Dr. Jennifer Prendke

Machine Learning & MLOps

Dr. Jennifer Prendki is an AI entrepreneur and a leading ML scientist with an expertise in Machine Learning lifecycle management, data preparation and Active Learning. As the CEO and founder of Alectio, she currently focuses on building more sustainable, cost-efficient and responsible ways to build ML algorithms. She is the inventor of multiple processes supporting the automated creation and optimization of a training dataset during the process of training, which are game-changing for the robotics and IoT industries.

She has been a speaker at events including ODSC, O'Reilly Strata Data, MLWorld, AINextCon, Data Council, Silicon Angle Cube, Women in Analytics, Global Big Data Conferences, IDEAS to name just a few; she is also a regular guest speakers at some of the best research institutions such as Stanford School of Engineering and Berkeley. She received her PhD in Particle Physics from Sorbonne University in 2009 and has since then worked as a data scientist for many different industries.

She was the Chief Data Scientist at Atlassian's where she built the first centralized Machine Learning function from scratch and ran the Search & Smarts team, a cross-functional team in charge of developing all Machine Learning-powered features for all Atlassian products. Later, she joined Figure Eight to build up their technology department and was instrumental in their $300M acquisition by Appen. She is particularly skilled at building and scaling high-performance Machine Learning teams, and is known for enjoying a good challenge. Trained as a particle physicist, she likes to use her analytical mind not only when building complex models, but also as part of her leadership philosophy.

Reginald Swift

Healthcare

Reginald Swift is the founder and CEO of Rubix LS, using innovation at a greater scale to change how health outcomes can be realized through patient product and service innovation. With a background in mechanical engineering, many of the research pursuits also involve the development of regenerative metals to target specific diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis for Myelin regeneration, ALS, PLS, PKAN, and much more (with a rare and infectious disease focus).

Reginald is a kinesthetic entrepreneur who has 16 years of mechanical engineering experience from a research, academic, and industry based perspective in a multi-variate forms of functions. Reginald is a native of Florida and holds a bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering, Summa Cum Laude, from Florida International University, and a minor in Entrepreneurial Strategies. He is currently in pursuit of his PhD in molecular mechanical engineering, with a concentration in regenerative material molecularity, in Boston where he currently resides.

He has mentored and supported various startup and mid-size organizations from MIT, Harvard Medical School, Georgia Tech, Stanford, UCLA, USF, Georgetown, and more in the realm of engineering, biological engineering, virological engineering, software development, and more.

Fiona Harvey

Strategy and Marketing

Fiona is a CIM qualified marketer with extensive global experience in education marketing and international strategy developed through leading global marketing teams, general management roles and consultancy work. Fiona is Singapore based as the global head of marketing for a leading provider of international education.

Previous roles have seen Fiona run her own consultancy practice advising global clients on strategy, marketing and customer experience to attain 20%+ revenue growth. Fiona has developed teams to double revenue, drive growth and deliver customer retention of 98% as well as leading digital transformation projects. Beyond this she has led business units in Poland, Russia, the Gulf and India where she was responsible for emerging markets strategy and organizational growth targets of 15%.

Fiona holds a BA(Hons) in Management and French, a Licence en Sciences de Gestion and has lived in the UK, France, India, Australia and Singapore.

John Christman

Surveillance and Security

John R. Christman is a security management executive with 20+ years of experience in global security strategies, risk management, executive protection and counterintelligence operations spanning a “Fortune Magazine Top 10” globally managed health care company, a leading pharmaceutical and agro-chemical company and a federal law enforcement agency tasked with the protection of the President of the United States.

As Vice President – Global Security Operations, at UnitedHealth Group and where John has served since August, 2018, he is responsible for leading the enterprise’s Global Security Operations team comprising of the implementation and management of global security procedures and technologies that protect and support the company’s facilities, data, brand reputation and 335,000+ personnel located across the global enterprise. Concurrent with this role, John leads governance over the company’s global physical security protection strategies, visitor and employee access management programs, security technology, risk and threat management programs, global contract security guard program, security integration of acquired business entities and the Global Security Operations Center with its global regional hubs within Brazil and India.

Prior to his tenure with UnitedHealth Group, John served 4 years as an Associate Director - U.S. Corporate Security, at Bayer where he was responsible for managing and providing direction to site and business senior leadership regarding physical security operations, security policy development, crisis management, contract security force management, biosecurity initiatives, criminal/compliance investigations and workplace violence prevention training initiatives. From 2016-2018, John led physical security change management, regarding the company’s divestment of over $9 billion in assets, in furtherance of the 2018 integration of Bayer’s $66 billion acquisition of U.S.-based Monsanto. Prior to his tenure with Bayer, John served 16 years with the United States Secret Service, under both the U.S. Department of Treasury and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, with increasing supervisory responsibilities. John served as a Special Agent assigned to the Newark, NJ Field Office, FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, Protective Intelligence Division, Presidential Protective Division and the Washington, DC Field Office. John served on President George W. Bush, First Lady Laura Bush and President Barack Obama’s personal protective details, from 2004-2009, as a member of the Presidential Protective Division while participating in the security arrangements for Presidential travel in over 50 countries, to include two Olympic Games. John coordinated several high-level intelligence and security activities during National Special Security Events, managed the U.S. Secret Service Director’s Crisis Center and the agency’s Protective Intelligence Operations Center and was selected to develop security policy changes as a member of the White House Security Enhancement Review Committee. John received recognition awards for his investigative efforts into the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York, NY, the G8 Sea Island World Leaders Summit, and counterintelligence and Presidential threat investigations within Baghdad, Iraq.

Joanna Catalano

Growth and Market Entry Strategy

Joanna Catalano is an accomplished leader in growing and scaling businesses, building customer relationships and leading multidisciplinary teams. She acquired a depth of expertise in commercial and digital transformation, new business development, leading teams that built bespoke digital products, and outcome-led application of data and analytics, while working cross-culturally in America, EMEA and APAC.

Joanna commenced her career in economic development partnering with the Ukrainian government on market reform education and micro-lending for female start-ups, as Ukraine transitioned to a capitalist economy. Witnessing disruption at such a significant scale piqued a curiosity both in human and systemic behavior and change that has since guided her professional journey. Over the last 20 years, she’s gathered a holistic view of B2C and B2B businesses, having spent time working brand-side, for technology platforms and software businesses, as well as leading services businesses.

Her passion as a people-leader, and focus on people as an organization's most important asset, has guided repeated success in executive and leadership roles.

At Piano.io, a SaaS business focused on customer journey orchestration and analytics, she’s built a new function to drive a growth strategy rooted in product, industry vertical and partnership expansion.

As CEO of iProspect Asia Pacific, a digital marketing agency of $500+M billings operating across 14 countries with a 1000+ employee base, she re-positioned the brand for a second wave of growth, acquired four new businesses and achieved double-digit revenue and profit growth for three consecutive years. Her comprehensive people strategy improved employee satisfaction significantly.

At Google, she built the inaugural go-to-market function focused on growing product share of revenue and inked large annual deals with blue chip brands like Hilton, P&G, Citibank, Expedia and many others.

At American Express and Starwood Hotels, she worked with executive sponsors on strategic change initiatives to increase revenue and c-sat.

Dr. Nick Jennings:

Professor Nick Jennings is Vice-Chancellor and President of Loughborough University. Previously, Professor Jennings was the Vice-Provost for Research and Enterprise at Imperial College London, the UK Government’s first Chief Scientific Advisor for National Security, and Regius Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton.

An internationally recognised authority in the areas of AI, autonomous systems, cybersecurity, and agent-based computing, prof. Nick is involved with several start-ups. His personal research focuses on developing AI systems for large-scale, open and dynamic environments. In particular, he is interested in how to endow individual autonomous agents with the ability to act and interact in flexible ways and with effectively engineering systems that contain both humans and software agents. He is passionate about the real-world impact of research and has been involved with deployments of systems in domains such as business process management, smart energy systems, defence, telecommunications, sensor networks, disaster response and citizen science.

Nick is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the British Computer Society, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB), the Royal Society of the Arts, the City and Guilds of London Institute, the German AI Institute (DFKI) and the European Artificial Intelligence Association and a member of Academia Europaea.

Dr. Hugh Durrant-Whyte

Hugh is a world-leading authority on machine learning and robotics, and applications in areas including cargo handling, mining, and defence. He is also one of the early pioneers of probabilistic robot navigation and SLAM.

Hugh is currently NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer and on leave as a Professor at the University of Sydney. From 2017-18 he was Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Ministry of Defence, from 2010-2015, he was CEO of National ICT Australia (NICTA), from 1995-2010 Director of the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR) and of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems (CAS), and from 1986-1995 a Lecturer at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Oriel College.

In his career Hugh has worked with many major companies and has co-founded three successful start-up companies. He has published over 350 research papers and won numerous awards and prizes for his work, including being named the 2010 NSW Scientist of the Year. Hugh is an honorary fellow of the Institute of Engineers Australia (HonFIEAus), a fellow of the IEEE (FIEEE), of the, of the Australian Academy of Science (FAA), Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) and of the Royal Society of London (FRS).