Agenda 2023

BIOGRAPHY

His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama has been appointed as Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence in October 2017, and then was appointed as Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications in July 2020.

His responsibilities include enhancing the government performance levels by investing in the latest technologies and tools of artificial intelligence and applying them in various sectors.

His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama is Spearheading UAE efforts to be positioned as a global leader in Digital economy, With the focus to enhance UAEs digital economy contribution to the GDP.  

His Excellency is also focused on strengthening the UAE’s position as a global reference in remote work applications.

His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama is currently the Managing Director of the World Government Summit. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Dubai Future Foundation and Deputy Managing Director of the Foundation. He is also Chairman of Dubai Chamber of Digital economy.  

In November 2017, the UAE government announced selecting HE. Omar Al Olama as a member of the Future of Digital Economy and Society Council at the World Economic Forum.  

During his work in the Future Department at the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs and the Future, His Excellency participated in developing the UAE Centennial 2071 strategy that aims to position the UAE as the best country in the world. He also participated in developing the UAE 4th Industrial Revolution Strategy that aims to promote the UAE’s status as a global hub for the 4th Industrial Revolution and develop a national economy based on knowledge, innovation and future technologies. Prior to his appointment, His Excellency worked on developing the UAE’s Artificial Intelligence Strategy, making it the first such strategy of its kind globally.

His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama worked in several sectors including the banking sector, telecommunications, private enterprises and government. H.E. also worked on developing and executing strategies, risk analysis, change management and scenario planning.

His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama holds a Diploma in Project Management and Excellence from the American University of Sharjah and a Bachelor of Business Administration from the American University of Dubai.

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Qi Tian is the Chief Scientist in Artificial Intelligence of Huawei Cloud, an IEAS Academician, and IEEE Fellow.

Dr. Tian joined Huawei in 2018 as the Chief Scientist in Computer Vision at the Noah's Ark Laboratory and later joined Huawei Cloud.

In his over 20 years of research career, Dr. Tian focuses on image content understanding, which is a core area in computer vision. He has contributed to a series of influential research in areas such as large-scale image retrieval, person re-identification, automated machine learning, and pre-trained large models.

Dr. Tian has published more than 650 international peer-reviewed journal and conference papers and won the Best Paper Award/Best Student Paper Award at eight major international conferences. As of April 2022, Dr. Tian's scientific works have been cited over 37,300 times by scholars worldwide, with an H-index of 91 and an I-10 index of 455.

BIOGRAPHY

Brian Gu joined XPeng Motors (XPENG), a leading Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer and technology company, as Vice Chairman and President in 2018. Brian has held various leadership roles concerned with XPENG's business, investment, and international expansion strategies.  

Brian is a veteran M&A banker with 20 years of investment banking experience; he has previously served as J.P Morgan's Managing Director, Chairman of Asia Pacific Investment Banking, and a member of its Global Strategic Advisory Council.

BIOGRAPHY

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Guy Diedrich is a Senior Vice President and the Global Innovation Officer at Cisco, where he is responsible for its Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) and Networking Academy programs. In this role, Dr. Diedrich collaborates closely with government and industry leadership around the world to drive mass-scale digitization initiatives that help increase GDP, create millions of next-generation jobs, and develop sustainable innovation ecosystems. CDA operates in over 40 countries and has more than 1200 active or completed digitization projects since its inception in 2015.  Cisco’s Networking Academy operates in 180 countries and has trained more than 13 million students in networking and cybersecurity skills over the past 25 years. Dr. Diedrich continues to grow and evolve the programs into new markets, and build trust with government, industry and academic stakeholders.

Prior to his current role at Cisco, Dr. Diedrich was a Vice Chancellor at the Texas A&M University System where he was responsible for research, commercialization, strategic initiatives, federal and state government relations.

BIOGRAPHY

Sébastien Borget is the Co-founder and COO of The Sandbox decentralized Metaverse, a virtual world where players can create, play, own, govern and monetize their experiences using NFTs & SAND, the main utility token of the platform.  Sebastien also became the President of the Blockchain Game Alliance in 2020, a non-profit organization of 300 key members of the industry. He was recently named #4 in the Top #100 2022 most influential people in crypto by CoinTelegraph https://cointelegraph.com/top-people-in-crypto-and-blockchain/sebastien-borget. The Sandbox has been featured in TIME100 Top 100 most influential companies of 2022 by Times magazine https://time.com/collection/time100-companies-2022/6159401/the-sandbox/

BIOGRAPHY

Mike has been named one of the most influential people in tech, in surveys by GfK NOP, The Independent, and Wired UK. He is a regular broadcaster, appearing on the BBC, Al Jazeera, Sky News, CNN, and Channel 4, among others. He co-founded The Europas European Tech Startup Awards, refugee non-profit Techfugees, and military charity TechVets. He has advised both the EU and the UK government on tech startups, and was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list 2016 for services to the UK technology industry and journalism.  

BIOGRAPHY

Dimitrios Dosis is president of Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (EEMEA) at Mastercard and a member of the company's management committee.

He is responsible for driving the company’s global strategy across 80+ markets and leading Mastercard’s journey to bring new payment solutions and services to the region, spanning safety, security, data, artificial intelligence, as well as advancing social progress and inclusive growth. Under his leadership, Mastercard is advancing its ambitions as the only true multi-rail technology company, collaborating with a diverse range of public and private sector partners to enhance the region’s digital ecosystem.

Dosis was previously president of Mastercard Advisors, the company’s services arm, where he accelerated the use of predictive technologies to advance the company’s industry-proven problem-solving skills and leveraged data-driven insights and analytics to help retail and banking customers solve pressing business issues.

Dosis has more than 20 years of experience in technology, transaction banking and management consulting, and serves on the Board of Directors for ATHEX (Athens Stock Exchange). He holds an MBA and PhD from the European Business School, as well as a Master of Economics from the University of Hagen

BIOGRAPHY

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Kian Mossanen studied Business Administration at the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, where he also worked as a research assistant to the Chair of Business Informatics during his doctorate. In parallel Kian also worked as a doctoral student at Siemens AG. On completion of his doctorate, Dr. Mossanen moved to the Benteler Group where he was, in his last role, responsible for the IT of Benteler Automobiltechnik GmbH.

From Benteler he moved to OSRAM Licht AG where he was Group CIO until the end of 2017, after which he moved on to become CIO of the Dräxlmaier Group. Kian then assumed his current role as CIO of Siemens Energy

BIOGRAPHY

Natalya Makarochkina is Senior Vice President (SVP) of the Secure Power Division at Schneider Electric, leading more than 1000 seasoned professionals in delivering innovative solutions to empower channel partners and support customers with successful digital transformation projects and achieving sustainability goals.

Schneider Electric Secure Power Division provides complete physical infrastructure solutions for data centers, distributed IT environments, and industrial applications. As SVP, Natalya is responsible for business success within multiple geographies - Asia Pacific, India, Middle East, South America and CIS.

Natalya is a passionate and charismatic executive with strong expertise within the IT and Energy Management industries. Her previous leadership roles include senior management and sales positions within major international technology companies including HPE, Philips, Oracle, 3COM and others. She holds an Executive MBA from the University of Antwerp, and Masters degree from the Higher School of Economics.

Natalya is a confident, credible and knowledgeable speaker, able to address a broad range of topics from the digitalisation of sectors to emerging technologies such as edge computing, the Internet of Things (IoT) and the decarbonisation of data centers and IT services.

Her international experience together with her time invested face-to-face with customers and end-users in some of the fastest growing global economies, means she can speak insightfully and at first hand to the challenges and successes of delivering world-class digital infrastructure to meet the needs for speed, efficiency and sustainability in the current age. 

BIOGRAPHY

Suzanne Kianpour is the presenter of BBC's 'Out of the Shadows' and can be found reporting and anchoring on BBC World News and BBC World Service and writing for BBC Online. She is the creator and host of Women Building Peace on the BBC World Service in collaboration with the Georgetown Institute of Women Peace and Security. Her guests have included former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas Greenfield, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic and Paula Gaviria, former Presidential Advisor on Human Rights in Colombia. Her documentary 'America's Place in the World' featured exclusive sit down interviews with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, among others. Kianpour is Emmy nominated and awarded as a successful alum under 40 by her alma mater Emory University, profiled as a person to watch in Washington Life magazine’s “Power Issue” at only 28 and listed as one of DC’s most influential leaders under 40 for several years in a row. She is also on the advisory board of WCOIN – Women’s Crypto Organizing & Investment Network, a member of Council on Foreign Relations, the Meridian International Center’s Rising Leaders Council and on the board of the Friends of the American University in Afghanistan.Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia with a Persian and Sicilian background, she’s fluent in written and verbal Farsi, conversational in Spanish, basic proficiency in Italian and French and began learning Arabic while based in Lebanon for the BBC. She’s a graduate of Emory University – where she studied abroad at Oxford University – and attended Georgetown University post-grad.  

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Ray O. Johnson is Chief Executive Officer of the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), which aims to be a leading global research center dedicated to pushing the frontiers of knowledge. In this role, Dr. Johnson will work on shaping the strategic direction of the Institute and lead the execution of its growth strategies to achieve operational excellence.

Dr. Johnson brings to TII more than four decades of experience in global technology leadership, making strategic investments in disruptive technologies, and developing business strategies that resulted in several new billion-dollar lines of business. He also holds outstanding networking capabilities and has met with leaders in the highest echelons of government, industry, and academia. He is frequently sought after as a speaker at global forums on business, strategy, innovation, and education.  

Prior to joining TII, Dr. Johnson was an Operating Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, a top-tier American venture capital company that has been part of 130 IPOs in the last 50 years. Founded in 1911, Bessemer Venture Partners is the oldest venture capital firm in the USA. Earlier, he was Corporate Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of the Lockheed Martin Corporation, in Maryland, USA, where he was responsible for operational performance and the associated board-reportable metrics. He led Engineering and Technology, Production Operations, Global Supply Chain, Program Management, and Logistics and Sustainment, while managing more than 72,000 people working on over 4,000 programmes. He also led the Advanced Technology Center in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, a profit and loss (P&L) centre focused on generation-after-next technologies.  

Previously, Dr. Johnson was Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Modern Technology Solutions, Inc, where he developed business strategies, implementation plans, and executive-level metrics to refine the company’s strategic direction and vision. Prior to that, he was Senior Vice President and Business Unit General Manager at SAIC, a premier Fortune 500® technology integrator and leader of US digital transformation efforts. In this role, he turned around and realigned four entities within the company and led and won a competitive multi-year US$800 million program.  

Dr. Johnson holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology in Ohio, USA. He earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA. He is a Full Academician of the International Academy of Astronautics, and a Fellow of the International Society for Optical Engineering and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

BIOGRAPHY

Mike has been named one of the most influential people in tech, in surveys by GfK NOP, The Independent, and Wired UK. He is a regular broadcaster, appearing on the BBC, Al Jazeera, Sky News, CNN, and Channel 4, among others. He co-founded The Europas European Tech Startup Awards, refugee non-profit Techfugees, and military charity TechVets. He has advised both the EU and the UK government on tech startups, and was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list 2016 for services to the UK technology industry and journalism.  

BIOGRAPHY

As CEO for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Latin America (LATAM), Helmut is responsible for all go-to-market functions across EMEA and LATAM. Prior to joining Palo Alto Networks in 2022, Helmut was CEO of Orange Business Services (OBS), leading its global organization of 28,000 employees and supporting the digital transformation of enterprise customers around the world. Prior to OBS, Helmut held leadership positions across Europe at Avaya Inc., NextiraOne Germany and Alcatel Austria.

Helmut holds a Ph.D. from Vienna University for Economics and Business (WU), and speaks English, French, German and Spanish.

BIOGRAPHY

Eugene Kaspersky is a world-renowned cybersecurity expert. He is a co-founder and the Chief Executive Officer of Kaspersky, the world’s largest privately-held vendor of endpoint protection and cybersecurity solutions.

Eugene began his career in cybersecurity accidentally when his computer became infected with the ‘Cascade’ virus in 1989. Eugene’s specialized education in cryptography helped him analyze the encrypted virus, and then develop a removal tool for it. Eugene’s curiosity and passion for computer technology drove him to start analyzing more malicious programs and developing disinfection modules for them. This exotic collection of antivirus modules would eventually become the foundation for Kaspersky’s antivirus database. In 1997 Kaspersky was founded, with Eugene heading the company’s antivirus research. In 2007 he was named Kaspersky’s CEO.

Today Kaspersky operates in almost 200 countries and territories, and has 34 offices in 30 countries.

BIOGRAPHY

BIOGRAPHY

Paul Misener is Amazon.com’s Vice President for Global Innovation Policy and Communications.  An Amazon VP for over 22 years, Paul has long participated in Amazon’s history, culture, and methods of sustained, customer-obsessed innovation guided by the company’s Leadership Principles.  He frequently represents Amazon to external organizations and internal colleagues worldwide.

The founder of Amazon’s global public policy organization, Paul built and led the team and served as the company’s Vice President for Global Public Policy from February 2000 to May 2016. Paul has testified before the United States Congress over 30 times and dozens of times before other policymaking bodies around the world. He has met hundreds of times with political leaders, heads of state, cabinet ministers, US Representatives and Senators, US governors and mayors, and has negotiated policy agreements with many of these governors.  

Paul is both an engineer, scientist, and attorney and has brought his expertise to advise numerous policy and technology organizations during his career. He served as Senior Legal Advisor to a commissioner of the US Federal Communications Commission; co-founded and led the computer industry’s Internet Access Coalition, which successfully blocked the imposition of telecom access charges on Internet access; and chaired the technical subcommittee of the US Federal Aviation Administration’s advisory committee that recommended allowing commercial airline passengers to use portable electronics during taxi, takeoff, and landing.  

Paul serves on the board of a number of organizations in the US, advising on economic development, technology, education, and public affairs. He lives with his family outside of Washington, D.C. in the United States.

BIOGRAPHY

Suzanne Kianpour is the presenter of BBC's 'Out of the Shadows' and can be found reporting and anchoring on BBC World News and BBC World Service and writing for BBC Online. She is the creator and host of Women Building Peace on the BBC World Service in collaboration with the Georgetown Institute of Women Peace and Security. Her guests have included former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas Greenfield, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic and Paula Gaviria, former Presidential Advisor on Human Rights in Colombia. Her documentary 'America's Place in the World' featured exclusive sit down interviews with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, among others. Kianpour is Emmy nominated and awarded as a successful alum under 40 by her alma mater Emory University, profiled as a person to watch in Washington Life magazine’s “Power Issue” at only 28 and listed as one of DC’s most influential leaders under 40 for several years in a row. She is also on the advisory board of WCOIN – Women’s Crypto Organizing & Investment Network, a member of Council on Foreign Relations, the Meridian International Center’s Rising Leaders Council and on the board of the Friends of the American University in Afghanistan.Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia with a Persian and Sicilian background, she’s fluent in written and verbal Farsi, conversational in Spanish, basic proficiency in Italian and French and began learning Arabic while based in Lebanon for the BBC. She’s a graduate of Emory University – where she studied abroad at Oxford University – and attended Georgetown University post-grad.  

BIOGRAPHY

Angelika Gifford is the new Vice President for Meta in Europe, Middle East and Africa, taking over from Nicola Mendelsohn, who earlier this year became Vice President for the Global Business Group.

Angelika joined Meta in January 2020, and has represented Meta to partners, policymakers, non-profits and community organisations across 34 countries in Central Europe, including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Benelux region as well as Eastern Europe and Russia. 

Angelika has over 30 years’ experience working for leading technology companies including Hewlett-Packard (HP), where she led the software and digitisation business for German-speaking countries, and Microsoft where she held a wide variety of senior management positions across the region. Angie serves as a member of the board of the German-American transatlantic association “Atlantik-Brücke” and is part of the corporate supervisory board of Thyssenkrupp.

BIOGRAPHY

BIOGRAPHY

Divya Gokulnath is the co-founder of BYJU’S – the world’s leading edtech company. As a teacher and member of the board, she is a firm believer in curiosity-led learning and putting students in the driver’s seat.  After playing a key role in setting up and expanding brand BYJU’S in the Indian market, Divya is now actively building and scaling BYJU’S international business across multiple countries.   

A strong supporter of women at work, and mother to two young children, Divya strikes the delicate balance between work and life perfectly.  

Featured on Fortune 40 under 40 entrepreneur 2022 list, and winner of Fortune Most Powerful Women (2022, 2021, 2020), Express AWE Awards - Woman Entrepreneur of the Year, Education (2022), MAKERS Women Entrepreneur of the Year (2021), ASU GSV Power of Women (2021) award, Business Today's Most Powerful Women (2019, 2020, 2021) award, LinkedIn Top Voices in Education (2019,2020) (India and Global) and Forbes Asia’s 25 Most Powerful Women (2020), Divya is a strong advocate of cherishing childlike curiosity.

BIOGRAPHY

BIOGRAPHY

With over 30 years of solid experience in the IT and telecom industry, implementing working strategies for the provision of innovative digital technologies, Talaat was tasked with a chief mission to lead Egypt’s Digital Transformation Initiative, 2020. Talaat is confident of what immersive technologies can offer to serve as a strong arm to empower vital sectors of the economy and realize the Sustainable Development Strategy: Egypt Vision 2030. Talaat’s endeavor aims to oversee the implementation of several strategic projects, that include developing and securing the country’s IT & telecom infrastructure, creating a generation of professionals specialized in advanced digital technologies, spurring innovation and improving government performance and quality of services offered to the citizen-as a main objective of the government’s digital transformation mega program. A strong believer in the power of youth as active participants in the socio-economic development of the nation, Talaat led a number of digitally-based empowerment initiatives to engage professionals to support such belief. Throughout his career, Talaat succeeded in materializing exceptional investments, merges and acquisitions to attract and nurture Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to the country and create the value-add. Under his leadership, before joining the Government of Egypt, Talaat spearheaded IBM Egypt’s expansion plans, ensuring the creation of unique job opportunities and the establishment of centers of excellence to export digital services. Throughout his career at IBM Egypt, he held various leadership roles till he headed the firm. Talaat was an Adjunct Professor at Cairo University with teaching experience in market and sales strategies and tactics, organizational behavior and strategic management. He was an honorary member at the ICT Board at Cairo University, member of the ICT Board of the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, and the Chairman of ICT Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce. Talaat earned his Doctor of Business Administration from the University of Paris - Paris School of Business and obtained a Master of Science in Computer Science from Illinois Institute of Technology, and holds an MBA from Paris ESLSCA Business School, France. He is a graduate of Cairo University’s Faculty of Engineering.

BIOGRAPHY