Ihnestr. 63-73, 14195 Berlin, Germany
Founder and Scientific Director, Dahlem Centre for Genome Research and Medical Systems Biology Founder and Chairman of the Board, Alacris Theranostics GmbH, Max-Planck-Str. 3, 12489 Berlin

Hans Lehrach, Ph.D. became Director at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin in 1994 (em. 2014). He holds a position as a Visiting Professor at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), Shenzhen, China and is founder of several biotechnology companies including Alacris Theranostics GmbH.

His expertise lies in genetics, genomics, systems biology and personalized medicine.He has been a pioneer in the application of next generation sequencing techniques and systems medicine for the development of personalized therapies in cancer (Virtual Patient Model).

The main focus of his research is the development of methods for predicting the behavior of the complex biological systems, through a combination of genetics, genomics, bioinformatics and systems biology techniques. This makes it possible, on the basis of a detailed molecular examination of tumor patients, to develop computer models of the individual patient, ie ‘virtual patient models’, which can systematically test all theoretically possible therapies. Thus, the optimal therapy for the individual patient, with a possible reduction of side effects, can be identified and made available to the patient. These techniques can also be used for drug development, testing the many steps involved first on a computer model. Thus, ‘virtual clinical trials’ can reduce the risks of developing new drugs at an early stage, reducing costs and accelerate timelines.

Prof. Ugur Sahin, M.D., Co-Founder and CEO of BioNTech, is a physician, immunologist and leader in the development of novel approaches to fight cancer and infectious diseases. Sahin is one of the world’s foremost experts on messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) medicines. He has pioneered several breakthroughs enabling the development of mRNA vaccines and other types of immunotherapies. Sahin initiated and oversees “Project Lightspeed,” the historic development of the first mRNA vaccine for COVID-19, moving from lab and clinical testing to conditional approval within an unprecedented 11-month period. He also leads BioNTech’s research and development of neoantigen specific mRNA cancer vaccines which are individually tailored and produced on demand according to the profile of non-synonymous mutations identified by next-generation sequencing in patients’ tumors. Ugur Sahin is co-inventor of more than 500 filed patents applications and patents. Sahin’s academic credentials include serving as a Full Professor (W3) in Translational Oncology & Immunology at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, where he was the supervisor for more than 50 PhD students. He also holds the role of Chairman of the Scientific Management Board of the Helmholtz Institute for Translational Oncology (HI-TRON), also in Mainz. Based on his contributions to scientific discovery, Dr. Sahin has received numerous awards and recognitions, including the German Sustainability Award, the Mustafa Prize, and the German Cancer Award. He is married to Dr. Özlem Türeci.

Rachael is a proven analytics leader with an exemplary track record of shaping, leading, and delivering large-scale data projects and across a range of industry sectors including financial services, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, utilities, and retail.
Passionate about using data to solve complex problems, generate business value and informing strategy.

Professor Rachel Dunscombe is CEO of the NHS Digital Academy, Principal at Tektology and strategic advisor to the NCA Salford NHS Group. She provides advisory services to the Secretary of State for Health in the UK, is the health care representative on the UK government AI council and is associate digital editor for the BMJ. Through her academic work Rachel has received a visiting professorship at Imperial College, London. Rachel is a non-executive director of the Digital Health Society and formerly the Director of Digital for Salford NCA Group which was the NHS’s most digitally mature organisation. She has led services to enable health delivery for hospitals, community services, social care, regions and at a national level.

Rebecca is a Geological Engineer with a MSc in Renewable Energy Engineering and Management. Rebecca has worked on renewables market studies, readiness for green investment and sustainability in Europe, Africa, and Latin America. 

I am a reporter for MIT Technology Review with a focus on the social and political impact of new technologies. Prior to journalism, I was a consultant on emerging tech strategy for big companies, with a focus on the finance industry.

Thomas Bestgen founded UTB 25 years ago with the objective to develop and enable innovative, socially mixed urban quarters. The cooperative banker holds a degree in business economics. Under his leadership, his Berlin-based company realized and facilitated more than 30 projects, several of which have been awarded.

After graduating from Ulster University and a stint with NIACRO and the Probation Board, Tina went on to pursue a successful international recruitment career, giving her over 25 years’ experience in the Recruitment and Employment Services sector, working with some of the world’s largest blue chip companies.  After returning to Northern Ireland 2013, she established Staffline Recruitment as a start-up throughout Ireland; taking the company from a standing start to a turnover of £150 million within 5 years. This unprecedented success led to a stream of awards including the UTV Fast Business Growth Award in 2015, IOD’s Director of the Year Award in 2017 and UTV Business Eye’s Business Personality of the Year Award in 2018 and the Belfast Telegraph Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020.

»I believe healthcare should think about data first, applications second. Separating data from applications prevents vendor lock-in and increases innovation. It enables healthcare organizations to move to an architecture built around a vendor-neutral, consistent, longitudinal patient record that serves as a single source of truth.

As a company founder, CEO and experienced manager of teams building world-class software products for more than 30 years, I am always challenging teams to build better software using state-of-the-art technology, architectures and processes.

Better’s market-leading open digital health platform empowers healthcare organisations to take control of their data, workflows and applications to improve patient care.«

Valentin has been thinking about carbon dioxide removal since 2016 and has a business administration background. Prior to founding neustark he worked in marketing & sales at Climeworks.

Will Douglas Heaven is senior editor for AI at MIT Technology Review, where he covers new research, emerging trends and real-world impacts. Previously, he was founding editor at the BBC tech-meets-geopolitics website Future Now and chief technology editor at New Scientist magazine. He has a PhD in computer science from Imperial College London, an MA in philosophy from UCL and knows what it’s like to work with robots.

Özlem Türeci, M.D., Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of BioNTech, is a physician, immunologist, and cancer researcher with translational and clinical experience. Türeci has helped lead the discovery of cancer antigens, the development of mRNA-based individualized and off-the-shelf vaccine candidates and other types of immunotherapies which are currently in clinical development. Türeci leads the clinical development of BioNTech’s “Project Lightspeed,” the company’s successful effort to develop and distribute an mRNA-based vaccine against COVID-19, a historic achievement completed in less than one year. Türeci previously served as CEO and Chief Medical Officer of Ganymed Pharmaceuticals AG, which she co-founded with Ugur Sahin and Christoph Huber. The company was acquired by Astellas in 2016. She currently serves as President of the Association for Cancer Immunotherapy (CIMT) in Germany. She is a recent recipient of the German Sustainability Award, among other notable recognitions. Türeci is married to Prof. Ugur Sahin.