Speakers

• David Orban Technology startup creation, fundraising, investment
  David Orban

  Technology startup creation, fundraising, investment

  David is the Founder and Managing Partner of Network Society Ventures, a seed stage global investment firm focused on innovative startups at the intersection of exponential technologies and decentralized networks.

  He is an investor, entrepreneur, author, blogger, keynote speaker, and thought leader of the global technology landscape. His entrepreneurial accomplishments span several companies founded and grown over more than twenty years.

  Born in Budapest, Hungary, he studied Physics at the University of Milan and the University of Padua.
  David’s work cuts across the limits of specialization to contribute to a new renaissance. He explains, “My vision is at the crossroads of technology and society and their co-evolution.” His personal motto is “What is the question I should be asking?” This concept is his vehicle for accelerating cycles of invention and innovation in order to build the brave new world ahead.

• Dr. Anita Goel Chairman, & CEO Nanobiosym Diagnostics
  Dr. Anita Goel

  Chairman, & CEO Nanobiosym Diagnostics

  Dr. Anita Goel, MD Ph.D is a world-renowned expert and pioneer in the emerging field of Nanobiophysics – a new science at the convergence of physics, nanotechnology, and biomedicine. Whereas modern physics in the 20th century was developed primarily in the context of closed systems, Dr. Goel seeks to expand conventional theoretical and experimental physics frameworks and their mathematical machinery to describe non-equilibrium, open systems such as life and living systems that are strongly coupled with their environment. She has developed a new theoretical physics framework that elucidates the interplay of matter, energy, and information at a very fundamental physics level. Dr. Goel harnesses these insights to examine one of the most basic processes of living matter, the way nanomotors read and write information into DNA, how this process is influenced by the environment, and how quantum mechanics might play a “nontrivial” role in their dynamics. Dr. Goel was named by MIT’s Technology Review Magazine as one of the World’s “Top 35 science and technology innovators.”

  As Chairman and CEO of Nanobiosym® and Nanobiosym® Diagnostics, Dr. Goel has harnessed these fundamental insights to invent, incubate, and start commercializing next-generation nanotechnology platforms like Gene-RADAR® for Mobile and Personalized Health, energy harvesting and quantum computing with molecular nanomachines that read and write information in DNA. Her pioneering works have been recognized globally by prestigious honors and awards including multiple awards from US Government agencies such as DARPA, DOD, DOE, AFOSR, NSF, USAID, HHS and most recently was awarded the XPRIZE by in the 2013 Nokia Sensing X Challenge.

  Dr. Goel has been featured as a frequent keynote speaker and distinguished faculty lecturer at leading universities and institutions including Harvard, MIT, the Health Sciences and Technology (HST) Division of Harvard Medical School, Harvard Business School, Harvard Kennedy School, MIT Sloan School of Business, Zurich ETH, National University of Singapore, Princeton, Santa Fe Institute, AAAS, DARPA Advanced Workshops, National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

• Dr. Koert van Mensvoort Artist and Philosopher
  Dr. Koert van Mensvoort

  Artist and Philosopher

  Dr. Koert van Mensvoort is an artist and philosopher best known for his work on the philosophical concept of Next Nature, which revolves around the idea that our technological environment has become so complex, omnipresent and autonomous that it is best perceived as a nature of its own. It is his aim to better understand our co-evolutionary relationship with technology and help set out a track towards a future that is rewarding for both humankind and the planet at large.

• Nell Watson Tech Ethicist ∙ ML Researcher ∙ Social Reformer
  Nell Watson

  Tech Ethicist ∙ ML Researcher ∙ Social Reformer

  Eleanor ‘Nell’ Watson s a Machine Intelligence researcher who helped to pioneer Deep Machine Vision through her company QuantaCorp, which enables fast and accurate body measurement from just two photos.

  In sharing her knowledge as AI Faculty at Singularity University and author of Machine Intelligence courseware for O’Reilly Media, she realised the importance of protecting human rights and putting ethics, safety, and the values of human spirit into A.I.

  Nell serves as Chair & Vice-Chair respectively of the IEEE’s ECPAIS Transparency Experts Focus Group, and P7001 Transparency of Autonomous Systems committee on AI Ethics & Safety, engineering credit score-like mechanisms to safeguard algorithmic trust.

  She also chairs EthicsNet.org, a community teaching pro-social behaviours to machines, CulturalPeace.org, crafting Geneva Conventions-style rules for cultural conflict, EDCsymbol.org, informing consumers of endocrine disruptors, and Pacha.org, connecting a network of service providers to help enable the automated accounting of externalities (shifted costs) such as pollution.

  Nell serves as Senior Scientific Advisor to The Future Society at Harvard, and holds Fellowships from the British Computing Society, and Royal Statistical Society, among others.

  Her public speaking has inspired audiences to work towards a brighter future at venues such as The World Bank, The United Nations General Assembly, and The Royal Society.