Reality Check: Why AI Has Failed to Live Up to Its Hype in this Pandemic and What Companies Should Learn from This

Stephen Steers (Experiential Events Facilitator)

They don‘t teach you sales in school. They don‘t teach you how to be confident. They don‘t teach you how to be out in the world and how to
make a way for yourself. But that’s what I’m here for. I love to see the lights go on in my clients’ eyes when they realize they can do this. They can change their lives. They can turn their unique vision into lastingfinancial success.

I’ve consulted, advised and led workshops for more than 250 companies from 16 countries. I’ve helped clients generate millions of dollars in revenue. And I’ve learned that, sure: the skills I teach bring financial success. But they can also have a positive impact on every other aspect of your life.

Forget everything you think you know about salespeople. Effective sales is about listening, learning and connecting. Work with me and you’ll get no bull, no middlemen, just expert advice and frameworks that get results.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-steers/

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Arjun Jamnadass (Managing Director, FTI Consulting / Strategic Advisor, Project Management Inst.)

Arjun Jamnadass leads the Citizen Development team within FTI Consulting (Project Management Institute). Arjun is an expert in citizen development, agile ways of working, digital transformation and business change. Arjun has spent the last 5 years working with business and technology leaders to establish new ways of working which enable scalable and safe mass adoption of no/low-code technologies.

Arjun Jamnadass is the Managing Director for FTI Consulting in the UK. He is an expert in citizen development, Agile ways of working, digital transformation, and business change. Mr. Jamnadass has spent the last five years working with business and technology leaders to establish new ways of working, enabling scalable and safe mass adoption of low-code/no-code (LC/NC) technologies. He earned a bachelor’s degree in computer and business studies and a master’s degree in electronic business management from the University of Warwick, UK.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arjunjamnadass/

Recent Article: Bridging the Governance Gap: How to Safely Realize the Potential of Citizen Development (link)

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Hung Lee (Editor, Recruiting Brainfood)

He is an industry professional with over 15 years experience as an agency recruiter, Recruitment manager, Internal Head of Talent, recruitment trainer, founder of award winning online recruiting platform WorkShape.io, and now Editor and Community builder at Recruiting Brainfood – the best weekly newsletter in recruitment.

Hung lives and works in London.

Social Profile Links

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunglee
Twitter: @HungLee
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hunglee888
Instagram: @hung_lee

Company Properties

Recruiting Brainfood Homepage (link)
Recruiting Brainfood Fb Group (link)
Brainfood Live On Air (link)
The Recruiting Brainfood Podcast on Podbean (link)
The Recruiting Brainfood Podcast on ITunes (link)
The Recruiting Brainfood Podcast on Spotify (link)

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Charlie Oliver (Founder/CEO)

Charlie Oliver’s years of experience in the trenches of old media include working in advertising in New York at such media goliaths as BBDO Worldwide and Condé Nast, to producing sitcoms and dramas at Sony Pictures Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers, Dreamworks and Oscar-award winning indie production companies, to event management at the Sundance Film Festival.

After spending several years in corporate law in document review at global firms (White & Case, Clifford Chance and Wachtel Lipton, to name a few), Charlie segued seamlessly into tech and new media as a web video producer where she co-created and co-produced experimental video projects such as an 8-hour live webathon for the 2008 presidential election and numerous web video series. Soon thereafter, Charlie launched ArtofTalk.tv (a site that brought the vast world of tv, web and radio talk shows online to Users in bite-size video snippets of debates and interviews in social media).

In 2009, Charlie launched Served Fresh Media™ (a New York-based company) where her team provides digital marketing strategy, event management, product development, and senior management advisory for companies. Clients Served Fresh Media has worked with include IBM, New York Press Club, Cognizant, Digital Flash, Digital Realty, Tierpoint, and It’s About Time, among others.

January 2017, Charlie launched Tech 2025 — a community and platform for professionals to learn about the next wave of disruptive, emerging technologies and to facilitate discourse about the impact of these technologies on society with an emphasis on problem-solving. Having produced over 80 events since they launched, coupled with providing professional services, Tech 2025 has quickly gained a reputation for helping professionals and companies to understand and embrace emerging technologies and the whirlwind changes they bring, and to strategize for the future impact of accelerating innovation.

Learn more about Charlie: https://charlieoliver.co

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Anne T. Griffin (Head of Product & Curriculum Development)

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As the daughter of a chemist and an electrical engineer, Anne Griffin grew up immersed in the sciences. However, it was her passion for products and people that led her to tech.

She completed her degree in engineering at the University of Michigan. She started her career as an IT consultant eventually moving into product management, where she could create products that engaged and inspired people.

Anne went on to lead teams at companies like Huge Inc, Red Fuse Communications and OpenLaw, helping the businesses innovate and grow while adapting to their client’s needs. Today, she leads cross-functional product teams at Priceline. At every stage of my career, she witnessed the value of designing products with people in mind. Her focus is fairness: helping teams address bias in product design by integrating awareness into the creative process. Carving out space for humanity and empathy in a field inundated by product and process helps her stand out.

She has gained opportunities to share her talents and perspective on broad platforms for Tech 2025, as well as speaking engagements at conferences and universities. Additionally, she sits on the Rutgers University Big Data Certificate program Advisory Board, where she helps shape the curriculum and advise on industry standards in data science, AI, machine learning, and data analytics.

Anne on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/annetgriffin/

Twitter: @annetgriffin

Adam Gamwell, Ph.D. (Senior Researcher and Business Anthropologist, MotivBase and Missing Link Studios)

Dr. Adam Gamwell is a business and design anthropologist, creator and host of This Anthro Life Podcast, speaker and co-founder of Missing Link Studios, a social impact storytelling and human insights studio. He is also a senior anthropologist at MotivBase, an anthropologically driven global research technology company that melds big data and ethnography.

A longtime advocate for bringing anthropological insights to business and wider publics, Adam’s mission is to help businesses, change-makers and organizations discover, craft and communicate their stories, cultures, and human complexity more clearly.

Inspired by the power of voice and conversation to bring people together, Adam is one the first professional anthropology podcasters. This Anthro Life has received multiple educational and media grants and brings listeners unique conversations with some of the top innovators and minds dedicated to decoding people and making our world more humane, including TED Allstars, MacArthur Geniuses, editors of global publications, documentarians, entrepreneurs, artists, scholars and more.

His podcast projects include “CultureMade: Heritage Enterprise in a World on the Move” in partnership with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and American Anthropological Association, “Faxina”, a Portuguese language narrative podcast telling the stories of Brazilian migrant house cleaners working in the US that was selected for the 2020 Google Podcasts creator program, and “Experience By Design.”

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Charlie Oliver (Founder/CEO, TECH 2025 and Served Fresh Media)

Charlie Oliver’s years of experience in the trenches of old media include working in advertising in New York at such media goliaths as BBDO Worldwide and Condé Nast, to producing sitcoms and dramas at Sony Pictures Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers, Dreamworks and Oscar-award winning indie production companies, to event management at the Sundance Film Festival.

After spending several years in corporate law in document review at global firms (White & Case, Clifford Chance and Wachtel Lipton, to name a few), Charlie segued seamlessly into tech and new media as a web video producer where she co-created and co-produced experimental video projects such as an 8-hour live webathon for the 2008 presidential election and numerous web video series. Soon thereafter, Charlie launched ArtofTalk.tv (a site that brought the vast world of tv, web and radio talk shows online to Users in bite-size video snippets of debates and interviews in social media).

In 2009, Charlie launched Served Fresh Media™ (a New York-based company) where her team provides digital marketing strategy, event management, product development, and senior management advisory for companies. Clients Served Fresh Media has worked with include IBM, New York Press Club, Cognizant, Digital Flash, Digital Realty, Tierpoint, and It’s About Time, among others.

January 2017, Charlie launched Tech 2025 — a community and platform for professionals to learn about the next wave of disruptive, emerging technologies and to facilitate discourse about the impact of these technologies on society with an emphasis on problem-solving. Having produced over 80 events since they launched, coupled with providing professional services, Tech 2025 has quickly gained a reputation for helping professionals and companies to understand and embrace emerging technologies and the whirlwind changes they bring, and to strategize for the future impact of accelerating innovation.

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Charlie Oliver (Founder/CEO, Tech 2025 and Served Fresh Media)

Charlie Oliver’s years of experience in the trenches of old media include working in advertising in New York at such media goliaths as BBDO Worldwide and Condé Nast, to producing sitcoms and dramas at Sony Pictures Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers, Dreamworks and Oscar-award winning indie production companies, to event management at the Sundance Film Festival.

After spending several years in corporate law in document review at global firms (White & Case, Clifford Chance and Wachtel Lipton, to name a few), Charlie segued seamlessly into tech and new media as a web video producer where she co-created and co-produced experimental video projects such as an 8-hour live webathon for the 2008 presidential election and numerous web video series. Soon thereafter, Charlie launched ArtofTalk.tv (a site that brought the vast world of tv, web and radio talk shows online to Users in bite-size video snippets of debates and interviews in social media).

In 2009, Charlie launched Served Fresh Media™ (a New York-based company) where her team provides digital marketing strategy, event management, product development, and senior management advisory for companies. Clients Served Fresh Media has worked with include IBM, New York Press Club, Cognizant, Digital Flash, Digital Realty, Tierpoint, and It’s About Time, among others.

January 2017, Charlie launched Tech 2025 — a community and platform for professionals to learn about the next wave of disruptive, emerging technologies and to facilitate discourse about the impact of these technologies on society with an emphasis on problem-solving. Having produced over 80 events since they launched, coupled with providing professional services, Tech 2025 has quickly gained a reputation for helping professionals and companies to understand and embrace emerging technologies and the whirlwind changes they bring, and to strategize for the future impact of accelerating innovation.

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Lee Raine (Director, Internet and Technology research at Pew Research Center)

Lee Rainie is the director of internet and technology research at Pew Research Center. Under his leadership, the Center has issued more than 650 reports based on its surveys that examine people’s online activities and the internet’s role in their lives. The American Sociological Association gave Rainie its award for “excellence in the reporting on social issues” in 2014 and described his work as the “most authoritative source of reliable data on the use and impact of the internet and mobile connectivity.”

Rainie is a co-author of Networked: The new social operating system and five books about the future of the internet that are drawn from the Center’s research. He gives several dozen speeches a year to government officials, media leaders, scholars and students, technology executives, librarians, and nonprofit groups about the changing media ecosystem.

Prior to launching Pew Research Center’s technology research, Rainie was managing editor of U.S. News & World Report. He is a graduate of Harvard University and has a master’s degree in political science from Long Island University.

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Erica Salmon Byrne (Executive Vice President and Chair of BELA, Ethisphere Institute)

Erica Salmon Byrne is the Executive Vice President for The Ethisphere Institute, where she has responsibility for the organization’s data and services business and works with Ethisphere’s community of clients to assess ethics and compliance programs and promote best practices across industries. Ms. Salmon Byrne also serves as the Chair of the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance; she works with the BELA community to advance the dialogue around ethics and governance, and deliver practical guidance to ethics and compliance practitioners around the globe.

Prior to joining Ethisphere, Ms. Salmon Byrne served as the Executive Vice President of Compliance & Governance Solutions for NYSE Governance Services, Corpedia, a leading ethics, compliance, and risk assessment consulting company and licensed credentialing partner of the Ethisphere Institute. Ms. Salmon Byrne worked closely with Corpedia’s varied clients in addressing their compliance needs, including evaluating compliance programs, assisting companies in measuring peer practices and drafting training programs. She hosted the on-demand web video series, Inside Compliance, and shared the host chair of another on-demand web series from NYSE Governance Services, This Week in the Boardroom. She was also responsible for product strategy for NYSE Governance Services.

Prior to joining Corpedia, Ms. Salmon Byrne practiced with DLA Piper in Washington, DC, where she focused in the areas of internal investigations, enforcement actions, government audits, and international law. Ms. Salmon Byrne has advocated on behalf of clients in front of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the Northern District of Georgia, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and the House of Representatives’ Permanent Subcommittee’ for Oversight and Investigations. In addition, she assisted multinational companies in complying with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and U.S. Export Controls.

Ms. Salmon Byrne received a Bachelor of Arts degree from George Washington University, a Master of Arts degree with Highest Distinction from Northeastern University and a Juris Doctor cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center. She is a regular columnist in The Compliance and Ethics Professional and a contributing editor to the Compliance and Ethics blog. She previously served as adjunct faculty, teaching business ethics in the Department of Business Ethics and Legal Studies in the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver.

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Greg Kihlström (Head of Customer and Employee Experience, Tech 2025)

Greg Kihlström is a best selling author, speaker, and entrepreneur. He has worked with some of the world’s leading organizations on customer experience, employee experience, and digital transformation initiatives, both before and after selling his award-winning digital experience agency, Carousel30, in 2017. He has worked with some of the world’s top brands, including AOL, Choice Hotels, Coca-Cola, Dell, FedEx, GEICO, Marriott, MTV, Starbucks, Toyota and VMware. He currently serves on the University of Richmond’s Customer Experience Advisory Board, was the founding Chair of the American Advertising Federation’s National Innovation Committee, and served on the Virginia Tech Pamplin College of Business Marketing Mentorship Advisory Board. Greg is Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certified, and holds a certification in Business Agility from ICP-BAF.

Greg’s newest book, The Agile Workforce (2021) explores the current and future state of the workforce and envisions a world where individuals thrive in a new world of work opportunities enabled by technology, decentralization, and a shift in the power dynamics between employers and employees. His previous book, The Center of Experience (2020) talks about how customer and employee experience can be operationalized into a cohesive brand experience. He wrote another book on customer and employee experience called Digital Delight (2019), that focuses on designing, implementing, and measuring CX and EX. Greg’s previous book, The Agile Consumer (2019) explores the most recent shifts in the brand-consumer relationship and how companies must become more agile across their entire operation to remain successful. The Agile Brand (2018), follows the evolution of branding from its beginnings to the authentic relationship with brands that modern consumers want, and gives practical examples of what you can do to create a more modern, agile brand while staying true to your core values. His first book, The Agile Web (2016), discusses the changing landscape of digital marketing and customer experience. His podcast, The Agile World, launched in early 2019 and discusses brand strategy, marketing, and customer experience.

Greg was named a 2018 50 on Fire winner from DC Inno as one of DC’s trendsetters in Marketing. He is a regular contributing writer to Forbes, and has been featured in publications such as Advertising Age, SmartCEO, Website Magazine, and The Washington Post. He’s participated as a keynote speaker, panelist and moderator at industry events around the world including Internet Week New York, Internet Summit, EventTech, SMX Social Media, Social Media Week, Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit, ABA Bank Marketing Summit, and VMworld. He has guest lectured at several schools including VCU Brandcenter, Georgetown University, Duke University, American University, University of Maryland, Howard University and Virginia Tech.

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Randy Petaway (Senior Director, LinkedIn)

My passion is working at the intersection of business, technology, and innovation to help companies overcome significant operational challenges, reach ambitious growth goals, and navigate the constantly changing digital world.

For the last 20+ years, I’ve had the pleasure of building and leading sales, business development, product/solutions, consulting, technology, and delivery teams that have executed transformative engagements with some of the largest and best-known brands.

Leveraging a unique combination of leadership skills, business acumen, technology fluency, and relationship building skills, I focus on building long-term relationships with c-suite executives and business groups that enable me to openly discuss their business and technology needs so that I can provide solutions that accelerate growth, reduce costs, or improve the pace of innovation.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/randypetway/

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David Ryan Polgar (Tech Ethicist, Founder of All Tech is Human)

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David is a pioneering tech ethicist who paved the way for the hotly-debated issues around Facebook, privacy, ethical design, digital well-being, and what it means to be human in the digital age.

David is a 3-time TEDx speaker and tech writer (IBM thinkLeaders, Quartz, Dell Perspectives) whose has been featured on CBS This Morning, Fast Company, USA Today, AP, LA Times, The Guardian, CNN.com, BBC.com, SiriusXM, AdWeek, New York Post, and countless other outlets. With a background as an attorney and college professor, he transitioned into an advocate for greater thoughtfulness regarding the creation and implementation of technology. David speaks about tech ethics, digital wellbeing, emerging tech trends, and digital citizenship throughout the US and world (Netherlands, Ireland, Slovakia, Latvia).

He is the founder of All Tech Is Human, an initiative to better align tech with the human interests of users and society, and is the co-host of Funny as Tech–a live show and podcast that tackles the thorniest issues in tech. David serves on the advisory boards for Common Sense’s Digital Citizenship Advisory Council, the non-profit #ICANHELP, and Hack Mental Health. In 2015, he co-founded the global Digital Citizenship Summit. David is currently researching the impact that “scaling intimacy” has on human relationships, and whether we are becoming botified (and less authentic) in our communications.

Follow David in social media: TWITTER: @TechEthicist / LINKEDIN: http://bit.ly/2uLO0rZ

Richard Schrade (Co-Founder of Automation Intelligence)

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Richard is an automation expert with years of experience in industrial automated systems. He co-founded Automation Intelligence in 2019 to optimize factories and distribution centers through targeted AI & Digital Twins.

Richard on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rschrade3/

James Jeude (Principal – Strategy & Consulting)

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James Jeude is advising Tech 2025’s new Strategy & Consulting Services division.

His career has covered a range of technology-fueled business experiences from large-scale line-of-business management (3,000+ headcount), building and operating a business strategy team, integrating digital signals and experiences into an analytically-driven experience environment, and understanding social and regulatory impact of artificial intelligence and algorithmic decision making.

His most recent work at Cognizant, one of the world’s largest global systems integrators, covered healthcare analytics, strategy, technology alliances, and business operations. He has also worked in business information (Dun & Bradstreet, INQVIA IMS Health, Import.io), search engine and language processing (IACI/Ask.com), and manufacturing and supply chain (Boeing). James lives in New Jersey with his wife, his Ford Mustang, and a room full of musical instruments and electronics.

James on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/james-jeude/

Glenn Rodriguez (Program Director, Horizon Juvenile Center)

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Glenn Rodriguez is an innovative leader and advocate for criminal justice reform and a broad array of social justice issues whose inspiring story of redemption and fight for freedom have captured mainstream media attention and facilitated debate on responsible and ethical use of technology in the correctional system.

Over the past three years, Glenn has held several positions at the Center for Community Alternatives, Inc. (CCA), a not-for-profit organization that promotes reintegrative justice and a reduced reliance on incarceration through advocacy, services, and public policy development in pursuit of civil and human rights.

Glenn began his professional career as a Case Manager working with justice-involved youth who were court-mandated to participate in CCA’s Youth Advocacy Project, an alternative to incarceration program. In his role as case manager, Glenn was instrumental in helping court-involved teens navigate the complexities of their day-to-day lives. Glenn conducted intake interviews, psychosocial evaluations, needs assessments, and weekly individual counseling sessions necessary to develop client-centered treatment plans and make referrals to community-based resources. Glenn quickly emerged as a leader in his department.

Glenn’s passion for working with inner-city youth derives from his personal experience. Following the tragic loss of both parents by the age of 4, Glenn was raised by his maternal grandmother in a single-parent household. Glenn grew up in Inwood, a crime-riddled sector of Manhattan, at the height of the War on Drugs. During his sophomore year of high school, at the age of 16, Glenn joined five other teens and partook in a robbery that resulted in the death of a young used car salesman. Following his arrest in 1990, Glenn was charged, prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to 26 ½ years to life in prison.

Having served more than 25 years behind bars with a near-perfect record of rehabilitation and a passion to help people and society, to everyone’s surprise, Glenn was denied parole due to a problematic, biased software used by the parole board (COMPAS) to decide the fate of incarcerated people and whether they are ready to be reintegrated into society.

With unwavering determination, and the support of Cynthia H. Conti-Cook, in the Special Litigations Unit at the Legal Aid Society, and Rebecca Wexler, Yale Public Interest Fellow, who authored the Washington Monthly article featuring Glenn’s story, Glenn fought to overturn the erroneous decision by software that would’ve kept him incarcerated for another two years. In 2017, despite all odds, and with letters of support from correctional and political leaders, Glenn convinced a panel of parole commissioners that his decades of rehabilitation prepared him well to reintegrate into society. Glenn was released from Eastern N.Y. Correction Facility on May 11, 2017.

Since obtaining parole in 2017, Glenn has been a leading critic of the flaws inherent in risk assessment technology (including biased algorithms like the one that denied him his freedom) and an outspoken advocate and thought-leader for criminal justice reform at the Center for Community Alternatives. Glenn’s story has been featured in articles in the Washington Monthly, The New York Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, NPR Radio, and ABC News. Glenn story also appears in the VPRO documentary entitled “Algorithms Rule Us All,” and the podcast series entitled “The Watchmen: Sleepwalkers,” episode 3.

Glenn on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/glenn-rodriguez-102322157/

Twitter: @GlennRodNYC
Instagram: @GlennRodNYC
Facebook: http://facebook.com/glennrodnyc

Sponsorship

Joe Toscana (Founder/CVO, BEACON, Author of Automating Humanity)

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Yo! My name is Joe Toscano, but my last name is hard to say so you can just call me @realjoet.

I used to be an Experience Designer at R/GA on our Google team, which was embedded on campus in Mountain View. It was cool. Lots of perks. Great perks. But I didn’t care. That’s not what I signed up for. I signed up to make a meaningful impact on the world, and as time went on I felt that just wasn’t an option.

I left in early 2017 because of ethical concerns within the industry. I decided my time would be better spent helping make change from the outside. Since then, I’ve written a book called Automating Humanity. I’ve traveled to more than 19 different states and nations across four different continents to speak about ways to resolve technology’s ethical dilemmas. And I’ve launched the Better Ethics and Consumer Outcomes Network (BEACON) to help inspire purpose driven innovation within the industry.

BEACON’s purpose is to create a better future, through technology. Our day to day is spent helping companies proactively identify issues and translate those issues into positive-sum business—solutions that improve both the situation for consumers and the company’s bottom line—before they become headline news.

Joe on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-toscano-30688b61/

Lawrence Edmonson (Senior Vice President, Technology VaynerMedia)

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Lawrence is a speaker, entrepreneur, and technologist. Lawrence’s role at VaynerMedia places him squarely at the intersection of Advertising, Culture, and Technology. VaynerMedia, is a full-service digital agency founded by Gary Vaynerchuk, venture capitalist, best selling author and one of the most sought after public speakers today.

Before joining VaynerMedia, Lawrence served as the Chief Communications Officer at Opus AI, a software platform that uses AI to reduce bias in the hiring process.

For the past two decades, Lawrence’s career has been deeply rooted in Advertising and Technology, where he has worked with agencies such as RGA, Huge and JWT. Lawrence is the connective tissue between Technology, UX, Design, Systems, and Strategy.

Lawrence on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ledmondson/

Glenn Rodríguez (Program Director, Horizon Juvenile Center )

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Since winning his battle for parole in 2017, after being wrongfully denied parole by COMPAS risk assessment software, Glenn Rodríguez has worked with court-involved and at-risk youth in various positions at the Center for Community Alternatives (a leader in the field of community-based alternatives to incarceration that promotes reintegrative justice and a reduced reliance on incarceration through advocacy, services and public policy development in pursuit of civil and human rights). Glenn is currently Program Director at Horizon Juvenile Center, (a juvenile detention center in the Bronx). His areas of expertise are research, case management, program development, community outreach, and public speaking. Glenn also speaks on the impact of automation on the criminal justice system to bring awareness to the growing problems biased and opaque algorithms are causing real people.

Henry L. Greenidge (Legal & Government Affairs, Urban Technology, Cruise Automation, GM)

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Henry L. Greenidge is an experienced attorney and policy advisor who has focused on urban policy related to broadband, transportation, energy and sustainability. Currently, Henry leads East Coast Government & Community Relations for Cruise Automation, a subsidiary of General Motors focused on developing self driving cars.

Previously, Henry served as Assistant Director of External Affairs in the New York City Mayor’s Office where his portfolio included press, communications, and legislative affairs for the City’s $20 billion dollar sustainability program. During the Obama Administration, Henry held policy, budget, and legal roles at the Federal Communications Commission, U.S. DOT, and the White House Office of Management & Budget. Henry has been recognized by New York University as an Emerging Leader in Transportation, by City & State Magazine as a 2016 40 Under 40 Rising Star, and by the New York Urban League as a 2017 Trailblazer. Henry holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Baltimore, and a Bachelor of Arts from the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications at Hampton University where he graduated with honors.

Randi Williams (MIT Graduate Research Assistant, AI Education Pioneer)

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Randi Williams is currently pursuing a a PhD in Media, Arts, and Sciences with a concentration in Robotics and Human-Robot Interaction at MIT. She plans to use her research to develop assistive devices and collect behavioral information for well-being and educative applications. Her recent research, Hey Google, is it OK if I eat you?: Initial Explorations in Child-Agent Interaction (June 2017), co-authored with Stefania Druga, explores how children perceive and interact with autonomous technologies that are becoming more embedded in their daily lives.

She has worked at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, MIT’s Media Lab, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, and Jawbone. At MIT Lincoln Laboratory she worked in the Decision Support and Informatics Group doing video analytics through machine learning. At MIT’s Media Lab she worked for the Fluid Interfaces group and developed web and mobile applications to help busy individuals automatically track key aspects of their day such as sleep, commute, movement, and location. She conducted research in the robotics department of NASA JPL as a Caltech Southern California Edison Company MURF Fellow. Additionally, she worked at Jawbone as a CODE2040 Fellow in the Tools Team (web development). At UMBC, Randi founded and led hackUMBC, an organization that brought hackathons to UMBC’s campus.

She is passionate about helping others learn, and exploring other cultures and the experiences that shape people into who they presently are.

Deborah Bryant (Senior Director of Open Source and Standards, Red Hat)

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Deborah Bryant, Senior Director of Open Source and Standards at Red Hat. Deborah is an acknowledged international expert in the adoption and use of open source software and open development models as well as open source community health. Her personal interests include the ethical use of AI and Machine Learning as well as industry accountability for use of personal information.

Prior to her deep involvement in open source, Deborah helped build Oregon emerging technology start-up; parallel and high-speed computing and commercialized internet and web applications in the 80s, commercial wide area networks, advanced telecommunications and data/voice convergence in the 90s.

Deborah’s public sector background includes ten years in state government; as a civil servant in Oregon’s executive branch as Deputy State CIO; in public office as an elected official in coastal Oregon; at Oregon State University building the Open Source Lab.

Deborah serves on numerous boards with a public trust agenda and an emphasis on open source software as enabling technology. She currently serves as Board Adviser for the Open Source Elections Technology (OSET) Foundation and is Board Director Emeritus for Open Source Initiative (OSI), the international standards organization for open source software.

She has authored and contributed to numerous published studies related to open source in the public sector, the adaptation of new collaborative models for economic development, and the use of open source software in the US energy sector for cybersecurity.

Deborah received the prestigious industryOpen Source Award in 2010 in recognition of her contribution to open source communities and for her pioneering advocacy of the use of open source software in the public sector.

Dr. Andrew Maynard (Director, School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Arizona State University)

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Dr. Andrew Maynard is Director, Risk Innovation Lab, School for the Future of Innovation in Society Professor, School for the Future of Innovation in Society at the University of Arizona, and Senior Sustainability Scholar, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability. The Risk Innovation Lab at Arizona State University is a unique center focused on transforming how we think about and act on risk, in the pursuit of increasing and maintaining “value”.

He was previously Chair of the Environmental Health Sciences Department in the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Maynard’s research and professional activities focus on risk innovation, and the responsible development and use of emerging technologies, including nanotechnology and synthetic biology. He is widely published, has testified before congressional committees, has served on National Academy panels and serves on the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Technology, Values and Policy.

Maynard writes widely on the intersection between emerging technologies and society, including regular articles on the news website The Conversation and is the author of, Films from the Future. Courses taught by Maynard have included risk assessment, risk innovation, science communication, risk and the future, environmental health policy, and entrepreneurial ethics. He also lectures widely on technology innovation and responsible development. Maynard a well-known science communicator, and works closely with and through conventional and new media to connect with audiences around the world on technology innovation and the science or risk. He is the creator of the YouTube channel Risk Bites, and blogs at 2020science.org. His Twitter handle is @2020science. Maynard is currently working on the book The Moviegoer’s Guide to the Future.

John Su (VP & Founding Director, Hyundai CRADLE, Hyundai Motor Group)

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John Suh is the Vice President & Founding Director, Hyundai CRADLE, Hyundai Motor Group of Hyundai Ventures, which focuses on making strategic investments and business partnerships in the United States for the Hyundai Motor Group.

Prior to joining Hyundai, John worked at General Motors, Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), and several Silicon Valley startups where he had roles in corporate investing, product management, and R&D. John has a BS degree in electrical engineering from Kettering University as well as MS and PhD degrees in mechanical engineering from Stanford University.

John has numerous technical publications and has 5 patents and patents pending in the fields of robotics, artificial nose technology, and location based services. Read more about John HERE.

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Richard Velazquez (International Marketing - Alexa at Amazon)

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Richard Velazquez is a nationally recognized leader in the Hispanic community and in business. Velazquez leads international marketing for Amazon Alexa for Latin America and Australia/New Zealand, and the Smart TV segment. Prior to this, Velazquez was the Global Head of Denon at Sound United, an automotive designer, President of the National Society of Hispanic MBAs (NSHMBA) Seattle Chapter,^[1] Sr. Global Product Planner / Product Manager for Xbox with the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, and an executive at PepsiCo leading Emerging Technologies and Innovations in Marketing and Global R&D. He was recognized in October 2000 as the 1st Puerto Rican automotive designer for Porsche in Germany.

Velazquez began his career as an automotive designer for Honda R&D Americas, Inc. followed by Porsche AG in Stuttgart, Germany.^[6] After receiving his MBA, he switched industries and careers, focusing on marketing and Product Planning beginning with Procter & Gamble in Puerto Rico, followed by Microsoft and PepsiCo.

Tony O’Driscoll (Global Head, Duke CE Labs Lecture Fellow, The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University)

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Tony O’Driscoll is Global Head of DukeCE Labs and Lecture Fellow at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. This dual role affords Tony the opportunity to operate at the intersection of cutting-edge academic research in business and the design of groundbreaking development interventions that get leadership ready for what’s next.

During his 18-year corporate career, Tony held several strategic leadership positions. He was a founding member of IBM Global Service’s Strategy and Change consulting practice where he consulted at the highest level with business executives on creating sustainable competitive advantage in an increasingly global, networked and knowledge-enabled economy. He also served as a member IBM’s Almaden Services Research group where he investigated the changing roles of leadership, innovation, and collaboration as enterprises become more global, virtual, open and digitally mediated. At both IBM and Nortel Networks, Tony had responsibility for crafting and implementing learning and human performance strategies at the enterprise-level.

Tony has authored and co-authored articles for business periodicals such as Harvard Business Review, The Financial Times, Strategy and Business, CLO Magazine and Dialogue. He also writes a regular column for Training Magazine entitled“ Learning Matters.” Tony has also published two books on Organization Performance and Learning: Achieving Desired Business Performance, and Learning in 3D: Adding a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning and Collaboration.

Dr. O’Driscoll serves on the faculty of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and previously served on the faculty of North Carolina State University’s Poole College of Management. At Fuqua, Tony played a key role in redesigning the Cross Continent MBA (CCMBA) program and served as Executive Director of Fuqua’s Center for Technology Entertainment and Media (CTEM), a research center dedicated to understanding the strategic, structural, and business-model issues with these vibrant and volatile industry sectors. At Poole, Tony was a founding member of NCSU’s Technology, Education, and Commercialization (TEC) Program established to educate graduate engineering and management students in the areas of new product and service development via the incubation and commercialization of emerging technologies.

Dr. O’Driscoll has authored and co-authored articles for academic journals such as Management and Information Sciences Quarterly, Journal of Management Information Systems, Performance Improvement Quarterly, and the Journal of Product Innovation Management.

Tony’s current research and practice examines how emerging technologies are rapidly disrupting existing industry structures and business models. He is focusing specifically on how to develop leadership systems that enable organizations to adapt and evolve in increasingly unpredictable and turbulent business environments.

Ed Maguire (Research Principal, SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc.)

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Ed Maguire brings more than 17 years of Wall Street experience in equity research and investment banking to his role as Insights Partner at Momenta Partners, with deep domain expertise in enterprise software. He has proven success identifying strategic opportunities and articulating actionable insights based on rigorous analysis of technology, operations, competition and markets.

Most recently he was Senior Analyst and Managing Director at CLSA Americas, LLC, covering the software industry, technology and innovation. Prior roles include CEO of strategic consultancy firm MAGNet Strategies, Director at Merrill Lynch’s technology investment banking group, Senior Director at Merrill Lynch’s equity research department, and Research Associate at CIBC World Markets.

Prior to Wall Street, he was Senior Sales Manager for Twinbrook Music Distribution and worked extensively performing and recording as a professional musician. Mr. Maguire holds a B.A. in music from Columbia University and an MBA in finance and management information systems from Rutgers Business School. He has appeared extensively in major media including CNBC, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, BNN, NPR and other outlets.

Johannes Winkelhage (Head of Think Tank, Corporate Office, Deutsche Telekom AG)

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Johannes Winkelhage has been a technology enthusiast since the 80s and was – as a journalist – heavily involved in the beginnings of the Internet.

His first e-mail address was s=ext/winkelhage ou=kmx P=gmd a=dbp c=de (X.400 standard) and he paid a fortune for his first computer and the access to the evolving WWW. During the first ten years of his career, he worked as a freelance journalist for magazines, press agencies and all nationwide German daily newspapers.

In 1996, he became business editor at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. From here he covered the rise of the Internet and the disruptive changes in telecommunications coming along with the digital revolution. He was also responsible for the newspaper coverage of the World Economic Forum in Davos for almost 10 years. In 2009, he joined Deutsche Telekom and heads a small Think Tank located in the CEO’s office. The unit is responsible for special projects including the annual CEO-Conference called “24 Hours”.

Joyce J. Shen (Investment Director and Operating Partner, Tenfore Holdings)

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Joyce Shen is a business executive, investor, and educator in emerging technologies and innovation. She is also a published author, public speaker, board member, and entrepreneur. Her books include From Talking to Doing: A Short Guide to Corporate Innovation Success and The Promises and Limitations of Blockchain.

Joyce is the investment director and operating partner at Tenfore Holdings where she invests in enterprise software, big data, and emerging technologies. Joyce is also an adjunct faculty of data science at UC Berkeley where she teaches applications of machine learning and AI in product development and innovation. She previously guest lectured on blockchain and innovation at University of Oxford.

Previously, Joyce was the global managing director of emerging technologies and venture investments in the CTO office at Thomson Reuters where she built and led global emerging technology group and the corporate venture fund. During her tenure, she led new technology strategy and product innovations in fintech, IoT, and emerging data solutions, established the global blockchain program, and made strategic investments in early-stage technology companies in big data and AI, digital identity, blockchain, and alternative data.

Prior to Thomson Reuters, Joyce was the founding global CFO of IBM Cloud Platform and managed $1B P&L. She also spent several years in IBM Corporate Development leading acquisitions and divestitures exceeding $6B in total transaction value.

Joyce received her undergraduate and masters degrees from the University of Chicago.

Chick Foxgrover (EVP, Creative Technologies & Innovation at 4A's)

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Chick Foxgrover leads the outreach to digital professionals in advertising, focusing on the discovery of important advances in digital marketing technology and practices. He also develops digital strategy for the 4A’s, overseeing the management of the association’s important knowledge assets and serves 4A’s members with digital insights and best practices.

Foxgrover joined the association in 2008 as Senior Vice President, Chief Technology Officer, with responsibility for information technology, digital strategy and practice as well as overseeing the upgrade and modernization of the association’s technology and digital presence.

He brought together the expanding community of creative and digital technologists with the creation of the 4A’s Creative Technology Committee and in 2011, spearheaded the launch of CreateTech, the premier annual conference focused on the rapidly advancing field of creative technology. Foxgrover also speaks at other technology conferences and works with technology and future-oriented organizations on behalf of the association and the industry.

Previous to joining the 4A’s, Foxgrover was senior vice president and managing director of Interactive, Wechsler Ross & Partners; vice president and director of Creative Technologies, Foote Cone & Belding, New York; and manager of Desktop Publishing Technologies for Citibank. He also cofounded Foxpath IND, a digital publishing consultancy.

Victoria Yampolsky (CFA, President and Founder of The Startup Station)

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Victoria Yampolsky, CFA, is President and Founder of The Startup Station, an educational and consulting company for modeling and valuing early-stage startups. Victoria helps early-stage founders master the necessary finance skills to evaluate the financial feasibility of their business models, translate them into comprehensive and actionable financial plans, and use those plans to gauge the effectiveness of their strategy as they plan for the launch of and launch their companies. In 2015 she launched The Startup Station’s educational program. Since then, more than 1,000 founders have completed the curriculum and learned the basics of financial modeling, valuation, and startup financing.

Victoria is an advisor to DreaMe, Opkix, and Stringflix, as well as a founder of several ventures in media and entertainment. Previously, Victoria worked for Deutsche Bank and was a technology consultant with CapGemini’s Financial Services Division. Victoria holds a Bachelor’s Degree, Cum Laude, in Computer Science, with a minor in Mathematics, from Cornell University and an MBA, with honors, from Columbia Business School. Victoria is also on the Advisory Board of the Computing and Information Science (CIS) Department of Cornell University.

Ariel Conn (Director of Communications/Outreach and Weapons Policy Advisor, Future of Life Institute)

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Ariel Conn is the Director of Media and Outreach for the Future of Life Institute, where she leads collaborations with various organizations and oversees outreach and communication efforts. Her work covers a range of fields, including the safety of artificial intelligence (AI), AI policy, autonomous weapons, nuclear weapons, biotechnology, and climate change. She’s recently focused on bridging the gap between technical experts and policy makers, both in the U. S. and internationally, and she has presented on the floor of the United Nations.

She holds a B.A. in English, a B.S. in physics, and an M.S. in geophysics, and she has nearly two decades of experience mixing advertising, marketing, and scientific research. She’s worked with NASA, the Idaho National Laboratory, the National Energy Technology Laboratory, MIT, and Virginia Tech.

Dr. Lorien Pratt (Chief Scientist & Cofounder, Quantellia)

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Dr. Lorien Pratt (Chief Scientist & Cofounder, Quantellia, LLC, Author of Link: How Decision Intelligence Connects Data, Actions, and Outcomes for a Better World) has been delivering machine learning solutions for her clients for over 30 years, including the Human Genome Project, SAP, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the US Department of Energy, and the Administrative Office of the US Courts.

Having led the teams that invented Transfer Learning and Decision Intelligence (DI), she is recognized as a leading innovator by the Women Inventors and Innovator’s Project. Pratt also authored dozens of academic papers, has been on multiple program committees for NIPS and NSF, was guest editor for the journals Machine Learning and Connection Science, wrote a chapter in The People Centered Economy, and co-edited the book: Learning to Learn with Sebastian Thrun.

As chief scientist and co-founder of Quantellia, Pratt speaks worldwide today, has given two TEDx talks, appeared as a keynote speaker at MCubed and was featured on public radio’s Marketplace and TechNation. Her next book, Link: How Decision Intelligence Connects Data, Actions, and Outcomes for a Better World, was published by Emerald earlier this year.  Pratt’s company also co-sponsors the Responsible AI/DI Summit, and she blogs at www.lorienpratt.com.

Twitter: @LorienPratt LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/lorienpratt/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/lorien.pratt

Anne T. Griffin (Chief Product & Curriculum Officer)

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Anne Griffin is a product professional that built her product management career working with organizations such as Microsoft, Comcast, Mercedes-Benz, and Priceline. Anne’s technical foundation stems from her engineering degree from the University of Michigan. She is passionate about the practical human aspects of technology and building products with emerging and disruptive technologies, such as AI and blockchain, rooted in the realities of the human experience. Additionally, she serves on the Advisory Board for the Rutgers University Big Data Certificate program, and has guest lectured at Columbia University, Morgan State University and the University of Montreal on blockchain. She teaches her own course on Business Applications of Blockchain through O’Reilly Media. Outside of her work, Anne is a voracious learner, frequent traveler, and seriously committed to her self-care.

Meg Charles-Horn (Founder, Frame Advisory, LLC, Angel Investor)

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Meg Charles is an Ideator, Global Corporate Attorney, Angel Investor, Start-Up Board Director/Advisor with expertise in telecoms and technology enabled services. She synthesizes 20 years of legal knowledge, global management/leadership experience with business acumen to offer strategic business guidance, creative solutions, access to seed funding networks, and mentoring to early-stage global start-up clients and technology entrepreneurs. With experience living and working in the UK, India, Sweden and the Philippines, over the last 10 years, she brings a global perspective vital to successfully creating and leading virtual, cross-cultural teams, risk management, fundraising, corporate governance and Board/Investor relations. Meg’s “secret sauce” is her incisive focus and ability to break out of boxes to forge alliances that move beyond the constraints of gender, race, nationality or professional titles working across cultures usually dominated by men. She is expert at converting doubters into believers by finding the right combination of tools and tactics to help clients communicate their goals and strategies for success effectively.

Strategic Guidance & Coaching

Using her FRAME® System, Meg helps start-up and entrepreneurs develop roadmaps for success in one-on-one mentoring sessions, small group sprints, and extended workshops.

Seed Investing

Meg works with clients to prepare for fundraising by developing financing strategies, pitch decks and pitch preparation.

Risk Management

An investor and lawyer who’s been on both sides of the table, Meg helps clients avoid legal pitfalls, brand reputation missteps, and corporate governance blunders that can complicate funding and adversely impact valuation.
Make Connections/Create Networks

Community is vital when starting a new business or making a career transition. Meg helps her clients connect with the people who can ensure they’ll meet their strategic and funding goals

Reid Blackman, Ph.D. (Founder & CEO, Virtue, Senior Advisor, Member of AI Advisory Board, EY)

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Reid Blackman was gripped by ethical problems the first semester of his first year in college over 20 years ago. Countless hours later, after reading, arguing, and teaching about ethics, he’s still hungry for more. While his early research concerned issues largely contained within the ivory tower, his research has become increasingly action-orientated, particularly as it concerns the ethics of emerging technologies and institutions like governments and corporations.

Reid is a Senior Advisor to Ernst & Young and is a Founding Member of EY’s AI Advisory Board. He also sits on the committee for “Methods to Guide Ethical Research and Design” for the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems and is a member of the European Union Artificial Intelligence Alliance. He has taught at Northwestern University, the University of Texas in Austin, the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and Colgate University. When he isn’t doing ethics you can find him with his wife and children, unless there’s rock climbing to be done.

THE VIRTUE NETWORK

The Virtue Network is comprised of over 60 professional ethicists from all over the world, including the United Kingdom, Brazil, Australia, Canada, Italy, India, Spain, Germany, Sweden, and China. An astounding 68% of the team has a Ph.D. and 21% hold Master’s degrees. Members of the team actively do research and publish on artificial intelligence, biotechnologies, medical ethics, robotics, gender, race, finance, business ethics, social and political philosophy, psychology, the mind, the law, and well-being.

Brett T. Williams (Major General, USAF (Retired), Chief Operating Officer IronNet Cybersecurity, Inc.)

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Brett Williams is a co-founder and the Chief Operating Officer at IronNet Cybersecurity. IronNet delivers the power of collective cybersecurity to defend companies, sectors and nations. Their advanced cyber detection solution leverages behavioral analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning to protect against the most advanced threats. As COO, Brett supports strategic planning, leads execution against Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), evaluates corporate performance metrics, drives leader development and handles special projects for the CEO.

During his time as an Air Force General Officer, Brett served in four senior executive leadership positions. As the Director of Operations (J3) at U.S. Cyber Command, he led a team of 400 people responsible for the global operations and defense of all DOD networks as well as the planning and execution of authorized offensive operations. Prior to this position, he served as Director of Operations (A3O), U.S. Air Force, where he led the largest Air Staff directorate consisting of more than 1300 Airmen and civilians stationed world-wide. In this role, he developed and justified the operations component of the annual $120B Air Force budget. General Williams also served as the Director of Communications (J6) for U.S. Pacific Command. His 150-person directorate executed an annual budget of $57M and was responsible for the design, implementation and operation of all command and control networks supporting DOD’s largest geographic warfighting command. Finally, as the Inspector General for Air Combat Command, he led the inspection, audit and compliance process for all U.S based combat flying organizations.

Operationally, General Williams led a variety of large, complex organizations ranging in size from 300 to over 9000 personnel. In his most significant leadership position as 18^th Wing Commander in Okinawa, Japan, he led the largest combat wing in the Air Force. General Williams was responsible for relationships with Japanese political and business leaders in a highly volatile community environment. He executed an annual budget in excess of $100M to support a community of over 25,000 U.S. service members, their families and Japanese employees. In this significant leadership role, he delivered success across a wide variety of mission areas to include aircraft operations, aircraft maintenance, logistics, civil engineering, security and policing, community support, human resources, financial management and medical services. Brett is an F-15C fighter pilot with over 28 years of flying experience, including more than 100 combat missions.

Brett is a highly regarded keynote speaker, leadership mentor, and cybersecurity expert. He has appeared several times on national television, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee and is a sought-after subject matter expert. Brett has served as a faculty member with the National Association of Corporate Directors Board Advisory Services and teaching board-level cyber-risk seminars. He has served on the Defense Science Board as well as a variety of corporate advisory boards. Brett holds a BS in Computer Science from Duke University and three graduate degrees in management and national security studies.

John Pavley (SVP Software Engineering, Viacom)

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John Pavley is a technology leader with over two decades of experience in mobile, web, server, and desktop applications. Pavley rode the personal computer wave from the first graphical user interfaces to the World Wide Web to the on-going mobile metamorphosis. Along that way he has worked with some of the greatest people at many of the most innovative companies on earth: Apple, DoubleClick, Yahoo!, LimeWire, Spotify, Huffington Post, and currently Viacom. Pavley is also an Adjunct Instructor at NYU.

Pavley has led teams at startups, tech companies, and media companies. He has led the design and development of award winning products, such as Apple’s ClarisWorks for Kids, DoubleClick’s DART5, Spotify’s streaming radio service, and HuffPost’s verified identify. But his absolute favorite thing to do is to recruit and lead product development teams with an insanely productive agile processes and world-class teams.

Right now Pavley is obsessed with functional programming, getting more kids into coding, how mobile transforms (and keeps transforming) everything, and Apple’s new programming lingo Swift.

As VP of Digital Media at GV, Katie Bofshever crafts innovative and creative solutions for the digital space, specializing in minority consumers.

Read John’s blog post: The Voices of Software Development

Upskilling America Think Tank Talking Points

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Companies are spending billions to upskill their workforce for jobs of the future, but what ARE the jobs of the future and how can companies know that they are training employees for skills that will be truly relevant in 3-5 years?
What are skills of the future and how can organizations and employees keep up with changes in skills required for jobs that are rapidly changing (to stay competitive)?
What does the latest labor market research tell us about the state of companies and employees (opportunities and warning signs)?
How can companies build a “culture of opportunity” within their organization to tap into their current talent pool and to support promoting employees within the company (rather than seeking talent outside of the company) and to foster high performance and growth?
How can employees learn to become better at choosing new jobs that are more in line with who they and their personal life goals?
How might the massive changes to the workforces impact the gig economy and startups?
Are upskilling initiatives solving the diversity and inclusion problem in technology or are they excaserbating it?
What will the impact of an “upskilling crisis” be on the innovation economy if employers fail to reskill employees at a rate that can meet market demands?
How should companies speak to employees about the future of work and are they having substantive and honest conversations about it now?
How will the potential of a coming recession impact the upskilling iniatives of companies and what should employees now to prepare for it?
Companies are reskilling/upskilling for technical positions, but what about the leadership shortage looming? Are companies investing in leadership training for employees as well? Should they?
How should companies align purpose with profit in their upskilling initiatives (Business Roundtable CEOs Letter)
How are upskilling initiatives changing the generational divide in companies (are concessions being address the needs of various generations)?
How do employers think differently about reskilling compared to how employees think about reskilling? Are companies considering the feedback of employees when developing reskilling programs?
Research on the impact of automation on jobs in New York City.
What and where are the entrepreneurial opportunities for people who want to provide solutions to corporate upskilling initiatives? How open to outside training are companies now (versus just a few years ago)?
Should companies dedicate a c-level role for upskilling?
What about the ethics of automation? What should companies and the government do when workers become disiplaced?
What can we learn from other nations struggling to upskill their workforce?
Once they are upskilled, are these jobs going to be enough to keep employees engaged? According Gallop’s State of the Global Workplace report, 85% of employees are not engaged or actively disengaged at work.
Which companies are having early success with their retraining programs (like Accenture’s AI Job Buddy and Amazon’s Upskill 2025 “inclusive capitalism“?
How can companies build a culture of continuous employee learning and development that supports employees developing their own upskilling path that may differ from the organization?
What is the measure of success for upskilling programs if we can’t know what the jobs are that will need to be filled?
How can local governments, institutions and companies work together to develop new, successful models of higher learning and workforce retraining that’s like the “Communiversity” in Mississipi?
What happens when companies don’t know what employees can or can’t do? How can they address the growing skills gap (which grew by double digits from 2018-2019)?

Lauren Weber (Reporter, The Wall Street Journal)

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I write about employment and workplace issues for The Wall Street Journal, with a special interest in stories relating to job security, compensation, the bonds between employers and workers, and the intersection between big economic trends and the on-the-ground practices of employers.

In 2017, I wrote “Contracted,” a series of stories about the evolution of contracting and contingent work. It showed how companies are relying on non-employees for more and more work, including core functions. See below for the link to the first article, “The End of Employees.”

I arrived at The Wall Street Journal in 2011 after a stint as a private investigator.

I’ve also been a staff reporter at Reuters and Newsday, and my freelance work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and other newspapers. I’m the author of In Cheap We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue (2009), a cultural history of frugality and cheapness in the United States.

Leslie Short (President & CEO, The Cavu Group)

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Leslie Short brings four decades of experience when she created The Cavu Group to focus on Diversity & Inclusion in an effort to facilitate and create new solutions to old and new issues. Her talents and skills are uniquely designed to seek growth through open conversations, conflict coaching, trainings and workshops. She firmly believes that issues don’t go away because programs are in place but by continually evolving and having a channel to listen and understand the people who are our greatest assets. Her focus is to expand your current company culture!

A dynamic, accomplished Head of Operations/ Diversity & Inculsion highly regarded for 20+ years of progressive experience leading organizations by delivering growth and cutting-edge strategies for startups and large corporations. Known for driving the continuous improvement of key business systems, processes and people through innovative direct approaches. Proven track record of building and maintaining lasting relationships, managing successful projects through both a business and creative perspective. Respected as a motivational, influential leader and collaborator who guides team members in realizing company objectives. Out-of-the-box, analytic thinker with an extensive understanding of international cultures committed to minimizing costs and maximizing productivity.

In 2000, I launched K.I.M Media LLC, a successful multi-media agency specializing in providing creative branding, events, design and wedding services for sports, entertainment and luxury lifestyle clients. In this role, I have designed and produced events/weddings while also delivering strategic branding and marketing consultations. I also established Ascend Bereavement Management in 2012 focusing on alleviating families’ burdens by delivering funeral/bereavement assistance. mediation and conflict coaching.

Neil Redding (Executive Technologist, Digital Futures Strategist)

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Neil Redding is a technologist, strategist and catalyst with an extensive background as an experience-focused software engineer and emerging technology pacesetter. His current focus is on the unfolding convergence of digital and physical, and the implications and opportunities this trend engenders for humanity.

Neil co-founded and edits the publication Near Future of Retail, which explores, informs and prescribes action for all brands through the lens of the current deconstruction and reconstruction of Retail in all its dimensions.

He has held leadership roles at Mediacom, Proximity/BBDO, Gensler and ThoughtWorks, and delivered an extensive range of project work for clients including Visa, Nike, Cadillac, Macy’s, NBA, Verizon, TED, The Economist, MoMA, Converse, Morgan Stanley, Apple, Oracle, Financial Times, and Fidelity Investments.

He has also spoken at numerous conferences including infoComm, CreateTech, SEGD XLab, A.R.E. Shoptalk, Creative Technology Week, Design+AI and VRevolution.

Rich Mokuolu (Co-founder & CEO at Partsimony)

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Rich Mokuolu’s passion for inventing and tinkering was ignited at an early age, when he attached some wires to a battery and a lightbulb and lit up his childhood bedroom for the first time. It also happened to be around the time he saw the movie Flubber, so it’s safe to say his fate was sealed.

Rich has a patent related to the military space and has experienced how difficult it is to get the products he’d spent years developing and prototyping actually made- this led to the creation of Partsimony with his twin brother, Roland.

Rich has worked on numerous critical global supply chain initiatives across various multi-billion dollar industrial companies in the Aviation, Oil & Gas, Locomotive, and Renewable Energy sectors. He advises on hardware-related inventions and can be found doodling designs for new product ideas in his (non-existent) free time.

Roland Mokuolu (Co-founder & COO at Partsimony)

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Roland Mokuolu, alongside his twin brother, Rich, spent his formative years taking things apart, so he could put them back together. While studying Civil Engineering at Georgia Tech, Roland discovered that his passion extended beyond inventing and innovating—he loved helping others access resources and training to enable them to bring their ideas to life as well.

Roland has a degree in Civil Engineering from Georgia Tech. He’s worked on several large-scale mergers and acquisitions and strategic refinancing as an Assistant Vice President for a bulge bracket investment bank in New York City. As Partsimony’s COO, Roland is focused on the internal operations and growth of the company.

Roland passionately believes that everyone is born with the ability to create something incredible, and that it takes a group of people working in tandem to introduce a truly timeless and impactful innovation to the world. This drive purpose motivates him out of bed every morning, and fuels his work at Partsimony.

Samara Karasyk (Interim President & Chief Policy Officer Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce)

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Samara Karasyk is the Chief Policy Officer at the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, where she oversees their policy agenda, legislative and intergovernmental affairs, marketing, and public relations. Before her work at the Chamber, Samara worked for the government of New York City for many years. She began her public service career at the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation working on workforce development and job readiness training, later moving to the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission to focus on transportation policy and constituent affairs. She then handled intergovernmental affairs at the NYC Department of Transportation. Between 2011 and 2017, Samara was Assistant Commissioner of External Affairs at the NYC Department of Finance, managing all public affairs for the organization.

Samara has a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Hispanic Studies from Brown University and a Master of Public Administration from Columbia University. She lives in Brooklyn with her family and loves living here and working with the people and businesses of this dynamic borough.

Christopher Wilczewski (Product Design Account Manager, FARO)

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Christopher Wilczewski started consulting on technology solutions in 1999 ranging from IT, Electronics Development, Construction Technologies and Industrial Design, he brings a unique perspective and voice to the FARO team. Christopher continues to push the boundaries of FARO to find new value for their customers. He has been instrumental to the growth of organizations investing in 3D Capture technologies through a range of industries and constantly looking for new ways to disrupt others.

Christopher shares some of his time outside of work engaging in his new home town of Providence and Rhode Island College’s efforts to support STEM at Middle and High School levels.

a Virtual Panel hosted by Lair East and Tech 2025

About the Panel

EVENT SPEAKERS

Alexandros LouizosVascular Surgeon | AI Entrepreneur

Babak HodjatVP of Evolutionary AI | Cognizant

Charlie OliverFounder/CEO, Tech 2025

PRODUCED BY

Alexandros Louizos
Vascular Surgeon | AI Entrepreneur

Babak Hodjat
VP of Evolutionary AI | Cognizant

Charlie Oliver
Founder/CEO, Tech 2025