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September 5, 2023 12:00:00 PM
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Oct 28-30, 2024 | Arlington VA
Dominique (who also goes by Dom) is a creative and passionate product and operations leader with more than 18 years of online experience both in North American and Global product management, customer experience and operations, and software development. She has led and managed the product management, UX design, engineering, data science, IT, analytics and insights, and customer service functions with revenue and cost directed responsibilities. Currently, Dom oversees the Conversational Commerce team for Walmart. In this role she is responsible for all parts of Walmarts conversational experiences including Voice and Text Commerce. Responsible for changing how people interact and shop with Walmart. She was previously the Chief Product Officer of Jetblack, a members-only shopping service that was the first portfolio company within Store Nº8, the incubation arm of Walmart. She joined Walmart through their acquisition of Bonobos where she was the Chief Experience Officer. Prior to that she was VP of product and user experience at Gilt Group, and spent 12 years leading product teams at Travelocity. Dominique graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Duke University where she also served as captain of their NCAA Women's Varsity Volleyball team. She currently lives in Larchmont, NY with her husband and two sons.
Ryan Steelberg is a seasoned technology executive and pioneer of digital and data-driven businesses. He is currently the co-founder and President of Veritone, Inc., a public company on NASDAQ. He also serves on its Board of Directors. Previously, he served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Brand Affinity Technologies, Inc. Prior to that, Mr. Steelberg served as the Head of Broadcast at Google Inc. From 2002 to 2007, he was the co-founder and President of dMarc Broadcasting, an advertising company that was acquired by Google Inc. in 2006. From 1998 to 2000, he served as President and CEO of 2CAN Media, a company that was acquired by CMGi. From 1995 to 1998 he served as President of AdForce, a company that was also acquired by CMGi in September of 1999, after its IPO earlier that year.
Bio to come
Adam is an Account Director and Head of Azure OpenAI Enablement on the GTM team at OpenAI. Prior to joining OpenAI, Adam had spent time at Microsoft, Pivotal and Cisco and has spent over 2 decades in Enterprise technology sales. Adam is based in the New York area.
For more than 25 years, Raj has been at the forefront of innovative solutions for global enterprises. Before starting Kore.ai, Raj was the CEO and founder of Kony, a leader in cloud-based mobile app development. He also co-founded iTouchPoint, Seranova, and Intelligroup.
For the past two decades, Charlene Li has been helping people see the future. She’s an expert on digital transformation, leadership, customer experience and the future of work. She’s the author of six books, including the New York Times bestseller, Open Leadership and co-author of the critically acclaimed book, Groundswell. Her latest book is the bestseller The Disruption Mindset. She is the Founder and Senior Fellow at Altimeter, a disruptive analyst firm acquired in 2015 by Prophet. Named one of the most creative people in business by Fast Company, Charlene is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School.
Christopher is a long-time geek who's spent the bulk of his career training, supporting and upskilling developers. He's a web developer at heart with passions which span from Python to DevOps to TypeScript to AI. In his current role as an Enterprise Advocate for GitHub he seeks to help organizations improve their DevOps process and culture. When not found writing code he can be found running, playing Civilization, or spending time with his partner and their four-legged child (a rescue mutt).
Bala Maddali is a strategist, influencer, innovator, story-teller, insights-driven product leader who is passionate about the convergence of people, products, experience, and technology.We live in an algorithmic digital world that craves for humanness. He strongly believes human-centered Ai is the secret sauce that blends the digital and the human behavior to humanize the experiences. He leads the Conversational Ai Channels, Product & Customer Experience for the Verizon Consumer group. He has a proven track record in leading and driving strategy, transformation and, commercialization of next-generation Digital experiences, Conceptualizing and enabling industry best and first products to delight customers and enable sustainable growth and value. He is a curious speaker at multiple industry leading customer experience & Ai forums.He has 12 patents in the area of mobile and TV second screen convergence experience, social TV and voice & gesture-based app interactions.
Shyamala is a seasoned conversational AI expert. Having led initiatives across connected homes, automotive, and wearables - just to name a few, she's put her work on research into usability, accessibility, speech recognition, and multimodal voice user interfaces, and has even been published internationally across publications like Forbes. Outside of her research, she's spent the last 18 years designing mobile, web, desktop, and smart TV interfaces and has most recently joined NVIDIA to own their roadmap for Speech AI tools.
Yasmina Benkhoui leads ecosystem development for Generative AI with a specific focus on digital avatars and conversational AI at NVIDIA, spanning various verticals. She also manages ACE early access program and works on enabling the digital avatar ecosystem with NVIDIA cutting edge technologies such as Audio2face, Riva and NeMo LLM. With a strong background in Deep Learning and Computer Vision, Yasmina has an extensive track record of developing end-to-end CV solutions in both academic and industrial settings.
Congressman Don Beyer is serving his fifth term as the U.S. Representative from Virginia’s 8th District, representing Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, and parts of Fairfax County. He serves on Congress' Joint Economic Committee, and also serves on the House Committee on Ways and Means. He was the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1998, and was Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein under President Obama. Rep. Beyer’s signature work as lieutenant governor included advocacy for Virginians with disabilities and ensuring protections for Virginia’s most vulnerable populations as the Commonwealth reformed its welfare system in the mid-1990s. Rep. Beyer was Virginia’s Democratic nominee for governor in 1997. After leaving office, Rep. Beyer spent fourteen years as Chair of Jobs for Virginia Graduates, a highly successful high school dropout prevention program, and was active for a decade on the board of the D.C. Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. As Chair of the Virginia Economic Recovery Commission, he helped pass permanent pro-business reforms and was co-founder of the Northern Virginia Technology Council. President Obama nominated Rep. Beyer to serve as Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein in 2009. He used his position to advocate for stricter sanctions to compel Iran to begin nuclear disarmament discussions. As Ambassador, Rep. Beyer was integral to US Department of Justice efforts to halt the abuses of Swiss bank secrecy by wealthy Americans. Rep. Beyer has spent four decades building his family business in Northern Virginia after a summer job at a car dealership in 1974. He is a graduate of Williams College and Gonzaga College High School in Washington, DC. He was named a Presidential Scholar by President Lyndon Johnson. Rep. Beyer has four children and two grandchildren. He and his wife Megan live in Alexandria, Virginia.
Noelle Russell is a multi-award-winning technologist with an entrepreneurial spirit who specializes in helping companies with emerging technology, Generative AI, and LLMs. She has led teams at NPR, Microsoft, IBM, AWS and Amazon Alexa, and is a consistent champion for Data and AI literacy.
Kevin Chu leads GTM for Eleven Labs. He believes technology will solve most big problems but the evolution of how people understand and interact with it is the rate-limiting step. His favorite problems to tackle are at the nexus of human and technical challenges and accelerating progress through thoughtful design and empathy.
Renn Turiano is SVP and Head of Product for Gannett Media. He is an established product leader with 30+ years delivering successful customer experiences. He has deep operational experience and expertise in organizational leadership and end-to-end product development. Previously, Renn served as VP of Product and Design at NBCUniversal where he helped incubate and launch the Peacock streaming service. Prior to Peacock, Renn was at Amazon where he built and led multiple teams, driving the creation of numerous successful products and features. Additionally, he has held product and design roles at RAPP, HTC, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, among others.
Eros Marcello designs cognitive personification for human-interfacing Artificial Intelligence, including Intelligent Voice Assistants (IVAs), chatbots, multimodal applications and Large Language Models (LLMs).
Internationally renowned Cloud Adoption, DevOps/DevSecOps Transformation, and Data Modernization Executive. Industry Analyst, Thought Leader, Technology and Strategy Advisor, Startup Advisor, Keynote Speaker, Blogger, Podcaster, YouTuber and bestselling Author. Author of ‘The DevOps Adoption Playbook’, and ‘DevOps For Dummies, IBM Edition’. Keynote speaker at global IT conferences.
Ginny Torno, Administrative Director of Innovation and Clinical Systems at Houston Methodist has over 21 years of technical leadership experience, with over 11 of those years at Houston Methodist in progressive leadership roles. Her current role spans strategy and leadership for inpatient clinical systems involving nursing, imaging, pharmacy, lab, operating rooms, emergency departments, cardiology and research systems.
Before joining Tabnine Brandon built out the partner ecosystem, Open-Source and M&A at GitLab as well as supporting the company’s several capital raises. He served as the founding member of the Google Cloud ecosystem that includes technology companies as diverse as Red Hat, Docker, Cloudera, Pivotal and Tableau as well as companies with deep cloud expertise like Cloud Technology Partners, Agosto, CI&T, Accenture and McKinsey. In his time outside of work, Brandon can be found having fun outdoors with his wife and three children in Denver, CO and supporting the growth of open source as a board member of the Linux Foundation. He is a fairly wicked golfer and has a true passion for global humanitarian efforts.
Tiarne Hawkins is an innovative leader with over 10 years of experience in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and technology. She currently serves as the AI Services Director at Welocalize, collaborating with tech giants to create data pipelines for some of the world's largest AI applications. Ms. Hawkins is also the host of "You & AI," a series where she engages with prominent figures from various industries across both Public and Private sectors including The United Nations, NASA, Nvidia, Salesforce, Amazon, Microsoft, Google and more. Her aim is to help bridge the education gap, making complex concepts understandable to a global audience. Passionate about diversity in AI, she focuses on inclusivity and multicultural perspectives, earning her recognition as a thought leader in AI and technology. Additionally, Ms Hawkins is part of the Make a Wish Australia AI advisory team helping drive utilization of AI for good.
Andrea “Andi” Huels is a passionate technology leader who is dedicated to revolutionizing enterprise operations with AI. Currently serving as Head of Global Growth and Strategy at RadiusAI, Andi's expertise in AI, machine learning, and data analytics is empowering Fortune 500 companies to drive agility and transform their business models. Andi's passion for evangelizing AI solutions is truly infectious. She inspires executives in retail, restaurants, convenience, and supply chain to embrace AI to make smarter decisions, enhance customer experience, and improve operational efficiency. Her deep understanding of Edge AI use cases and ability to cultivate technology ecosystems has made her a trusted advisor to CXOs. As a thought leader in artificial intelligence, Andi has captivated audiences as a keynote, panelist, and moderator at industry conferences around the world. She’s been recognized as one of the "50 Most Powerful Women in Technology in 2023," the "World's Top 200 Business and Technology Innovators,“ the "Top 50 Intelligent Automation Influencers,“ and as a member of the “2023 Women Leaders of Conversational AI.” Prior to RadiusAI, Andi served as Head of AI, North America, at Lenovo ($70B). Her background includes over two decades of global strategy, growth, and innovation leadership roles with General Electric, ExxonMobil, Dematic, Crane, Imerys, Omron, and General Mills
Susan Sly is the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of RadiusAI (RAI), an award-winning visual intelligence company specializing in the retail, restaurant, and healthcare sectors. RAI is currently implementing its smart retail solution at the edge for a national retailer with 1,000 locations. RAI has been named one of the fastest growing startups in Phoenix three years in a row and won VentureBeat’s AI Innovation at the Edge Award in 2022, beating out several highly acclaimed technology companies. Prior to co-founding RAI, Susan led channel sales teams in three sectors generating over $2 billion in revenue. As a sought after entrepreneurial thought leader, Susan has spoken for MIT, The Forbes School of Business, and shared the stage with Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and many others. In her spare time, Susan is the host of the highly acclaimed podcast, Raw and Real Entrepreneurship, mom of five, wife, and tech investor. Susan has appeared on CNN, CNBC, Fox, ABC Family, and is a member of the prestigious Forbes Business Council.
Jay is a manager of Content and Conversation Design at Capital One. With 15 years experience supporting Contact Centers, Jay is passionate about building connected experiences across user journeys.
Hina Dixit is a Software Engineering Leader with 12+ years of experience in Software Engineering. Hina currently drives all investments in the field of AI at SamsungNext and also focuses on Metaverse sector. Hina led a team at Apple for 8 years with a focus on multiple projects varying from Security, iCloud, Artificial Intelligence, Developer Tools & Data Integrity. From managing a team of seasoned developers to being responsible for bringing up & architecting projects along with the delegation and holding status meetings, Hina was directly responsible for unblocking individuals and finding resources throughout the company to direct the team to succeed. With her experience at Apple as an expert in AI, App Development, Backend & Cloud, she has led various cross-organization projects. Hina holds multiple patents through her work at Apple.
Sean King oversees the Commercial Enterprise division at Veritone including SaaS technologies and managed services for advertising, licensing, synthetic media, and metaverse. His forward-thinking marketing and operational insights have solidified Veritone’s subsidiary, Veritone One as the leading AI-powered audio and influencer advertising agency in the world, and has grown Veritone Licensing as North America’s premiere AI-based content licensing firm — setting the stage to take on the next frontier of synthetic media and metaverse solutions with Veriverse. Over the past 20 years, Sean has held various senior level management positions focusing on sales management, technology operations, and strategic partnership development. He is passionate about finding new ways to refine operations, create new opportunities, and applying practical uses of AI and synthetic media to the metaverse.
Jenny Mero is a Conversation Design Lead at Comcast. She's passionate about coaching Conversational AI practitioners to create human-centered, seamless, and scalable experiences. Jenny's work is inspired by her 15+ years of experience as a marketer and journalist focused on diverse, socially-conscious topics.
Bio to come
Jacob DePriest is the VP, Deputy Chief Security Officer at GitHub where he is responsible for managing the GitHub Security team. Prior to GitHub, Jacob was a senior executive at the National Security Agency where he built and led the Developer Experience program, was the Agency’s executive sponsor for open source, and led a number of IT and security transformation initiatives. Having led both engineering and security teams, Jacob is passionate about security working with the developer flow and not against it. Outside of work, Jacob enjoys staying active, reading science fiction/fantasy, and hanging out with his wife and two boys in Maryland.
Keisuke Inoue is Lead Algorithm Data Scientist at PandoLogic, a Veritone company, specializing in NLP and Machine Learning with a focus on understanding and generating language texts in conversational contexts. At heart, Inoue is a problem solver, who enjoys making innovative solutions to problems at hand. While his academic career focused on analysis of information behaviors leveraging machine learning and natural language processing, He is always excited to learn new tools and techniques and apply them to real-world problems. Earlier in his career, Inoue was Lead Data Scientist at Wade & Wendy (acquired by PandoLogic, a Veritone company) and Vice President of Data Science at Holler. He holds a Ph.D. in Information Science and Technology, M.A. in Linguistics and M.S. in Computer Science from Syracuse University, as well as B.A. in Law from WasedaUniversity.
I've been passionate about improving people's lives through technology for over twenty years. I have dedicated the last three years to experimenting with multimodal conversational interfaces to enhance the patient journey. Focusing on leveraging cutting-edge technologies, I strive to create meaningful solutions that make a difference in people's lives.
Dr. Rupal Patel is an internationally renowned speech scientist turned entrepreneur, bringing decades of clinical, academic, scientific and social entrepreneurship experience to Veritone. As Vice President of Voice & Accessibility, Dr. Patel is responsible for setting strategy and leading innovation efforts in the voice AI space, in addition to expanding the reach and impact of Veritone’s voice solutions for those living with disabilities or inequities. A preeminent thought leader in voice AI, Dr. Patel advocates for ethical transparent and fair use policies that can broaden the monetization capabilities for voice-over artists by leveraging AI. Prior to Veritone, Dr. Patel was the Founder and CEO of VocaliD, a voice AI company acquired by Veritone in 2022, that creates synthetic voices with personality for discerning brands that understand the power of customized voice and for individuals living with speechlessness who want to be heard in a voice that is uniquely theirs. VocaliD was a spinout from Dr. Rupal’s research lab at Northeastern University, where she is a tenured Full Professor with interdisciplinary appointments in the Bouve College of Health Science and Khoury College of Computer Science. Named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business, Rupal has been featured on TED, NPR, WIRED, and in major international news and technology publications.
Joti Balani, founder of Freshriver.ai, is a creative architect designing and delivering complex enterprise, human and systemic transformations with her multidimensional framework blending AI, Data Science, Engineering and Social Sciences. She leads transformative innovations at Fortune 100 enterprises to create emotional, economic and brand value with her team, who represent the empowered human race in all dimensions.
Bret Kinsella is CEO and founder of Voicebot.ai, the leading source of research, data, analysis, and news about voice, AI, and synthetic media technologies. Bret has been named Voice AI commentator (2019-21) and analyst of the year (2020-21). He earned degrees from UCLA and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
Tobias Dengel is CEO of WillowTree, LLC. a leading mobile strategy, design and app development company servicing Fortune 500/5000 clients and large government agencies. He is a seasoned technology executive with 20+ years experience in Mobility, Digital Media and Interactive Marketing.
Most of the wins in my career have come from connecting people and information they need. In the last 9 years with Capital One, I've been a Conversation Designer and Communications Strategist. My superpowers are storytelling and strategizing.
Sandy Diao is a growth executive and venture investor. Sandy has led growth teams at five companies spanning different business models and industries, such as Meta/Facebook, Pinterest, Indiegogo, and Descript. She is currently the Director of Growth at Descript, one of the fastest growing generative AI software companies and is OpenAI Startup Fund's largest investment to date. Sandy invests in software companies as a Venture Partner at IOVC and also advises early to later stage teams on growth marketing. Throughout her career, Sandy has worked with hundreds of startup teams to create go-to-market and growth strategies. Sandy has spoken at over thirty conferences on growth strategy, marketing, and entrepreneurship.
Brandon Nott is the Chief Product Officer (CPO) at Amelia. In this role, Brandon is responsible for setting the company’s product strategy, roadmap, user experiences, and delivering effective product marketing content and training. As an award-winning technologist, Brandon takes a customer-centric approach to product development with a focus on business outcomes and great user experiences. Brandon has played key roles in global growth business and emerging technologies with companies like the Bluetooth SIG and UiPath. Brandon holds degrees in Business Administration and Accounting, and a Masters in Business Information Systems from the University of Kansas.
David DeWolf is the founder and CEO of Knownwell, an innovative startup that helps organizations leverage the power of AI at an enterprise level to drive profitability. Knownwell’s proprietary maturity model and vision for human-machine collaboration are disrupting the traditional services landscape and helping to steward the adoption of AI ethically and responsibly. Previously David founded and was CEO of 3Pillar Global, a digital product development organization that he grew to become the preeminent provider within one of the hottest sectors within technology services. Under David’s leadership, 3Pillar grew for 16 consecutive years to more than 2000 employees. 3Pillar operated in 10 countries and was named to the Inc. 5000, a list of the fastest-growing private companies in the US, ten separate times before being sold twice to private equity
Sarah Natochenny is an American voice actress, content producer, film editor, and influencer. She is best known for voicing Ash Ketchum and various other characters in the English dub of Pokémon since 2006, as well as Alicia in the 2006 video game Bullet Witch. She has also edited documentaries for networks such as MSNBC and worked as an assistant editor on the films Life of Crime, Cold Comes the Night, Worst Friends, and Cruise. Sarah has made several videos about voice acting and dubbing with Vanity Fair, spoken at UC Berkeley and many comic cons, and won a Voice Arts Award in 2019. In 2023, won the Audience Webby Award in the Social Media - Celebrity/Fan category for her My Pokémon Journey retrospective video about her role as Ash Ketchum
Tamara is an STA Certified Associate Director at Accenture with over two decades in the tech industry. She leads an innovation team which focuses on building cross industry hyper-realistic, real-time, Generative AI and Conversational AI-powered digital human use cases and supporting assets. She believes that effective verbal and non-verbal communication, ethics and diversity are at the heart of a successful digital human experience.
Gordon Chu is a Digital Innovation Manager at Cathay Pacific, where he drives innovation culture and leads structured experimentation with emerging technologies. He has extensive product management experience, including as Digital Product Manager for Conversational AI and various Product Owner roles at Cathay Pacific and in startups. Gordon will share his insights on effectively implementing large language models in enterprises. With his passion for exploring new technologies and his structured approach to experimentation, he is well-positioned to offer valuable insights into integrating large language models into an organization's innovation strategy.
Kane is the front door to the world of AI-powered customer experience, helping business leaders and teams understand why voice, conversational AI and NLP technologies are revolutionising how we live, work and get things done. He helps executives formulate the future of customer experience strategies and guides teams in designing, building and implementing revolutionary products and services built on emerging AI and NLP technologies.
Roger, an accomplished expert in the realm of conversational AI, boasts an extensive background and a wealth of insights in the field. As a Senior Developer Evangelist at Samsung, he is at the forefront of the company's conversational AI products and is recognized as an industry thought leader. In addition to his role at Samsung, Roger founded a cutting-edge startup dedicated to equipping artists with tools like NFTs and AI-generated art, enabling them to profitably market their creations. Prior to his tenure at Samsung, Roger established a voice technology startup aimed at propelling advancements in conversational AI. Drawing from his experience as a technology strategist and enterprise architect, Roger offers a distinctive viewpoint on leveraging technology to revolutionize business and elevate user experiences.
Meet Daisy Mayorga, a passionate technologist and new co-founder of yüda, a company dedicated to Empowering Equity in Emerging Technologies. With a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from California State University, Monterey Bay, and experience as a Google Developer Group organizer and Women Techmakers Ambassador, Daisy has been a champion for inclusion and diversity in technology, working tirelessly to create a more equitable community. Daisy has also worked on award-winning technology projects, including the development of Spottr, a location scouting app for photographers. With a focus on creating a more equitable and just future through technology, Daisy is excited to join yüda to drive change and empower underrepresented communities.
First generation, daughter of Mexican immigrants with talents in communidad, culture, connections and creativity Karlha Dannyce Arias-Davies is the vibe creator, founder and flame behind Korazón.io a social justice, civic engagement, community capacity building consulting collective. Korazón.io Konsultants is deeply motivated to address racial and social inequities in our communities of color through JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) strategies and are based in the Central Valley of California. Karlha shares her community talents as a Director at Bitwise Industries and also as a partner of Yüda, a tech startup focused on empowering equity in emerging technologies. Karlha is fueled by passion first and foremost, hence the name Korazón (heart). With a contagious energy (and smile) she excels at human connections and relentlessly champions the underdog by leaning on her lived experiences as a Latina and career strengths in marketing and community engagement. Her belief is that every person deserves respect, love and kindness. Her favorite people are ones who lead with a servant’s heart, are not afraid to speak truth and hold space for those not represented at the tables of influence.
Brandon Kaplan is the co-founder and chief innovation officer at Journey. Previously Brandon was the founder of Skilled Creative, a conversational ai agency. Brandon has been tech obsessed his entire life, and has spent his professional career finding ways to work in and start businesses that were focused on bending technology in creative ways.
Dr. Eui-Hong (Sam) Han is Director of AI/ML and Zeus Technology at The Washington Post. He is an experienced practitioner of AI, machine learning and data science. He has provided strategic and tactical leadership in data science discipline and led data science teams focused on augmenting key enterprise customer and revenue growth initiatives through the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning at The Washington Post, Marriott International, Persistent Systems and Sears. He has more than 30 published papers and presented his works at academic and industry conferences. He also served as a conference organizing committee member for conferences such as KDD, SIAM International Conference on Data Mining, and PAKDD. Furthermore, he has contributed as a member of the Program Committee for conferences including SIGIR, KDD, ICDM, ECML/PKDD, and DaWak. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities.
Lisa Falkson is currently Senior Conversation Designer at Amazon, leading a team of designers covering Alexa Communication, Social, Kitchen, Home Productivity, and Alexa for Everyone. She is the editor and author of “Ubiquitous Voice: Essays from the Field” and has over 20 years of industry and research experience, specializing in the design, development and deployment of natural speech and multimodal interfaces. Her most recent work includes next-generation voice user interfaces at NIO and CloudCar, as well as Amazon’s first speech-enabled products: Fire TV, Fire Phone and Echo/Alexa. Prior to that, she focused on early iPad/iPhone interfaces at Volio, and speech-enabled IVR applications at Nuance. Lisa holds a BSEE from Stanford, and an MSEE from UCLA.
Falene McKenna is a product manager with a strong background in software development, conversational experience design, and data analysis. Specializing in Robot VUIs, she is passionate about using technology, particularly social robots and Conversational AI, to improve people's lives. Coming from a background Linguistics, Falene began her Social Robotics career at Intuition Robotics, working on their flagship project ElliQ—an AI-powered social companion robot for older adults—and developing in-car voice experiences. She later collaborated on a proof-of-concept for Fur Hat Robotics and Microsoft PVA. Currently, she serves as a product manager for Aico, an AI-driven early childhood learning robot by Curiosity Robotics. A voice in the conversational AI space, Falene has presented at various events, including the Conversation Design Festival 2022, emphasizing the importance of bot building standards, language expertise in AI experiences, and persona building. She is also an active member of Women in Voice, promoting gender diversity in the voice technology industry.
Juliette Chevallier brings years of engineering and product operator experience to her role as an investor at Scale Venture Partners. Juliette began her career as a systems and safety engineer in the autonomous vehicle industry working on both ground and air platforms at companies such as Google[X] (now Waymo) and Boeing NeXt. She took a break from industry to get her master's degrees from MIT where her thesis work was sponsored by Boeing's drone delivery program, Boeing NeXt. Since then, Juliette has been investing across the AI/ML and robotics sectors, bringing her years of technical expertise to evaluate new companies and help them succeed as they scale. At Scale Venture Partners, Juliette currently focuses on AI/ML investments across the stack, from applications to infrastructure to cybersecurity.
Adarsh Gosu is a Managing Director within Deloitte Consulting’s Health Care Technology practice with primary focus on Gen AI, AI and Data Modernization. He focuses on helping Health Care organizations transform to be Insight driven, AI first and Cloud centric organizations, so they are ready for future technology disruptions. He has worked with many national health plans, PBMs and pharmacy organizations to implement Generative AI and AI solutions, AI & Data strategy to help improve customer engagement , customer satisfaction, reduce cost and improve savings. Adarsh has a master’s degree in computer science.
Nick Dokich is an enterprise voice/chat bot building expert. For Nick, it is all about getting the right information, to the right person, in the right way, at the right time. With over 7 years of experience, Nick is focused on building the world's largest and most complex voice/chat experiences. His bots have interacted with over 1/3 of the US population. Currently working for Google, Nick is passionate about helping enterprises build successful voice experiences. He believes that voicebots have the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with technology, and he is committed to helping businesses realize that potential. He has worked with Fortune 500, start-ups, and government organizations, focused on engaging experiences that produce tangible ROI. His voice/chat experiences contain millions of calls each month while providing immensely engaging experiences.
After years working in software development and quality assurance, Gillian decided to pursue a career in UX based on her passion for understanding and helping users. She obtained a degree in Human-Computer Interaction and Design from UC-Irvine and has since worked in the conversational design field, building voice and chat solutions for FinTech companies and now General Motors.
Ken Army veteran turned serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of strategy, product marketing, and business management experience in the technology and finance industries. Ken’s formal entrepreneurial experience began directly after University with the creation of TMG, a multi-state marketing firm focused on product development, market research, and brand strategy, which he grew and eventually sold in early 2005. Ken currently serves as President of CEO for Yobe Inc., which he founded based on a patent he co-authored and his belief in the future of Voice technologies and their relevance to human-machine interfaces. In addition to his role as the lead technology strategist, Ken manages the company’s product vision, corporate development, team development, brand management, and investor relationships. Before his start-up experience, Ken was a financial services professional who worked on critical projects for hedge funds, venture capital, and private equity firms focused on Pre-IPO investments in the technology and real estate arenas. Ken attended the University of Connecticut and has served as a proud member of the US Armed Forces (US Army Ranger).
Sarah has supported the design and implementation of CX solutions with Freeclimb from VAIL for nearly 3 years, where she has established processes for data curation, iterative model training & testing for performance improvement, and owns the “language understanding” segment of complex, ever-evolving, multi-language systems. Prior to her time with Freeclimb from VAIL, Sarah gained key experience designing and implementing conversational experiences at some innovation powerhouses in this space, including IBM Watson. She is a fan of Python Pandas and Jupyter notebook, and is a strong advocate of the “human-in-the-loop” approach to CX development.
Bev Standing took her first voiceover workshop in the Fall of 2008. In 2011 Bev signed up on on-line casting sites and quickly became one of the top bookers. In 2014 she went full time and has become a successful international voice actor working mainly in commercial, corporate, explainers, e-learning/trainings and on-hold/IVR. Bev recently won a Reed award for Best Radio Ad – National Mayoral Campaign. She has been chosen as Private Education & Development Awards’ Best e-learning voiceover artist – Canada in 2019 and 2021; and has received eight SOVAS nominations. Bev Standing is known throughout the voiceover industry for her talent, and for being kind, responsible, standing up for what’s right, encouraging, as well as strengthening community ties in the industry.
Ryan Wang is recognized globally as a pioneer and leader in the AI, Metaverse, XR, and Web3 industries. Ryan Wang is Co-founder and General Partner of Outpost Capital. Established in 2015, Outpost Capital is a leading cross-border early stage venture fund based in San Francisco and China, focusing on frontier technology investments. In 2020, Ryan co-founded Zebra Labs, a metaverse entertainment company creating new IPs and content with cutting edge technology in gaming and AI. Having a multicultural background and proven track records, Ryan oversees companies in the US and greater China with solid insights and strong connections in both markets. Ryan has been frequently featured by international media, and invited to deliver keynotes at numerous conferences globally. Early in his career, Ryan has compiled a comprehensive and successful career as an investment banker at Citigroup and Societe Generale in New York City. Outside work, Ryan is a snowboarder, world explorer and collector of stylish hats.
Vijaykumar Jangamashetti (VJ) is currently working as a Trusted Advisor, Cloud Consulting Architect at Google for the last 1.5 years. In this role, he assists customers in designing and architecting their data warehouses to Google Cloud. He also helps customers migrate and modernize their existing data warehouses to Google Cloud and drive customer success. VJ has 16 years of experience in the Data & Analytics world of IT industry through multiple roles as an ETL Architect, Data Architect, Delivery Manager and Lead Cloud Solutions Architect (specialized into Google Cloud), out of which he has spent 10 years as a Trusted Advisor, while stepping into the customer shoes at various customer locations across EMEA and APAC. He has also acquired 9X GCP certifications across multiple specializations. Prior Joining Google, he has worked with Rackspace, Wipro, IBM and Cognizant. VJ is Native of Vijayapura, Karnataka (Gol Gumbaz) and currently based out of Pune and would be working out of our new Google Pune site. He is Happily married and blessed with a 6 yrs daughter and 1 yr son. VJ has a Love for nature, does Monsoon Hikings around Pune and likes Photography and Travelling.
Denys Linkov is the Head of ML at Voiceflow focused on building the ML platform and data science offerings. His focus is on Conversational AI systems that help Voiceflow's 60+ enterprise customers build better conversational assistants. Previously he worked at a large global bank as a senior cloud architect.
Pete is the founder and CEO of Modev and the creator of the VOICE series of events including VOICE Summit, Global, Talks and all related media properties.
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Sebastian Glock is senior technology evangelist at Cognigy whose focus lies in mediating between AI technology and business strategy. With deep knowledge in Conversational AI, he advises top-tier companies in Europe and North America and can often be found speaking at international conferences and events about digital transformation, customer experience innovation and contact center AI.
Ilya Gogin is the Director of Product Management at Pearson, where he leads the ELL Accelerator team to advance the adoption of emerging tech for language learning. Previously, he was an Instructional Designer for adult language learning courseware and a Product Manager, working closely with AI teams to prototype AI powered features and products. Prior to Pearson, he taught ESL in NYC, creating websites and instructional media for his classrooms. He holds Master's Degrees in linguistics and teaching English to adults. Currently, he is working on projects that use generative AI and XR for language learning.
James Poulter is the former Head of Lego Group’s Emerging Platform team and founder of Vixen Labs and is a leading thought leader and keynote speaker on the future of work, voice technology, conversational artificial intelligence, and social media. In addition to his work at Vixen, James is the founder of Voice2, the UK’s leading Voice and Conversational Ai Community and previously as Head of The LEGO Group’s Emerging Platforms & Partnerships team as part of the Digital Consumer Engagement division, James pursued new technologies, platforms, and partners to build digital consumer engagement with LEGO customers, shoppers, and consumers on a global basis. Prior to joining LEGO, James worked for a number of the world’s leading marketing, advertising, and public relations firms including Edelman and Ogilvy leading digital marketing, mobile and social campaigns both in EMEA and globally as well as new business efforts for clients such as Diageo, Unilever, Bose, PayPal, HP, and Adobe. James is an experienced marketer and communications professional with over 10 years of experience. He previously was the Head of Social Media for LEGO’s social network for Kids, LEGO Life – which launched globally in 2017 and has since grown to over 2m active users regularly posting their content to the world’s first global and safe social network for kids. As well as devising and developing social features such as LEGO Life’s emoji keyboard, custom characters, and moderation systems, James oversaw the launch of LEGO’s global partnership with GIPHY leading the LEGO channel to accrue over 1 Billion GIF views in its first year.
Mr. Khitrov has over 25 years of C-level experience at biometrics and financial companies. In 2016, Alexey launched ID R&D with a focus on developing cutting-edge, best-in-class voice biometrics and frictionless liveness detection products.
Anne Ganguzza is a professional voice actor, coach, and award-winning producer with a dynamic presence and a passion for all things voice + technology. She works with talent around the world who are interested in boosting their VO career to the next level, using target-marketed demos and customized marketing strategies in addition to vocal coaching. Her networking group, the VO Peeps, offers meetups and workouts with incredible opportunities for feedback and growth; while her VO BOSS podcast (voboss.com) can be heard weekly around the globe, and highlights prescient industry topics with a fresh take on what’s happening in voice over. Anne's voiceover credits include United Healthcare, Delta, Pearson, Mercedes Benz, PayPal, Wells Fargo, Michelin, Credit Suisse, Cisco, Toyota, Panasonic, Baxter, Xerox, and more...
Mr. S. Tien Wong is a technology entrepreneur, CEO, and angel investor. He is Chairman & CEO of Opus8, Inc., a private investment and strategic advisory firm specializing in raising capital for alternative investment fund managers, as well as promising tech companies. He is also Chairman of Lumious, an ed tech company which provides advanced tech training and learning & development services to Fortune 500 customers. Mr. Wong is also Chairman of Lore Systems, Inc., an IT services company which provides managed hosting, IT support, and cloud computing solutions for commercial, nonprofit, and government clients. He is Founder and Host of the Big Idea CONNECTpreneur Forum, a global community of over 25,000 founders, CEOs, angels, VCs, CXOs and business leaders. The community hosts the world’s largest monthly investor pitch events as well as 1/2-day Forums with upwards of 600 attendees, featuring VIP guests, speakers, exciting presenting companies, and the best CXO to CXO networking on the East Coast. A recognized international expert in CRM, direct marketing, and BPO, Mr. Wong has presented at dozens of conferences around the world. He has also provided industry commentary on the ABC, Fox, NBC, CNBC, Maryland Public Television, and China’s CCTV networks, as well as for publications such as Time Magazine, The Washington Post, Inc. Magazine, and Success Magazine.
Danny Tomsett is a dynamic leader and innovator in the field of digital humans, with a deep-rooted passion for transforming human-machine interactions. As the CEO and cofounder of UneeQ, Danny has pioneered the development of lifelike, AI-powered virtual beings that revolutionize customer experiences. His visionary approach to blending technology with humanity has propelled UneeQ to the forefront of the digital human industry. With a strong background in software engineering and a relentless focus on user-centric design, Danny continues to push the boundaries of what is possible, creating intuitive and empathetic digital experiences that bridge the gap between humans and technology. His commitment to leveraging AI for positive impact has earned him recognition as a leading force in shaping the future of human-machine interactions.
Tyler Merritt is VP Platform Development at UneeQ, a pioneering company in the realm of AI-powered digital humans. In particular, Tyler has years of hands-on experience building, training and deploying digital humans that are driven by large language models, like ChatGPT. He has led the technical aspects of digital human projects for some of the largest brands in the world, including Deutsche Telekom, Dell Technologies and a raft of other household-name enterprises.
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Brenda is a computer engineer with a love for design, details, and technology innovation. She holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering and is working on her Masters in Cybersecurity from Georgia Tech. Currently, she works as a Sr. Supervisor at Pratt and Whitney Puerto Rico. She is mom to a cat named Luna.
I am entrepreneur with 15+ years of professional experience, focused the last +6 years in voice technology training and SaaS solutions, such as conversational AI, speech recognition (ASR), text-to-speech (TTS), voice bots, chatbots, call centers, voice gateways, NLP, IVR, PBX, SIP, ISDN. I founded several technology companies, and successfully raised capital funds for them in both Latin America and the US. I am honored to have been selected for various prestigious startup programs, including StartUp Chile, TechStarts, Google Launchpad, and 500 Startups.
Chad’s unconventional journey to becoming a platinum-selling artist, underground music producer, NFT artist, patented tech inventor, and founder of the metaverse platform Meloscene began unassumingly in rural Montana. His lifelong preoccupation with dismantling and modifying technology started at an early age when his mother gave him books on US inventors, and his grandmother set aside copies of Popular Science and Mechanics magazines for him to pore through when visiting. Living in a rural region, Chad submersed into working with 10 and 11-meter radios, allowing him to connect with the outside world while tenaciously pursuing his love of music and guitar by sneaking into concerts to meet bands touring through the region. His persistence paid off, leading to his first out-of-state gig at 16 in Miami, Florida, officially kicking off his career as a musician. Following his Miami stints with more tours and projects, he made his way to Los Angeles and immersed himself in the Sunset Strip music scene. Several albums, labels, tours, and gold records later, he was ready to combine his love for technology and music and began working on integrating instruments with new technology to modernize applications for the next generation of artists. The pandemic struck around this same time, and all musicians were forced to work remotely. Chad saw an opportunity to advance that technology even further within a mixed reality realm. An innovator of human connection through technological applications, he created the Meloscene platform and SceneKey to streamline and cultivate the collaborative process and open a new world of opportunities for musicians and creatives alike.
Chief Evangelist @ HumanFirst. I explore and write about all things at the intersection of AI and language; NLP/NLU/LLM, Chat/Voicebots, CCA
Chris Morgan Brown is a Principal Consultant for Natural Language AI in AWS Professional Services. He has been working in the Conversational AI space since 2015. Chris was a founding member of the Snaps, one of the first Conversational AI platforms for building, deploying, and optimizing chatbot experiences (acquired by Quiq). In 2018, he moved from New York City to Portland, OR to lead Columbia Sportswear in their efforts to in building out their live chat team and chatbot experience. Shortly after launching those experiences for Columbia, he went to Wells Fargo to be the lead product manager for their retail chatbot for two years. Chris joined AWS in May 2021. At AWS, Chris works with large enterprise customers to design, build, launch, and optimize Conversational AI experiences across voice and chat experiences.
Lauren is excited by the possibilities of synthetic voice technology to reimagine, streamline, and scale the creator and content production industries. Lauren is Program Manager of Veritone Voice, winner of the NAB Product of the Year 2021. Having worked with voice actors and production houses for many years, Lauren understands the value of (and work it takes) personalizing consumer messages. Lauren is most inspired by recent advancements in generative AI to localize content into new languages and connect audiences like never before.
John is a seasoned Conversational AI Product Manager with 7+ years of experience delivering AI-driven sales & customer support experiences on the web, mobile, Amazon Alexa, Apple Business Chat, Google Assistant, Facebook Messenger, Samsung Bixby and SMS. In his current role at ADP, John is responsible for leading the enterprise's virtual assistant and generative AI strategies within the company's Service Technology organization. Prior to joining ADP, John was a Product Manager within the Artificial Intelligence organization at Wells Fargo and an Emerging Technologies Product Manager at 1-800-Flowers.com. John began his career as an Investment Banking Analyst at JPMorgan before attending a Full Stack development coding academy and pivoting into the technology space. John resides in Newark, NJ with his fiancée and dog. In his free time, John enjoys playing & watching sports, hiking with his metal detector, and real estate investing.
A software professional, with experience in the software development industry, working with leading companies such as SAMSUNG and Cisco, I bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise to every project. As an idea broker, I excel at facilitating the translation of complex concepts into actionable plans that drive successful outcomes. My passion for technology and commitment to delivering innovative solutions make me a valuable asset to any team.
Arpita Bhowick is the “Digital Change Champion” in her organization’s digital transformation journey, focusing on digital strategy, implementing multi cloud solutions like CRM, AI driven self- serve offers and contact center AI and data analytics, in a fast paced, ambiguous ecosystem. Arpita has experience in pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, healthcare, the public sector, e-Retail, Fin-serv, travel and handling budgets of $20 MM + program portfolios.
Susan Westwater is the CEO and co-founder of Pragmatic Digital where they advise the world’s most innovative brands on how to capitalize on the incredible opportunity voice and conversational AI represent. Susan helps clients reach their marketing objectives by using customer-centric approaches to plan and create innovative voice experiences for their audiences. She has presented and authored a number of talks, workshops, articles, and ebooks focused on the role Voice technology plays in marketing and business strategy. Susan co-authored the book Voice Strategy: Creating Useful and Usable Voice Experiences which was a #1 Release on Amazon and is working on a second book titled Voice Marketing which will be released in 2023. She is also an Ambassador of the Open Voice Network, an instructor for the Marketing AI Institute AI Academy, and a member of Women in Voice. She is recognized by her peers as a thought leader in innovation and voice technology and in 2020, she was recognized as a Top Voice Influencer in Voicebot’s Top 68 Leaders in Voice.
Brian Sathianathan is the Chief Technology Officer at Iterate.ai. Previously, Sathianathan worked at Apple on various emerging technology projects that included the Mac operating system and the first iPhone.
Josh Edwards is a global data and digital leader with a track record of using technologies and analytics to deliver superior business results. As the leader of Black & Veatch's data science and data operations teams, Josh uses advanced data analytics, artificial intelligence, and technology to better inform business decisions that drive operational efficiency and revenue growth. For example, he led a team that developed a predictive analytics model that helped a client reduce catastrophic losses by over $100M.
Dr. Kamaljeet Sanghera is the Executive Director of the Institute for Digital Innovation (IDIA), at George Mason University where her team supports the research community in the pursuit of cutting-edge work to share the future digital society. Before assuming the IDIA role, Dr. Sanghera served as the Executive Director of STEM Outreach for the Volgenau School of Engineering. She was also the Associate Chair of the Information Sciences and Technology department. Dr. Sanghera is a founding member of Virginia's Governor's STEM commission. She serves on the executive board of the Northern Virginia Computer Science Teachers' Association and is on the advisory board of STEM for Her. Dr. Sanghera received the NCWIT Extension Services award to implement systemic change to increase enrollment, retention, and graduation of women in technology and engineering undergraduate programs. Her efforts have positively contributed to the Go Virginia Tech Talent Pipeline initiative, where she worked closely with Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), Fairfax County Government Office, Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC), and Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS). Dr. Sanghera is also an active member of the Students and Technology in Academia, Research, and Service (STARS) program and the National Center of Women in Technology (NCWIT). She has worked on the Sisters Rise Up grant by Reboot Representation. Dr. Sanghera worked with AWS and NVCC in introducing the first BAS in the Cloud Computing degree.
Emily is a content designer at WillowTree, conversation/VUI designer, and professional violinist. She also co-leads the Ethical Use Task Force at the Open Voice Network, co-authoring the Ethical Guidelines for Voice Experiences document and co-leading the development of the TrustMark Initiative. Other engagements include speaking at VOICE Summit 2022 and VoiceTech Summit Americas, co-hosting the Voice Spark Live podcast from 2021-2022, and featuring as a Voicefluencer on "The Voice Den." Awards include winning the Digital Assistant Academy's Hackabot 2021.
Heather Leigh Flannery is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Equideum Health, a spin-off from ConsenSys AG effective March 2nd, 2020 focusing at the intersection of federated AI, advanced privacy technology, and blockchain / web3. ConsenSys Health rebranded to Equideum Health on January 18th, 2022. Equideum Health is a Microsoft and ConsenSys partner and a ConsenSys Mesh portfolio company. Heather is a member of the Board of Directors of the Equideum Foundation, Vice Chair of the IEEE SA Open P2418.6 Standards Development Working Group (blockchain and AI convergence in healthcare and life sciences), served as FY19 and FY20 Co-Chair and FY21 Chair of the global HIMSS Blockchain in Healthcare Task Force, Chairs the Healthcare Interest Group at the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA), and is a member of the Board of Directors of the World Business Angels Forum (WBAF) USA Country Office. Ms. Flannery is an active consultant, advisor, and keynote speaker. Prior to ConsenSys, she founded and led Obesity Prevention, Policy, and Management, Inc. ("Obesity PPM"), an innovative provider of disease management, population health, research administration, and information technology managed services for health systems in the Americas, and an early adopter of both blockchain technology and predictive analytics. Ms. Flannery has driven business model innovation via technology early adoption throughout her 28-year career as an entrepreneur, technologist, and strategist. She has consulted in the public sector in context of international development, bringing a global health perspective to her work. Focusing in the health sector since 2006, Ms. Flannery is a broad, lateral thinker who applies complex adaptive systems thinking to make progress against macroscopic challenges. Due to her personal life experience, Ms. Flannery is intrinsically motivated to impact population health and economic prosperity. She builds mission-driven organizations aligned by shared values: making measurable societal contributions, creating economically sustainable interventions, and prioritizing diversity and inclusion.
Marlinda Galapon is a Principal Conversation Designer at Zendesk. Originally, she pursued a career path in nursing, but her curiosity and lifelong love of language, design and the workings of interpersonal relationships led her into the conversation design field. Drawing on her experience at companies like Yahoo!, Adobe, and Salesforce, Marlinda puts fairness, rigor, and inclusion at the center of her design process, guiding teams toward developing scalable experiences that are efficient, welcoming, and helpful.
Dexter Hadley, MD/PhD translates big data into precision medicine and digital health. His research generates, annotates, and ultimately reasons over large multi-modal data stores to develop predictive models of clinical intelligence. He earned his PhD in genomics and computational biology while at medical school at University of Pennsylvania, and he trained in clinical pathology while at residency at Stanford. He first became faculty at University of California San Francisco where he won various grant funding for developing deep learning methods in medicine including over $5M from NIH. His contributions have yielded well over 60 peer-reviewed publications in precision medicine to develop novel interventions, identify novel biomarkers and potential therapeutics for disease. He has been giving invited lectures around the globe on leveraging AI/ML in clinical applications. Dr. Hadley is the Founding Chief of Artificial Intelligence at University of Central Florida, College of Medicine where he is building a community of patients, clinicians, and data scientists to turn his vision for Community Driven AI into reality.
As the Conversation Design Lead at Amelia, Matt works at the intersection of design, language, and technology, working hand-in-hand with clients to create conversational experiences that drive business outcomes. Matt is passionate about helping clients accomplish both via smart strategies and human-centered mindsets. Prior to Amelia, Matt worked in public relations, where he helped diverse organizations refine their messages, drive conversations that matter, and inspire their constituencies. Before public relations, Matt lived in Central America, where he sharpened his Spanish and supported a local NGO. When he’s not working, catch Matt around the city running with Brooklyn Track Club and training for the NYC Marathon. Matt is a native of Texas and an alum of The University of Texas at Austin, where he studied rhetoric and writing. During his senior year he interned at frog design, a design and innovation consultancy. Matt currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, and works at Amelia’s headquarters in Lower Manhattan.
Jodie Ruby is currently the VP of Marketing for LXT, an emerging leader in AI training data. Her experience includes over 20 years of B2B tech marketing from a range of organizations, from startups to Fortune 50, and she has worked in the field of AI for 7 years. She is an avid traveler and has lived on three continents.
Jessica Fernando is an experienced linguistic specialist in a variety of areas including pronunciation dictionary and language resource development, localization, voice coaching, annotation of text corpora, and text generation for dialog-based AI models. She has worked on all stages of TTS voice development for one of the largest global voice assistant providers, notably leading and expanding its speech synthesis evaluation into a large-scale program across multiple locales. Her diverse experience extends to an interest in solution design and operational support to help delivery teams best support client needs. In Jessica’s current role at LXT, she works with clients to understand their data needs in detail and strategizes with internal stakeholders to provide scalable solutions and high-quality datasets.
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Tom Hewitson is the founder of Webby-award-winning Conversation Design Studio. He has designed conversational AI experiences for some of the world's most iconic brands and is also one of the largest publishers on Amazon Alexa. He is also in Voicebot.ai's top 10 product professionals and one of Soundhound's top influencers in voice.
Noble's professional career merges at the intersection of data ethics and emergent technology. His impact in product leadership spans industries Health, Edtech, International development, and media. Day-to-day, he leads product strategy for enterprises looking to implement complex applications and responsible artificial intelligence solutions in a human-centered way, including AI bias mitigation, explainability, privacy-preserving approaches, and continuous learning automation to streamline software. Mr. Ackerson is a Certified AI Product Manager, a Google Certified Design Sprint Master, and a former Google Developers Expert for Product Strategy.
Patricia Thaine is the Co-Founder & CEO of Private AI, a Microsoft-backed startup who just raised their Series A led by the BDC in November 2022. She is also a Computer Science PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto (on leave) and a Vector Institute alumna. Her R&D work is focused on privacy-preserving natural language processing, with a focus on applied cryptography and re-identification risk. She also does research on computational methods for lost language decipherment. Patricia is a recipient of the NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship, the RBC Graduate Fellowship, the Beatrice “Trixie” Worsley Graduate Scholarship in Computer Science, and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. She is the co-inventor of one U.S. patent and has ten years of research and software development experience, including at the McGill Language Development Lab, the University of Toronto’s Computational Linguistics Lab, the University of Toronto’s Department of Linguistics, and the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Shilp Agarwal is the Co-Founder and CEO of Blutag, the leading conversational commerce platform for retailers. Over the last 15 years, Shilp has pursued passion for all aspects of entrepreneurship and retail technology. Prior to Blutag, Shilp founded Szul.com, one of North America's leading fine jewelry e-retailers, and lead it to a very successful exit in 2018.
Maaike Groenewege is an freelance conversation designer and linguist at Convocat.nl in Hilversum, the Netherlands. As a conversation designer, Maaike combines her background in theoretical linguistics, extensive experience in user centered & task-based content, and her passion for the human mind and how we communicate. She works for major Dutch brands like Essent, Independer, CZ and ABN Amro, as well as for international startups. Maaike is very active in the conversational community; she is a regular guest speaker, lecturer and host. Recently, she started Convoclub, a platform for knowledge sharing and mentoring specifically aimed at conversation designers.
Greg Matusky is founder and CEO of Gregory FCA, one of the nation’s 40 largest PR firms. Gregory FCA serves a range of privately owned and publicly traded financial services, professional services and technology companies, providing integrated public relations and communications services that build brands, grow revenue, increase shareholder value and create visibility. Greg has made an indelible mark on the communications and marketing field in his decades-long career - from leading award-winning PR campaigns for top financial services and B2B brands to investing heavily in talent development to create future leaders that propel the communications industry forward. Greg is also deeply passionate about human communications and how it powers our culture, economy, and future. An innovator at heart, Greg has spent the last two years immersed in generative AI, experimenting with and deploying a generative AI content engine within his firm to transform PR workflows and reduce common friction points that stifle success. His first-hand experience ranks him among the industry’s top advisors and commentators on generative AI’s future in the PR field. His bold perspectives have been featured in Forbes, PR News and other top news outlets.
Victor Rojo has worked in the software industry for over two decades and is a huge fan of Conversational AI. In his current role as Principal Partner Solutions Architect at AWS, he is the driving force behind AWS's Conversational AI partners competency and is heavily involved in Generative AI initiatives, including those that deal with technologies like Amazon Lex, Amazon SageMaker Jumpstart, Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Transcribe, and LangChain. Before joining AWS, he was part of the team that launched the Amazon Alexa Skills Kit in Mexico and the US for Spanish-language speakers.
Entrepreneur, Researcher and CEO, Jennifer is leading the company and development of AI screening solutions using vocal biomarkers. This new emerging technology provides healthcare solutions that are accurate affordable and accessible worldwide. The challenges are many but Jennifer sees this as one of the greatest developments in the area of healthcare we have seen yet. She looks forward to joining the Voice AI community to further develop this technology and bring solutions to the world.
Mellini Monique is a leading voice expert and performance coach who has dedicated her career to empowering innovators, thought-leaders, and creatives to share their unique voice and vision with the world. With over 30 years of experience in public speaking, theatre arts, professional coaching, and expressive therapies, Mellini has made a significant impact in the field of vocal health and personal growth. Mellini served as the Lead Performance Coach for SXSW Pitch, where she helped aspiring entrepreneurs and startups fine-tune their pitching skills and showcase their ideas to a global audience. She also worked with the United States Department of Energy, training emerging sustainable energy scientists in vocal communication skills. In addition to her work as a coach and speaker, Mellini is the founder of Vocal Culture Garden, a boutique voice design & strategy firm that gives voice to humans and AI. Through her work at Vocal Culture Garden, Mellini has helped companies create space for more Diversity in Pitching™️, coached founders to move Beyond The Deck™️, developed corporate voice brand identities, crafted and curated educational and exploratory voice experiences and led private clients on a soulful voice discovery via her proprietary framework, Pathway To Phenomenal™️. With a PR and theater degree from Columbia College and a Master of Arts in Drama Therapy from New York University, Mellini is uniquely qualified to teach executives, high-achievers, entrepreneurs, and business owners how to architect and deliver their unique voice brands to create highly desired outcomes. Mellini is also a medical missionary and wellnesspreneur, and believes that wellness and well-being are the foundation for a powerful voice. Through her work, Mellini has helped countless individuals discover the power of their own voice and unleash their full potential.
I am a Cloud App Developer at Amazon Web Services. I have participated in multiple LLM projects that will be released to the general public soon.
Beju is an experienced enterprise analytics executive with an ability to influence organizational executives and senior management to identify and implement data and information change management. His consultative approach involving situation assessment, precise needs identification, organizational readiness preparation, and information based strategies has enabled numerous enterprises to reap innovative and significant business benefits over the last 33+ years of his career. He founded Amruta Inc with a vision to expand and spread the benefits of AI/ML to contemporary organizations.
Lourdes Ovando is an experienced software engineer and data analyst with over a decade of expertise in the healthcare and higher education sectors. Currently serving as a business intelligence analyst, Lourdes is passionate about using data to drive meaningful insights and decision-making. As a Women Techmaker Ambassador, she is dedicated to inspiring and empowering other women to pursue careers in technology.
Eugenia has over a decade of experience in product management in healthcare, personal insurance, academic publishing, and startups implementing conversational AI and voice solutions. Her entry into product followed on the heels of an advanced degree in cognitive neuroscience where she built neural networks as part of her coursework. Her favorite applications of AI/ML are in leveling the playing field for marginalized populations.
Michael is a Distinguished Engineer at Dell Technologies. With 25 years of experience in technology, he's a recognized technical evangelist who speaks globally on the impact of emerging technologies. He currently leads AI research for Dell Technologies Services and serves on the Pan Dell Patent Committee.
Arte Merritt is the founder of Reconify, a platform for analyzing and optimizing generative AI. Previously, he led Conversational AI partnerships at AWS. He was the co-founder and CEO of Dashbot, a leading analytics platform for chatbots and voice assistants, which he led to 20,000 customers, 90 billion messages processed, and multiple acquisition offers. He is a frequent author and speaker on conversational AI and data insights. Previously, he founded Motally, a mobile analytics platform he sold to Nokia. Arte is an MIT alum.
Alan Seiffert serves as Head of Global Business Development for TED, the premiere media and event company. Alan leads business development, strategic partnerships, and licensing deals across audio, TV/streaming, AI/Machine Learning, and Web3.
Jourdan Saunders, MS, CCC-SLP, has been a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) for over 11 years using her expertise as a Disability Inclusion Consultant as the Founder & CEO of The Resource Key which focuses on inclusive impact branding to ensure people with disabilities are included, and making meaningful connections with brands. Jourdan was awarded LinkedIn Top Voices 2020: Equity in the Workplace, established one of the first resource websites for students interested in the field of Speech Language Pathology (www.futureslps.com) which has received recognition worldwide, owner of one of the largest SLP resources groups on LinkedIn with over 20,000 members, and selected as top 100 Speech Language Pathologists impacting the field. Her work has been featured in USA Gymnastics, American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA), MarketWatch,Fast Company, PopSugar, Association of University Centers on Disability, and Kennedy Center. Jourdan has developed inclusive gymnastics programs, reading literacy programs, and is the author of Our Reading Literacy Kitchen: Fresh Approaches to Target Reading Literacy Skills. Her creativity, leadership, and diverse skillset is evident from her work as an advisor to companies and organizations ranging from digital speech therapy, gymnastics, international reading literacy initiatives, culinary industry technology platform, and many more.
Layshi is a designer that specializes in user experience (UX) and accessibility (a11y) for the past 8 years. She is a Design Advocate and the creator of Command Z. Command Z is a podcast about design, tech, and communication in Spanish and English, and at the moment we have been in more than 9 countries (Puerto Rico, Colombia, Mexico, United States, Spain, Denmark, France, Norway, and Sweden) around the world and with more than 100 episodes
I'm a 16 year old innovator at The Knowledge Society, a youth accelerator program for emerging technologies. I've worked on consulting projects alongside Walmart Blue Labs and Mastercard Foundation, and I'm building projects in the Health AI space. Previously, I'm worked on an LSTM to forecast ECG signals and predict cardiac arrests ahead of time. Currently, I'm working on fine tuning the ProtBERT model to recognize target ligand affinities for drug discovery.
Dale Bertrand is a speaker and marketer who has worked his entire career at the intersection of marketing and technology. Dale applies his graduate school work in computer engineering and artificial intelligence to digital marketing. He has served as a digital strategist for Fortune 500 companies and venture-backed startups for two decades. He holds a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from Brown University with a focus on AI and engineering. Dale worked on a team of engineers who designed and built a 5,832-processor supercomputer for the NSA. Dale's clients include global brands such as Citizen Watch, Nestle and Bulova. He speaks at industry conferences, leads corporate training events and served as Entrepreneur in Residence at Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs. Dale has trained marketing professionals from TripAdvisor, Microsoft and Proctor & Gamble.
I lead multimillion-dollar IT, professional services, and marketing programs for government agencies, public companies, and private companies. Nothing makes me happier than to see these programs deliver meaningful impact for brands, individuals in their career paths, and the larger global community. My core competencies include team leadership, go-to-market strategy, brand management, agile program development and management, digital marketing, and crisis communications. My marketing leadership positions include serving global AI analytics firm Evalueserve as Vice President of Marketing Communications and edtech startup Legends of Learning as Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President. I started and sold one of the world’s first social media agencies Livingston Communications.
Saj Zaman is the Founder of Finally Free Productions, a custom app, software and game development company, and the active CEO of The Metaversia, a full-service blockchain and NFT development company servicing clients across the country.
Aariv Modi is a blogger, programmer, and AI/ML enthusiast. He is a freshman at Round Rock High School and has created several Alexa skills and mobile apps. Aariv was recognized as the Voice/AI Pioneer of the Year by Project Voice in 2021 for his contributions to the conversational artificial intelligence industry. He is also the youngest AWS Certified Alexa Skill Builder and AWS Certified Machine Learning professional. Aariv has contributed much of his learning with the voice and AI community through his blog and social media channels such as LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter. During the COVID-19 lockdown, he taught hundreds of kids how to develop Alexa skills through webinars, camps, and posts on his website. Aariv was the youngest presenter at several international voice and AI conferences, such as Project Voice 2020, VOICE Global 2020, and VOICE Summit 2020.
Aziz is the founder and CEO of VoiceXD, which is focused on building collaborative no-code tools for designing, testing, and deploying AI-powered assistants. He has a background in user experience design and holds a Masters in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University.
Cavaughn launched his career as a project manager at Alcatel-Lucent after graduating from Rutgers University. Eager to explore his interests in marketing and strategy, he pursued an MBA at NYU Stern's School of Business. After serving as a digital strategist for the Associated Press, Cavaughn diversified his skill set by consulting for various small businesses and large corporations, honing his entrepreneurial prowess. Driven by a passion for prompt engineering and AI, he founded IV Media, a company specializing in consulting services, digital product management, and AI innovation. Cavaughn's enthusiasm for the convergence of education and technology as a means to facilitate learning is evident in his work. He was admitted into TED's first residency program, where he delved into researching disparities in learning across cultures and geographies. As an innovative prompt engineer and AI enthusiast, Cavaughn is committed to using technology to address these challenges and empower future generations.
Willonius Hatcher is a multi-talented stand-up comedian, musician, 3D animator, Web3 storyteller, AI prompt engineer, and author of the comedic self-help book "Look Like A Man, Act Like a Bitch." As a passionate creator of generative AI art collections, he explores the intersections of creativity and technology. Willonius founded and runs the largest comedy community on the social audio app Clubhouse, boasting over 250,000 members. He has successfully written and produced seventeen audio dramas, including the cult hit "Throat Baby, The Musical," a black soap opera titled "The Young & The Thirsty," and a black sci-fi thriller called "We in Space Heaux." Eager to conquer new challenges, Willonius began performing stand-up comedy in the Metaverse using VR in 2021. His creative talents and unique perspective have led him to speak at prestigious events such as Art Basel, EthDenver, SXSW, and MIT Reality Hack. In his downtime, Willonius enjoys stargazing, watching YouTube videos at 2x speed, and engaging in various activities that allow him to explore, learn, and have fun.
Michael is an executive who helps enterprises leverage Web3 and Chatbot AI solutions to make better business decisions, drive revenue growth, and increase operational efficiency. He is a Senior Responsible AI Advisor for the Open Voice Network. He produces quarterly meetings and contributes to Privacy and Ethics working group publications on privacy, accessibility, and digital identity in consumer, enterprise and Smart Cities. He is active in ACT-IAC AI Working Group, a public-private partnership organization. He authored sections of the "Safety, Privacy, Security in an AI-Enabled World" whitepaper and responded to NIST Artificial Intelligence and User Trust (NISTIR 8332). A member of the Government Blockchain Association, he has taught Web3, blockchain, NFT's, and cryptocurrency to university business students.
Bio to come
Sean created his first language interface in 2006 as a marketing promotion for Family Guy, bringing Stewie Griffin to life in an interactive web experience, and has been obsessed with conversational interfaces ever since. With almost 20 years in digital advertising, entertainment and gaming, he has brought interactive experiences to life for brands like HBO, MTV, Jeep, McDonald's, and Star Wars.
Jonathan’s expansive knowledge of enterprise architecture, design and development combined with deep technical, analytical and business acumen is a powerful formula for success in his role as Chief Technology Officer at Outbound AI. Jonathan has been instrumental in establishing the fundamental tenets and framework of the company’s conversational AI technology platform, real-time inference engine and AI-as-a-Service solutions as well as the maintenance, support and security of the company’s infrastructure and networks. He built and now leads a team of experienced and passionate engineering professionals. Jonathan’s career spans more 30 years with private and public companies ranging from small startups to established global leaders. He has directed both local and offshore resources. Prior to Outbound, Jonathan was Vice President of Engineering and Architecture at Avalara, where he spearheaded the ongoing advancement of cloud-based high-transaction tax compliance solutions for customers worldwide, a position he held for three years before and four years after the company’s IPO. Earlier in his career, Jonathan served as Manager of Research Operations and Analytics at Nuance Communications, where he supervised personnel who constructed the language models for Apple’s initial launch of Siri. He has also served as Product Group Director and Senior Product Architect at NetMotion Wireless, Principal Engineer and Architect at Jott Networks, Software Engineering Manager at Envision Telephony, and Engineering Lead at RGB Labs/Beon Media. Jonathan is an author on four U.S. patents related to speech recognition and interoperability. He has delivered a variety of presentations and published several articles on agile methodologies, database systems, mobile applications and related topics. Jonathan completed four years of study in computer science and mathematics at Western Washington University, with a focus on intelligent systems and symbolic logic.
Allen is a Google Developer Expert for the Google Assistant and other technologies, helping other developers understand how they can apply the skills they already have to this growing technology. He is a Senior Project Engineer at Objective Consulting, co-author of "Designing and Developing for Google Glass", enjoys the history of technology, and has occasionally been known to wear light blue shirts.
Rehgan Avon is the co-founder & CEO of AlignAI, a Knowledge Management Platform helping companies sustainably transform their organizations to effectively work with data & Artificial Intelligence. With a background in Integrated Systems Engineering and a strong focus on building technology to support analytics and machine learning, Rehgan has worked on architecting solutions and products to operationalize machine learning models at scale within the large enterprise. Rehgan’s previous experience has been fueled by a passion for early-stage startups and product development. Rehgan has built an extensive community of analytics & data experts through Women in Analytics, a global organization she founded in 2016 to provide more visibility to diverse individuals making an impact in this space. She hosts a global annual conference that has put over 250 women on the stage. The community has over 5000 members from around the world that participate in tutorials, learning groups, discussion boards, and mentorship programs. She was also inducted into the inaugural class of Columbus CEO’s Future 50.
Tasha Penwell is the founder and developer of Pretty Nerdy where she provides digital marketing services. She specializes in developing Snapchat filters and Alexa Skills.
Prashant G Bhoyar is a Microsoft AI MVP, Microsoft Business Applications MVP, Microsoft Certified Trainer ( MCT ), and Microsoft Certified Professional. He currently works as Cloud Solution Architect at Applied Information Sciences ( www.ais.com ). He is a trusted advisor and Subject Matter Expert in Conversational AI, Applied AI, Intelligent Business Process Automation, development, and post-implementation adoption of complex custom solutions in AI, Machine Learning, Bots, Azure, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Power Platform, and SharePoint. Prashant has supported a multitude of government agencies and non-profit organizations in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. Prashant is the co-author of the book “PowerShell for Office 365 “and is the technical reviewer of the book "Pro SharePoint 2013 Administration." He serves on the leadership committee for the Azure Data Fest conference, Artificial Intelligence Fest conference, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning User Group, Northern Virginia SQL User Group, and DC Metro Office 365 User Group. He is a renowned international speaker and actively speaks at technical conferences, most recently in India, Canada, England, Bangladesh, Peru, Washington DC, Austin, New York, Chicago, Seattle, New Orleans, Baltimore, Philadelphia. Fun fact??, Prashant is a recipient of the "Antarctic Service Medal of the United States of America" for his outstanding service in Antarctica.
Zubair is a technologist and entrepreneur working in voicebots and conversational AI.
When I was eleven, I wrote a Basic program that moved a circle across the screen of a monochrome monitor, and I was hooked. I have worn many hats in my career, but I have always been a developer. I am passionate about helping developers produce great work and have the best job satisfaction I can provide. I am a lifelong learner, working toward my doctorate (DBA) in business intelligence at Marymount University.
Wes Shields, Principal and founder of Synthminds.AI, leads a team of 15 experts propelling clients' AI strategies and objectives with ethical and innovative solutions. Under his stewardship, his full-service Artificial Intelligence agency provides bespoke services that exceed their strategic needs to an extensive list of clientele from academia to various industries including aviation, customer service, legal, marketing, logistics, education and technology. Shields' exemplary work has earned him and his Synthminds team the "Expert-Vetted" AI Consultant accolade from Upwork, a title conferred on the top 1% of the 18 million professionals on the platform. Recognized as an accomplished strategist and speaker in the field of AI, he is also the host of the popular podcast, 'How to Talk to AI.' He has a notable presence on Promptbase.com, the premier prompt sales marketplace, where his prompts rank him amongst the top 200 worldwide. Shields possesses an impressive academic portfolio, holding an MS in Operations Research from the Naval Postgraduate School, an MBA from the Mason School of Business at The College of William & Mary, and a BS in Economics from the esteemed United States Naval Academy. His contributions to academic research, particularly in the domains of complex network science and logistics technology integration, have been published and recognized, earning him graduate certifications from both the Kegan-Flagler School of Business at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and the Naval Postgraduate School. For more insights into his professional pursuits and areas of interest, visit https://synthminds.ai/.
Tim Friedlander is an award winning, Los Angeles based voice actor, studio owner, advocate, and educator. He is best known for his work on Hunter x Hunter, One Punch Man, and as Long Caster in Ace Combat 7. Most recently you can find Tim as the voice of the PBR (Pro Bull Riders Association) on CBS, Ares in the Netflix show Record of Ragnarok and as the English voice of Navn in the dub of Beforeigners. Tim is currently the voice of Toymakerz, the, #1 hit show on the Velocity Channel/History as well as the American voice of the Morphee Sleep Aide Device. In 2016, Tim voiced the new History Channel series Evil Genius, an 8 episode series about the most ingenious crimes of the last 100 years. In 2015 Tim was the winner of the That's VoiceOver/CBS2 Audition Spotlight. Since 2016 Tim has been nominated for 12 SOVAS voice arts awards, including in the Best Political Voice Over, Best Promo, Best Narration, and Demo Production Categories. Located in the Hollywood area, Tim works out of soundBOX:LA, his custom-built voice over studio equipped with ISDN, ipDTL, SourceConnect and broadcast quality equipment. As of 2022, Tim is the Founder and President of NAVA, The National Association of Voice Actors as well as co-owner and editor of The Voice Over Resource Guide.
Carin Gilfry is an award-winning voice actor, singer, producer, and community leader. She is the vice president of the National Association of Voice Actors (NAVA), and the co-chair of the VOcation Conference. As a voice actor, she has worked with major brands like Volkswagen, FedEx, Apple, Estee Lauder, Pfizer, Citibank, and more, and she is currently the national brand voice of CVS Health. Carin works in every genre of voiceover from video games to training videos to narrating true crime series. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the USC Thornton School of Music and a Master of Music from The Juilliard School.
Andy Danish is a Silver Telly award winning voice actor and board member of The National Association of Voice Actors(NAVA). As a voice actor, he has worked in almost every genre of voiceover, ranging from TV Commercials, English Language dubbed TV shows, Videogames, University E-learning courses, Corporate Explainer Videos, Animated TV shows, IVR telecom systems and more. He has worked with many major brands including Citibank, Porsche, Amazon, Pepsico, Philips, Nickelodeon, Hotwheels, McAfee, 7-Eleven, National Geographic Learning, TED Talks, Deloitte and more. He is the IVR Telecom brand voice of Moneygram. He can also be heard in English Language dubbed shows on Netflix and Paramount Plus.
Cissy Jones is an award-winning voice actor whose career spans the gamut from video games and animation to movie trailers and everything in between.
Ryan Bales is the Architect for the Conversation Intelligence and Contact Center group at Invoca. He’s an active member of the Cleveland technology community, CLE Data Science and R Meetup groups. Ryan is a content contributor and class facilitator for the Python Data Science course track at DriveIT. When not writing code or trying to learn more about data science you can find Ryan trying to not lose at online video games. Ryan lives in Cleveland, Ohio.
Michael Golub serves as the Director of Ethical AI Compliance at Merck, where he is dedicated to implementing ethical standards and compliance protocols within the realm of artificial intelligence. With a solid foundation in Information Studies from Drexel University and over 20 years in the field, Michael has been instrumental in shaping AI applications across various industries. Prior to his current role, Michael successfully founded and developed multiple data science teams that crafted unique AI solutions for several Fortune 500 companies. In his current role, Michael oversees the design and implementation of Ethical AI compliance protocols for data science and marketing teams, reflecting the evolving landscape of related policies and regulations. Maintaining a hands-on approach, Michael remains an active participant in the data science field. He also contributes to the broader academic community as a member of Data Science Industry Advisory Boards at two of his local colleges. Regularly invited to speak and advise, Michael provides insights on the importance of integrating ethical considerations in AI technology. Through his work and contributions, Michael continues to promote responsible and inclusive AI innovation.
Frank serves as the AI Evangelist for Verint where he is focused on educating customers and the market about the benefits of all things AI at Verint including conversational AI, generative AI & DaVinci™. He is a teacher-researcher at heart who has a fervent curiosity for innovative technology and ideas that solve real world business challenges. Frank comes to Verint by way of Verint’s acquisition of Speakeasy AI where he was co-founder and CEO. He is a recognized industry leader and speaker on AI, automation, CX, contact center technology and the future of work. He has 10+ years of experience consulting and leading cloud & digital business transformation initiatives with intelligent automation and customer journey orchestration.
Vijay Gurbani is the Chief Data Scientist at Vail Systems, Inc., and a Research Associate Professor of Computer Science at Illinois Tech. At Vail, he established and now leads a research group on machine learning, data science and AI activities across the company, from idea inception to conceptual proof to prototype, and finally, a product that gets deployed. His work at Vail Systems explores the use of natural language processing, automatic speech recognition (ASR), the use of large language models (LLMs) in telecommunication services, anomaly detection, and use of AI/ML in the realm of software engineering and log analysis.
Ian Collins, CEO of Wysdom AI, is a seasoned entrepreneur and visionary in Conversational AI. His expertise extends over two decades, during which he has honed his skills in the domain of enterprise software. While he has an entrepreneurial background with a portfolio including ventures like Wyrex, Mobile Diagnostix, and Clickfree, it's his visionary work in Conversational AI that stands out. Working with leading international brands, Ian is a champion of chatbots and Conversational AI, for delivering positive customer experiences. At the helm of Wysdom, he guides the team to deliver the Wysdom Operations Center, chatbot analytics software. He is equally known for the bot management framework, a structured, data-driven approach that helps chatbot operators improve the quality and performance of their virtual agents. Ian's enduring passion for innovation and commitment to fostering growth in the tech sector has positioned him at the forefront of delivering cutting-edge solutions to global enterprises.
Jay Athia is an experienced conversational AI professional with over 10 years of expertise in analytics and solutions. As an engaging speaker, he has addressed large audiences, sharing his knowledge of chatbot analytics and Conversational AI. Jay collaborates closely with customers to optimize their chatbot performance through the bot management framework. With an MBA from the Smith School of Business at Queen's University, he currently oversees Customer Success at Wysdom, focusing on the Operations Center chatbot analytics platform. Jay is passionate about helping businesses succeed in their Conversational AI journey and is excited to share his knowledge and expertise at VOICE & AI 2023.
Lindsey Mastis is an Emmy Award-winning news anchor known for covering breaking news at the Alert Desk on ABC 7 News DC and for her Call For Action investigative reports focusing on scams and Artificial Intelligence. Throughout her career, Lindsey has traveled and reported on history-making moments including the Pulse Nightclub shooting, the manhunt for the Boston Marathon bomber, and international assignments like documenting child mortality in India. She has won four Emmy Awards as part of her coverage of the January 6th Capitol Riot, the Congressional Baseball Shooting, protests in DC, and the Capital Gazette Shooting which also garnered her a Regional Edward R. Murrow award. During the pandemic she created and hosted “The Coronavirus Alert Desk,” a live, unscripted broadcast helping answer people’s questions and interviewing newsmakers including Dr. Anthony Fauci. The program received more than 20 million Facebook views. Lindsey is a graduate of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and is active within he Greek American community in Washington, DC.
Larysa Kautz is President & CEO of Melwood, a leading employer and advocate for people with disabilities headquartered in the DMV. Kautz brings nearly 20 years of experience in law, business, advocacy, and nonprofit management to Melwood, driving practical policy change to expand the field of employment for people with disabilities and create a more inclusive workplace for the future. Kautz has been instrumental in advocating for the abolition of Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which allows employers to pay workers with disabilities below minimum wage. As a first-generation American, a daughter of parents with invisible disabilities, and a mother of a child with autism, Larysa is passionate about Melwood’s mission of inclusion and has been a fierce advocate for people with disabilities throughout her life. She founded Melwood’s Advocacy department, which has significantly increased the organization’s effectiveness at influencing polices and legislation that benefit the communities that Melwood serves and remove barriers to economic empowerment. Larysa serves on the Virginia Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired (DBVI) State Rehabilitation Council, the Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board, and the Arlington County Chamber of Commerce Board. She previously served as a consultant to President Obama’s Office of White House Counsel, Virginia Governor Northam’s Transition Team, the Foundation for the National Archives, and Lawyers for Good Government.
Yan Zhang is a tech leader bringing revolutionary AI to the hospitality sector. As COO of PolyAI, he brings together business and AI leaders to deploy virtual assistants in large-scale enterprise applications. Recent deployments include restaurants, hotels, and casinos in the UK and US. Previous to PolyAI, Yan was a Sloan Fellow at London Business School and ran a series of successful startups.
Jon Stine is the Executive Director of The Open Voice Network, the open-source community of the Linux Foundation dedicated to the development of technical standards and usage guidelines for the emerging world of artificial intelligence-enabled voice assistance. Since its founding in June 2020, the Open Voice Network has grown into a global effort powered by more than 200 monthly active volunteers from 13 nations, with Tier 1 enterprise sponsors from Europe and the United States. It expects this year to publish its first proposed protocols for voice assistant interoperability, as well as guidelines for privacy, security, and ethical use issues specific to voice. Jon brings to the task more than 30 years of executive leadership in the retail and technology industries. He led sales of a national apparel brand to better US department and specialty stores before joining the Intel Corporation in 2000 to head its first global outreach to the retail and consumer goods industries. He joined Cisco Systems retail-consumer goods consulting team in late 2006, and later headed Cisco’s North America consulting practice for retail-CPG. In 2014, he returned to Intel as the Global Enterprise Sales General Manager for the retail, hospitality, and consumer goods industries. He left Intel in 2019 to build The Open Voice Network. He resides in Portland, Oregon, USA.
Oita Coleman serves as a Senior Advisor to the Open Voice Network, the open-source community of the Linux FoundaFon. She is responsible for the Open Voice Network’s privacy, security, and ethical use portfolio, and is leading the development of the Open Voice Network TrustMark IniFaFve, which translates Fme-proven principles of ethical AI into action. She is a public volunteer with the NIST Generative AI Public Working Group and has advised the Bill and Malinda Gates FoundaFon on ethical considerations for conversational AI. She has extensive experience in software research and development, having served as the Vice President of Research & Development for SoQware Quality at SAS Insitute. There, she oversaw the implementation of global processes, standards, and policies for the software development life cycle to ensure high-quality products and customer satisfaction. She resides in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina.
Hans van Dam is the founder of Conversation Design Institute, the world's leading training and certification institute for people working in conversational AI. Hans has trained more than 2,000 professionals in conversational AI and works with Fortune 500 companies to make their AI Assistants more human-centric, effective, and inclusive. He also leads CDI Foundation, a non-profit that develops design standards and provides scholarships within the industry. Hans is a frequent guest lecturer at universities worldwide. He is currently based in Amsterdam, where he lives with his family.
David Metcalf has more than 20 years' experience in the design and research of web-based and mobile technologies converging to enable learning and healthcare. Dr. Metcalf is Director of the Mixed Emerging Technology Integration Lab (METIL) at UCF's Institute for Simulation and Training. The team has built mHealth solutions, simulations, games, eLearning, mobile and enterprise IT systems for Google, J&J, VA, U.S. military and UCF's College of Medicine among others. Recent projects include Lake Nona’s Intelligent Home and transmedia, adaptive learning projects using mobile, AR and sims. Dr. Metcalf encourages spinoffs from the lab as part of the innovation process and has launched Merging Traffic and several other for-profit and nonprofit ventures as examples. In addition to research and commercial investments, he supports social entrepreneurship in education and health. Simulation, mobilization, mobile patient records and medical decision support systems, visualization systems, scalability models, secure mobile data communications, gaming, innovation management and operational excellence are current research topics. Dr. Metcalf frequently presents at industry and research events shaping business strategy and use of technology to improve learning, health and human performance.
Corey currently serves as Senior Director, Product for Veritone's Commercial Enterprise group. He's passionate about artificial intelligence and is committed to democratizing the AI revolution! Corey loves to share his knowledge on how AI can help your business easily extract value and insights from video, audio, text and data content.
As Owner and Emmy™ Award-Winning Executive Producer/ Creative Director for Audiobrain, a globally recognized sonic branding boutique dedicated to the intentional development of music and sound, Audrey Arbeeny has realized her dream of combining her lifelong love of music and science with proven business skills. Audrey oversees Audiobrain’s projects from start to finish, coordinating logistics, strategy, experience design, resources, and talent. In addition, Audrey oversees Audiobrain’s ongoing research in areas of psychoacoustics and biomusicology. With over 20 years of experience, she is recognized throughout the world as a pioneer in sonic branding, presenting on this discipline as early as the 1993 Design Management Institute in Amsterdam. Audiobrain has consistently stayed leaders in this field through innovation, research, education, advanced technological skills, and forward- thinking initiatives for some of the world’s largest brands.
Dr. Usha Jagannathan is a seasoned technologist and AI innovation leader with 20+ years of experience driving digital transformation and building customer-centric products. She excels in leading enterprise AI applications, implementing AI ethics frameworks, and driving data strategy aligned with business objectives. Usha's thought leadership is evident through technical talks and published articles on AI ethics, sustainability, and climate change. Recognized for her expertise, she received the WomenTech’s Global AI Inclusion award and was named among the top 100 women in AI to watch by Re-work.
International Tech Liaison, Original Contributing Designer and Builder of the Global Target Analysis System (GTAS). Part of multiple award winning teams, commercial and federal sectors. Military Veteran focused primarily on making applications accessible and uplifting and scaling engineers.
Technology Enthusiast, working in the field of Text to Speech, leveraging the latest DNN technologies to build lifelike synthetic voices for Communication, Education, Gaming, and more, including custom TTS voice development.
Anshul is a software engineer who has worked in startups ranging from autonomous vehicles to generative AI after graduating from Caltech. Today, he leads the go to market efforts at Codeium, the most advanced AI-powered toolkit for software engineers, which uplevels the work of hundreds of thousands of developers, ranging from hobbyists to Fortune 500 employees.
As president of ACT | The App Association, Morgan specializes in issues involving application development relating to privacy, intellectual property, competition, and small business innovation. Morgan has been sought by the House and Senate in multiple hearings while his commentary and insight are a major draw for news networks including Fox Business News, MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, ABC, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. Morgan has authored and contributed to several white papers and is a part of the developer team for the Linux Router Project (LEAF) and remains an active Apple and iOS licensed developer. Prior to joining ACT, Morgan was a trusted advisor at Venable LLP serving businesses and organizations in many aspects of their operations.
Jim Egenrieder is a long-time Agriculture, Engineering, Science and Career and Technical Education teacher and STEM Education and CTE specialist for schools, community colleges and universities. He is currently on the Virginia Tech Research Faculty in Engineering and Education, and the Director of Virginia Tech's Thinkabit Labs STEM Education and Workforce Development Programs in the Washington, D.C. Metro Area. His Thinkabit Lab to date has guided more than 32,000 DC area students in technical and college and career exploration and the foundations of physical computing, engineering, creative robotics, and IOT-driven automation since it was launched in 2016. He also leads the Northern Virginia STEM Learning Ecosystem for the Department of Defense, and Invention Education programs for the Commonwealth of Virginia and the District of Columbia.
Dr. Michal Tzuchman-Katz is the Co-Founder and CEO at Kahun Medical. Prior to joining Kahun in 2018, Dr. Tzuchman-Katz worked as a Pediatrician at Clalit Health Services, the largest HMO in Israel. In addition to her leadership role at Kahun Medical, Dr. Tzuchman-Katz practices emergency medicine in Pediatric ED at Ichilov Sourasky Medical Center, where she has also completed her medical residency. Dr. Tzuchman-Katz also comes from a background of software engineering and has led a tech development team at Live Person.
Brenda Leong is a partner at Luminos.Law, a boutique law firm uniquely founded by a partnership between lawyers and data scientists, dedicated entirely to developing policies and practices around AI governance, including applying model risk management frameworks, performing model audits, and creating de-idenFficaFon architecture and cerFficaFon, along with designing and automating AI policies and procedures. Previously, Brenda was senior counsel and director of AI and ethics at the Future of Privacy Forum, where she oversaw the development and analysis of AI and ML. She is a recognized expert on the responsible use of biometrics and digital identity, with a focus on facial recognition, facial analysis, and emerging issues around voice-operated systems.
Bio to come.
Joshua Schechter, the Global Director of AI Solutions at Amelia. He is passionate about bringing “Conversational AI” to the world, believing it is the foundation for the future state of work and will help usher in the next industrial revolution. Josh has been leading cognitive and implementation teams at Amelia for the past 4 years and has worked with many Fortune 100 enterprises to help them on their AI Journey and transformation.
Michel Lopez has over 30 years of experience, both in the technology and language industries. He grew up in France where he graduated with a Software Engineering degree, then taught AI in Saudi Arabia and Thailand. He founded a software company in Bangkok, then managed e-commerce development teams in Thailand, Hong Kong and Silicon Valley. In 2004, he founded e2f, a full-service lingtech company with a global presence. At the intersection of language, technology and data science, e2f specializes in linguistic AI data services for LLM, ASR, NLP and NLU, relying on its own fully-configurable AI data annotation platform. Michel is elated that his passions for language, software and AI are finally coming together as AI assistants are tackling one of the most complex challenges: conversing fluently with everybody, regardless of their language, their ethnic origin, the content of their discussion and their emotions.
Bio to come
Bio to come
Julia Liberty is currently Business Development Director at LXT where she leverages over eight years of dedicated involvement in the AI sector to help clients scale their AI projects with high-quality data. She works with companies of all sizes, ensuring alignment with their specific needs and requirements to design a custom AI data solution while fostering inclusivity and minimizing biases in the data. In the past Julia has focused on using her expertise and background on designing targeted marketing plans based on psychological profiling of consumers and their distinct linguistic traits. Julia's educational background lies in the realm of language and communication, with a focus on linguistics.
Conversational AI practice leader with expertise in self service automation. Paulo has run operations for two startups and currently leads the Conversational AI practice for Verint, managing a mix of technical & design experts. He’s passionate about orchestration platforms and leveraging the latest in generative AI to rapidly create and deploy dynamic experiences for customers.
Brandon Smith is the Director of Contact Center Sales for AudioCodes. Brandon started his career in the UC/CC space with Nortel, and has grown his skills at locations like Avaya, Tata Communications, and NICE InContact before joining AudioCodes in 2022. Brandon focuses on aiding customers with a smooth, step-wise transition into CCaaS and Automation, and is proud to provide AudioCodes’ suite of solutions to organizations focused on any-to-any connectivity, cost reduction, and process simplification.
Andre Yee is the Founder and CEO of Tiga, a company focused on using generative AI to transform B2B selling Most recently, he was the CEO of Triblio - a leading account based marketing platform which he sold to International Data Group (IDG), a Blackstone company in 2020. Prior to Triblio, Andre was SVP Product Development of Eloqua which led to an IPO and eventual M&A exit to Oracle for ~$1B. He is an author, conference speaker, noted inventor of three software patents and a leading voice on sales and marketing technologies. Outside of work, Andre loves focusing on good causes, eating good food, and spending time with good people
James Patterson, the former co-founder and Head of Capital One Labs, former Chief Digital Officer of Scotiabank, and now CEO of Dreamteams, helps companies accelerate growth and innovation at the intersection of AI, digital, and financial services.
Firoze Lafeer is the CTO of Angaza which creates technologies that enable businesses to sell life-changing products to anyone, anywhere. By enabling product distributors to offer incremental payment plans to consumers without access to traditional banking, Angaza makes it possible for over 2 billion people around the world to affordably acquire transformative devices.
Sean Austin is the CEO and Founder of Helios Life Enterprises, which is pioneering an AI-powered technology that allows investors and analysts to determine whether CEOs and CFOs show deception during earnings calls and appearances.
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James Barrood is a prominent figure in the tri-state region's entrepreneurial, innovation, and tech ecosystem, with over 20 years of experience in nurturing and supporting startups, growth companies and higher education institutions. He leads a global community of 10,000+ entrepreneurs and innovators, and also oversees executive education programs focusing on AI. James has held various leadership positions, including five years as CEO of TechUnited, one of the largest and most respected membership tech organizations nationwide. He has also led FDU's top-ranked entrepreneurship center for over a decade, where he mentored and trained countless entrepreneurs and innovators. James serves on several boards including startups and growth companies as well as nonprofits AI for Good Foundation (TechAid) and Future World Alliance. In addition, he is on the board of Princeton’s McCarter Theatre where he is on the executive committee and chair of the diversity committee. Apart from his leadership roles, James is also a global keynoter, two-time TEDx speaker, podcast host, and author. He has authored Entrepreneurship and Innovation: Global Insights from 24 Leaders and Lessons from the Great Recession, providing valuable insights into the world of entrepreneurship and innovation. With his extensive experience and knowledge, James continues to play a vital role in fostering the growth and success of the entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem in the NYC metro region and beyond.
Quinn Agen is responsible for growth at Omilia and was part of the journey in evolving the company from a small team in Greece to a large-scale global operation with a Virtual Assistant platform that has supported over a billion customer care interactions in natural language in more than 15 countries. Quinn heads the Omilia sales organization and works directly with large enterprises in identifying new customer needs and developing comprehensive virtual assistants that focus on ROI and operational savings.
Shai Zorea is a Director in PwC’s Enterprise Strategy and Value practice with over 20 years of experience in strategy and management consulting within the Financial Services and Consumer industries. He has extensive experience in large scale technology program management initiatives with a focus on contact center strategy, enterprise contact center solution implementation, digital value creation, contact center operations and automation.
Bio to come
After graduating from Iowa State University, David Updegraff joined Motorola Cellular Infrastructure Group where he developed highly available platforms/applications/solutions which allowed seamless communication across cellular networks. David eventually led the Motorola Solutions Secure Products Group where the team developed classified communication solutions for the federal government. When David saw an opportunity to join Versay Solutions, a fast, dynamic company focused on creating innovative B2B solutions for fortune 500 companies he happily joined. Since then, David has focused on developing Hydra, a CAI platform, and associated enabling APIs for Versay’s various customers.
Justin Is VUX World's CTO,previously Chief Innovation Officer at Comwave, one of Canada’s leading telcos, Justin has over a decade of experience in the telecommunications and digital transformation field, as well as a wealth of knowledge and experience implementing large scale conversational AI assistants.
Bio to come
Bio to come
For over three decades Marybeth has served in pivotal roles in the financial services industry. As Senior Vice President, Brand and Communication for NationsBank / Bank of America, she saw them through intense growth and several mergers, including one of the largest corporate brand mergers in US history. She brought that passionate customer and brand focus to the community bank space when she returned to her hometown in northern Virginia in 2001. From 2001 thru 2019 she provided strategic and innovative solutions in Marketing, Business Intelligence, Bank Operations, Process Improvement, and Project Management as a senior leader for a community bank in northern Virginia. Today, Marybeth serves as Senior Vice President for Marketing and Trust Services for Presidential Bank in Bethesda, Maryland. Presidential is a traditional brick and mortar community bank in the Metropolitan Washington area and also a national bank serving a significant customer base via the internet. They are driven to build customer relationships and provide an exceptional and consistent experience whether face-to-face or across the nation. It's not all about banking, however. Marybeth is near completion of the 16-year project renovating her 1757 log and stone farmhouse, works her 20-acre pear farm that supplies Asian pears to local wineries and breweries, and is a master weaver – creating unique hand-woven wearables and fabric.
Bio to come
Sander Schulhoff is the Founder and CEO of Learn Prompting, an open-source Prompt Engineering guide and education platform that has taught over 1 million people this year how to effectively communicate with AI tools. He is an expert in prompt engineering, having created numerous prompt injection methods, and is the competition-runner of HackAPrompt, the first-ever global prompt hacking competition, which was sponsored by OpenAI, Scale AI, HuggingFace, and nearly every leading AI company. He has a strong background in deep reinforcement learning and natural language processing, and has conducted research at the University of Maryland and Semiotic Labs.
Moshe stands at the forefront of orchestration product development, seamlessly blending design with vision. Before his tenure at Verint, he co-founded Speakeasy AI and played a pivotal role as its Chief Technology Officer. His innovative perspective has led to a portfolio of products that deftly coordinate diverse technologies and channels, incorporating a patented voice solution and AI services. By strategically leveraging compact teams, Moshe consistently crafts products that meet market needs and often rival the offerings of much larger industry competitors.
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As Senior Conversation Design Advocate at Voiceflow, Peter weaves experiences in retail, insurance, telecommunications, rewards, and finance into crafting compelling conversational AI. Away from work, he tinkers with LLMs, building conversational apps that strive to make AI feel less mechanical and more natural.
Dipkumar Mehta is a Senior Conversational AI Consultant with the Amazon ProServe Natural Language AI team. He focuses on helping customers design, deploy and scale end-to-end Conversational AI solutions in production on AWS. He is also passionate about improving customer experience and drive business outcomes by leveraging data.
Grazia Russo Lassner is a Senior Consultant with the AWS Professional Services Natural Language AI team. She specializes in designing and developing conversational AI solutions using AWS technologies for customers in various industries. Outside of work, she enjoys beach weekends, reading the latest fiction books, and family.
Vikram Modgil leads partnerships at the Amazon Chime SDK. He joined Amazon a year and a half ago, bringing with him over 15 years of experience in Voice & AI/ML. Throughout his journey with different startups, Vikram has contributed to funding rounds totaling over $850 million, spanning from pre-seed to Series D, across the last two decades. He is also the founder of thegoodai.org, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting AI ethics. Additionally, Vikram is active on various advisory boards for Voice & AI companies.
Jennie is a Principal Technical Product Manager at AWS focusing on the Amazon Chime SDK, helping builders to embed intelligent real time communication directly into their applications. She previously worked on the Amazon Chime meetings application, a pay-as-you-go communications service that lets users collaborate with the security of AWS for online meetings, video conferencing, calls, and chat. Jennie has worked for Amazon Web Services for seven and a half years and led the product team go-to-market efforts for the initial launch of Amazon Chime in 2017. Prior to joining Amazon, Jennie worked for Biba, an early stage start-up also in the Unified Communications space. Her specialties include, go-to-market, pricing, compliance and launch operations. Jennie is a Principal Technical Product Manager at AWS focusing on the Amazon Chime SDK, helping builders to embed intelligent real time communication directly into their applications. She previously worked on the Amazon Chime meetings application, a pay-as-you-go communications service that lets users collaborate with the security of AWS for online meetings, video conferencing, calls, and chat. Jennie has worked for Amazon Web Services for seven and a half years and led the product team go-to-market efforts for the initial launch of Amazon Chime in 2017. Prior to joining Amazon, Jennie worked for Biba, an early stage start-up also in the Unified Communications space. Her specialties include, go-to-market, pricing, compliance and launch operations.
Laiylaly Mandujano is a conversation designer, with a background in linguistics, ESL teaching and conversation design.
Bio to come
Pat Higbie is a serial entrepreneur and innovator in voice and AI. He is Co-founder and CEO of XAPP AI, a SaaS company delivering solutions at the intersection of conversational AI, intelligent search, and generative AI. He is also Co-founder and CEO of XAPPmedia and holds 13 patents for voice interactive advertising. Previously, Pat co-founded and served as Chairman and CEO of DataFocus, a database and software migration firm that developed NuTCRACKER and was acquired by MKS. He also co-owns a group of Jersey Mike's stores in Northern Virginia. Pat received a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering with High Honors from the United States Coast Guard Academy and a Master's in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois, where he was inducted into the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. He is a registered Professional Engineer in Virginia. Pat is an avid golfer and enjoys spending time with his family.
I have fulfilled various roles within the customer service domain with a focus on self service automation. In 2019, I first experienced a Digital Human and since then I have been “blown away” by this wonderful new technology. Adding facial expressions as an additional modality in the conversations you have with your customers will make a world of difference, especially in the customer service domain when emotion, empathy, and trust are increasingly important. Based on the conviction of the enormous potential of Digital Humans, I have stepped into the Digital Human business (www.virtually-human.com). From my various positions, I have gained experience with conversational AI implementations from large to small and as a result of this committee I can help and advise to take the right steps, of the right size, in the right direction, and with the right partners to successfully grow the use of Digital Humans and Conversational AI.
Jason Dsouza is a Principal Data Scientist at Deloitte Consulting. He is an expert in architecting and building scalable end-to-end machine learning pipelines. Jason’s experience encompasses solving complex challenges, including Personalization, Disease Identification and Network Design, across the Health Care and Supply Chain & Logistics sectors by applying a variety of algorithms such as Generative AI, Time Series Forecasting, Uplift modeling, Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision. He holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Science, specializing in AI and Machine Learning, from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Robin Shum is a product manager within the Inclusive Technology team at the Estée Lauder Companies. With a background in Linguistics and Technological Systems Management, she sits at the intersection of technology and inclusive design. The Voice-enabled Makeup Assistant (VMA) is ELC's first attempt at breaking into the space of digital accessibility for the blind and visually impaired community. Currently as the Product Owner of VMA on the new Inclusive Technology Team within Innovation & Emerging Technologies, Robin merges thoughtful design with championing digital accessibility. She is passionate about the future of accessible design at ELC and in the beauty industry.
Amber Ivey "AI" is a data professional currently serving as Vice President at a non-profit organization, where she directs teams that assist governments in improving outcomes for residents. She has previously worked at the Bloomberg Philanthropies Center for Government Excellence at Johns Hopkins University and The Pew Charitable Trust, focusing on utilizing data to optimize decision-making and enhance service delivery. Prior to that, she applied her data-driven insights at Maryland StateStat, a government performance improvement tool driven by goals and data. Her commitment to educating a wider audience on data, technology, public policy, and law inspired her to develop and host the "AI Decodes the System" podcast and write the children's book "AI... Meets... AI." Additionally, as one of the official voices of C.L.Ai.R.A., the first AI woman of color, she demonstrates her dedication to education, representation, and inclusivity in the technology sector. Amber is also a co-founder of AuraSense Tech Corporation, a company that leverages AI and Digital Haptics to develop a remote, non-invasive physical examination platform, aiming to bring "Touch to Telemedicine."
Autumn is the Director of Infrastructure & Security at Cohere. She’s been with the company since September 2022 scaling teams & tools to build LLMs. Prior to buying into the startup life, she spent 3 years in financial services and 14 years at a large non-profit. Her passion is helping innovative teams get improvements out of R&D and securely launched.
Mark Walsh is an angel and venture investor in technology, software, content and services through his fund, Ruxton Ventures, LLC. He recently stepped down as ceo of FactSquared, an AI/Machine learning company which he sold to FiscalNote (NYSE: NOTE), Prio, he headed The Office of Investment and Innovation for the U.S. Small Business Administration. He was ceo of a high growth public company, (VerticalNet NASDAQ: VERT) was a senior executive at GE, AOL, and HBO, and has invested/served on the board of a number of high profile public and private companies He was the first CTO of the Democratic Party, and was the founding CEO of Air America Radio, where he hired Al Franken and Rachel Maddow. He was a venture partner for Revolution, Inc and was on two of their boards. He was Board Chair (and a Life Trustee) of Union College (NY), Board Chair of the Entrepreneurial Center at the University of Maryland, Board Chair of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington D.C. - where he remains a director- and board chair of the New Leaders Council. Walsh earned a BA from Union College, and an MBA from Harvard. He has served or serves on many not-for profit boards, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Theatre Workshop, The Baltimore Symphony, and The Washington West Film Festival, among others. He is married with two grown children. His angel investing has included some successful growth entities including: Blackboard, Spectrum K12 Advisors (sold to Scantron), thestreet.com, Half.com (sold to eBay), Day.com (sold to Adobe), Transactis.com (sold to MasterCard), GoCanvas.com (sold to K1 Private Equity), Homesnap.com (sold to CoStar, Inc.) FedBid (Revolution Growth), Edvisorly.com and others. He was named a “Tech-Titan” by Washingtonian Magazine for five consecutive cycles from 2009-2015.
She is a Senior Practice Manager that started and led customer engagement globally on Responsible AI. Diya leads discussions organizations in various industries on taking intentional action to build trust in AI by uncovering potential unintended impacts, and mitigating risks related to its development, deployment and use. She also meets with legislators and policy makers globally to provide perspective to influence imminent regulation and policy on AI. For the first 15 years of her career, she worked in early-stage companies in consulting and in roles focused on scaling their products for acquisition. She is an international speaker; has been awarded and recognized in the industry for her work in Responsible AI; serves on non-profit boards; mentors through multiple organizations; and guest lectures on responsible and inclusive technology.
Bio to come.
Bio to come.
