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.
Erick is a data trainer for Large Language Models (LLMs), an AI enthusiast, and a data science and machine learning student. Has over 6 years of experience as an editor. As a data trainer, Erick has honed expertise in training LLMs, ensuring they deliver accurate responses and optimizing their learning processes. His passion lies in exploring neural networks and machine learning algorithms, constantly seeking innovative ways to enhance model capabilities. He possesses a keen eye for detail and a commitment to delivering high-quality results. He excels in analyzing data, identifying patterns, and extracting valuable insights to inform decision-making. With a strong foundation in LLM training and editing, he is well-equipped to push the boundaries of AI and make significant contributions to projects that harness its power.
Aravind Srinivas is the co-founder and CEO of Perplexity AI 1 2 , a company on a mission to build the world's most trusted information service 1 . He is also active on Twitter, where he recently introduced a new editing tool for Perplexity AI
Kate Bradley Chernis is the Founder & CEO of Lately.AI, an AI-powered content repurposing engine and a social media management, employee advocacy and sales enablement syndication platform. Thanks to nine years of its own proprietary machine learning and natural language processing data, Lately is able to pinpoint the ideas, words and phrases that will get any target audience to click, like or share. It also learns the unique voice of any brand or individual and transfers the style of that voice into social posts. Lately then splices up longform text, audio or video content into dozens of high-performing social posts – which include audiograms and video clips – based on your unique writing model. As a former rock 'n' roll dj, Kate served 20 million listeners as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM. She’s also an award-winning radio producer, engineer and voice talent with 25 years of national broadcast communications, brand-building, sales and marketing expertise. What she learned in radio about the neuroscience of music helps fuel Lately's artificial intelligence. Prior to founding Lately, Kate also owned a marketing agency which got Walmart a 130% ROI, YoY for three years. In addition, Kate's appeared as a guest speaker on hundreds of sales, marketing and entrepreneurial podcasts and has led presentations for Walmart, Ericsson, SAP, National Disability Institute, IRS, United Way Worldwide, SaaStr, SXSW, Content Marketing Institute, HubSpot, Hootsuite, Harvard University, Columbia University, NYU and others.
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.
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).
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.
Previously a music producer in the US and UK, Wally’s fascination with voice interaction began in 1999 at Nuance Communications where, as Director of Persona Design and Production he created the process for designing, testing and developing branded, humanlike personas for enterprises and governments worldwide. He co-founded the first VUI consultancy, VoicePartners in 2002 to deliver speech recognition systems designed around user needs and brand values. As Director of Global Self Service for eBay, he led a team on three continents assisting millions of eBay members daily. And now as Senior AI Conversation Design Strategist for Google, he has the remarkable opportunity to help create useful, magical, and delightful interactions with Google Assistant.
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.
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.
Eros Marcello designs cognitive personification for human-interfacing Artificial Intelligence, including Intelligent Voice Assistants (IVAs), chatbots, multimodal applications and Large Language Models (LLMs).
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.
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.
Greg Bennett is Director of Conversation Design at Salesforce, where he founded and leads the company’s first dedicated Conversation Design practice since its inception. As a sociolinguist, he shepherds a product and design vision at Salesforce that helps teams across the entire product portfolio create inclusive experiences that feel natural, helpful, and meaningful, and manages an international team of Conversation Designers who work with Salesforce’s Product leaders to define the future of conversational AI
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.
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.
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.
Sean Schemmel is a prolific voice actor who has primarily worked on American versions of Japanese anime, most notably playing Goku on "Dragon Ball Z" and its many spin-offs. Schemmel began doing voice work during the mid-1980s, and started portraying the heroic role of Goku on the popular action/fantasy series "Dragon Ball Z" in '89. During the this time, he also voiced other characters on the show, including King Kai and Nail, though other "Dragon Ball Z" productions mostly featured him as Goku. Outside of the "Dragon Ball Z" universe, Schemmel has voiced characters on other anime series, including "Blue Gender," "Pokemon," and "Yu-Gi-Oh! GX," and he has been featured on the animated "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" series as well. Remarkably, much of Schemmel's decades-spanning career has consisted of providing the voice of Goku as both a teen and an adult, a role that also extends to the many "Dragon Ball Z" video games.
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.
Praveen Modi is an AI/ML Specialist Leader at Amazon Web Services. Praveen has over 20 years of experience working across several industries and helps AWS customers in their Machine Learning and Cloud adoption journey. In his six years at Amazon, Praveen led the Conversational AI Team, where he helped customers to develop engaging voice and chat experiences. As a Product Lead for Emerging Technologies in Healthcare, he worked with AWS HCLS customers in the areas of Connect Lab, Connected Products, and Conversational AI. Praveen led the development of BrainGuide, a Conversational AI application that allows memory assessment for people worried about brain health, people living with the disease, and their caregivers. He collaborated with McGill University Health Centre Research Institute, Canada, to deploy Amazon Lex & Amazon Alexa-based applications to perform first-round COVID-19 screenings on patients & staff.
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.
Paul Cutsinger is director of Omniverse Exchange at NVIDIA, where he’s focused on tooling for real-time, true-to-reality simulation. With a career spanning Amazon, Disney, and Microsoft, Paul’s work centers on enabling creators to take their ideas into production.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Arte Merritt is the CMO of Bespoken, a conversational AI testing platform. 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.
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.
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.
Esprit Ange Andraos is a speech-language pathologist in Lebanon, musician, and an international SLP graduate student at Northeastern University.
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.
Maaike is an internationally respected conversational product design expert, speaker and author. She has substantial experience in user experience design for startups and major brands including AccorHotels, Groupe SEB, Pierre & Vacances and many more. She has particular expertise in consumer and voice, consulting on platforms including Amazon Alexa and Google DialogFlow. She has recently also been recognized by Amazon as an Alexa Champion. Maaike is the co-author of the Voice UX Workbook, and currently finalizing her next book on conversational UX design. Maaike joined forces with the amazing team at GreenShoot Labs to lead their design effort, translating their sophisticated conversational experience framework into a valuable, adopted, and useful product: OpenDialog.
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
10 years in venture capital, having worked in Tel Aviv and London participating in the closing of more than 30 investment deals in startups ranging from early stage through to late-stage pre-IPO deals.
Sasha is a software engineer and entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience inventing and transitioning breakthrough technology into applications and products. Before founding Kasisto, Sasha was a member of the IBM TJ Watson research team responsible for real time translation technology and conversational architecture for cars and mobile devices.
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.
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).
