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Sabin Sărmaș (b. 1985, Năsăud) attended the courses of the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, during 2004-2009, becoming a graduate engineer in telecommunications. Subsequently, for 3 years, starting with November 2009, he attended the doctoral courses in telecommunications of the same university. Also, in 2009 he undertook a research internship under the Erasmus Programme at the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels, Belgium. Since 2012, Sabin Sărmaș has been involved in a series of digitalisation projects in various industries such as HoReCa, media, tourism, youth and culture. 2016 was the year in which he founded his own software development services company, Cicada Technologies, thus becoming well-known in the industry.
His projects focused on areas like IoT (the internet of things), finance, automotive, telecommunications, aeronautics. Sabin Sărmaș was a local councillor in the City Council of Cluj-Napoca. During that period he was actively involved in solving the problems of the community, strongly supporting the youth in the city and becoming a valuable politician at the local level. Currently, Sabin Sărmaș is the President of the Authority for the Digitalization of Romania.
Razvan Sighinas joined ING Bank Romania management Board in March as CIO.
Răzvan is active in the IT field for more than 18 years, having started as a software engineer and moving on to operations and senior management roles in US and Europe for major players including Oracle, Vodafone and Electronic Arts.
He holds an engineer’s degree from the Bucharest Polytechnic University, an MBA from HEC France and several major certifications in software and project management.
Prior to his joining ING he operated as Senior Director for Electronic Arts, running an organization spanning across US, Canada, Romania, Ireland and India in charge of providing technology solutions and services such as game engines, big data and real-time analytics solutions running behind all Electronic Arts’ digital offerings.
In the past 10 years he also headed the IT Operations for Vodafone Romania and created the IT Shared Service Center in Bucharest for Vodafone Group.
Razvan Sighinas joined ING Bank Romania management Board in March as CIO.
Răzvan is active in the IT field for more than 18 years, having started as a software engineer and moving on to operations and senior management roles in US and Europe for major players including Oracle, Vodafone and Electronic Arts.
He holds an engineer’s degree from the Bucharest Polytechnic University, an MBA from HEC France and several major certifications in software and project management.
Prior to his joining ING he operated as Senior Director for Electronic Arts, running an organization spanning across US, Canada, Romania, Ireland and India in charge of providing technology solutions and services such as game engines, big data and real-time analytics solutions running behind all Electronic Arts’ digital offerings.
In the past 10 years he also headed the IT Operations for Vodafone Romania and created the IT Shared Service Center in Bucharest for Vodafone Group.
Rohit Talwar is a global futurist, award-winning speaker, strategic advisor, and entrepreneur. He works with global companies, entrepreneurs, investors, and governments to help them anticipate and respond to disruptive technologies such as AI and the wider economic, political, social, and environmental forces and ideas shaping the future.
His clients include American Express, Bank of America, Bayer, Emaar, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Novartis, PwC, Shell, Tata, and the governments of the USA, UK, UAE, and Singapore.
He is the co-editor and a contributor to nee book Aftershocks and Opportunities – Scenarios for a Post-Pandemic Future which draws on the ideas of 25 future thinkers from around the world and was published on June 1st, 2020.
He is currently working on a multi-contributor book on The Future of AI – Pathways to Artificial General Intelligence which will be published on World Future Day, March 1st, 2021.
Daniel Hulme (Ph.D.) is a leading expert in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies and is the CEO of Satalia. Satalia is an award-winning company that provides AI products and solutions for global companies such as Tesco and PwC. Satalia's mission is to create a world where everyone is free to innovate and that those innovations become free for everyone. Having received a Master and Doctorate in AI at UCL, Daniel is also UCL's Computer Science Entrepreneur in Residence and a lecturer at LSE's Marshall Institute, focused on using AI to solve business and social problems.
Passionate about how technology can be used to govern organizations and bring positive social impact, Daniel is a popular keynote speaker specializing in the topics of AI, ethics, technology, innovation, decentralization and organizational design. He is a serial speaker for Google and TEDx, holds an international Kauffman Global Entrepreneur Scholarship, and is a faculty member of Singularity University. Daniel is a contributor to numerous books, podcasts and articles on AI and the future of work. His mission is to create a world where everyone has the freedom to spawn and contribute to innovations, and have those innovations become free to everyone. He has advisory and executive positions across companies and governments, and actively promotes purposeful entrepreneurship and technology innovation across the globe.
Currently, Secretary of State for TeleComm within the Ministry of Transport Infrastructure and Communications (MTIC) and vice-president of PNL District 1, with an expertise forged in over over 13 years of experience in central public and international local administration, Dragos C.-L. PREDA also participated as a coordinator in the elaboration of 5 national strategies and numerous other legislative provisions.
At local level, in European countries, as well as in the expert groups at the level of the European Commission, his areas of concern included: international development, public administration reform, security and defense policies, communication, development of smart cities and communities etc.
Passionate about strategy and prospective studies, DP has been since 2011 part of the Romania node of the Millennium Project initiated by the Smithsonian Institution, The Future Group International and United Nations University (UNU), participating at the elaboration of numerous national and international studies on the Future of Technology, the Future of the Labor Market or the Future of Education. DP is also member of the board of advisors of the Executive Blockchain Laboratory, initiated by ICI Bucharest, and has been involved in launching tech start-ups.
DP graduated École Nationale d'Administration (ENA) as a fellow scholar of the Government of the French Republic, as well as alumnus of two master's programs of Paris 1 Panthèon-Sorbonne, his BA alma mater University.
Isidro is the Cabinet Expert of Commissioner Gabriel for Innovation, research, Education, culture and Youth at the European Commission. He has been a senior official at the European Commission since 2001 with responsibilities such as head of Startup Europe for 9 years and Deputy head of Innovation Ecosystems at the European Innovation Council.
From 2015 to 2019 Isidro was also nominated “Thought Leader at United Nations ITU Agency”, and is member of several advisory boards to international networks of startups. He combines his professional activities with academic activities such as being “Cambridge University CSAP Continuing Fellow”, visiting lecturer to CEPADE (Universidad Politecnica de Madrid) and writing books and papers which are included as citations by hundreds of academics.
After graduating as an Engineer from the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, he set up two Innovative SMEs on software business in the Tech AgriFood area before becoming a strategy advisor to CEOs of large corporations. Afterwards he became director in charge of IT and Change Management Projects in a large corporation (Atos Origin). In 2001 he moved into the public sector where he has been mainly working on strategy and innovation within the European Commission.
Wineke is responsible for the strategy and implementation of Corporate Sustainability, including initiatives related to the Sustainable Development Goals, circular economy, integrated dashboards, social enterprises, and stakeholder engagement. She actively contributes to the global strategy in collaboration with the global team and individual leaders around the globe. She works on innovative ideas and stakeholder understanding and translates these insights into long-term value creation. Her passion is to bring capitalism and idealism together to maximize positive impact.
Besides that, she is a Member of the Board of Committee of the UN Global Compact the Netherlands, board member of the Foundation of the Code Social Enterprises (Stichting Code Sociale Ondernemingen), and in the board of advisors of the Sustainable Flying Foundation (Stichting Duurzaam Vliegen). Furthermore, she is the co-author of PwC Netherlands’ SDG Booster research report, which investigates how listed companies, government authorities, social enterprises, and NGOs integrate the SDGs into their strategy. Moreover, she is the founder of the SDG Dome, an immersive experience that combines virtual reality with a seamless 360-degree projection of the world’s biggest problems.
In 2018 Wineke was ranked at number 36 of the Dutch Trouw Sustainable Top 100 and at number 69 in the Top 100 of CSR influence leaders worldwide. In addition, she was announced as a runner-up of the 2019 SDG Pioneer of the Netherlands by the UN Global Compact.
Octavian is a tech journalist and the Events & Contents Strategist of start-up.ro, Romania’s finest startups & entrepreneurship publication. Previously, he was the editor-in-chief of the top tech news website in the country and he has written stories about technology and startups for two of the leading newspapers in Romania, Adevărul & România Liberă. He is an avid social media user, with over 10.000 followers, a passionate video creator and SEO Consultant.
Christopher Bishop is a workplace futurist, TEDx speaker, LinkedIn Learning instructor and business consultant.
Chris is excited about the power of emerging technologies to positively transform business and society. He writes and speaks on topics including quantum information science, AI, machine learning, fintech, cryptoassets, blockchain, augmented and virtual reality and robotics.
Prior to his freelance career, Chris spent 15 years at IBM in a variety of roles, working initially as a Web producer and strategy consultant, then moving into executive communications at Corporate Headquarters leading social media adoption and the use of virtual worlds.
In April 2020, his live-action course for LinkedIn Learning called “Future-proofing your data science career” went live. In addition, Chris co-authored a white paper with MIT Media Lab professor Sandy Pentland titled Blockchain+AI+Human”, describing the business possibilities as well as the powerful socio-cultural implications of connecting AI and blockchain.
Pamela Pavliscak studies our emotional relationship with technology. As a creative strategist and founder of SoundingBox, she collaborates with organizations like Google, IKEA, and Virgin to craft emotionally intelligent experiences. As faculty at Pratt Institute, she teaches next-gen designers. Her work has been featured in Slate, NPR, and Quartz and she’s spoken at SXSW and TNW. Her book, Emotionally Intelligent Design, charts a tech future with feeling.
With a passion for integrating next-generation technology into everyday life, Daryl works across the current conversational AI landscape to promote digital humans as the cornerstone of tomorrow’s customer journey. Overseeing the marketing efforts at UneeQ, Reva brings to the table a career in working with hype-cycle technologies and those companies looking to drive early adaptors and first-mover advantages. Previously as the VP of Marketing at Mitel, Reva oversaw the transition from a legacy telephony business into global cloud communication and collaboration leader. Prior to Mitel, Reva has held a similar leadership role at a UCaaS startup called Fonality, where he established a new channel model that opened several new vertical market opportunities.