Ignas Mociunas

Independent Data & AI Solutions Expert

Ignas Mociunas is a seasoned Data, AI, Product & Delivery Lead with 13 years of experience in data platforms, data-as-a-product, B2B SaaS, and DS/ML.  Throughout his career, Ignas worked on hands-on implementations across multiple industries, from NLP startups and process automation to leading data teams and setting data governance in e-commerce, or supporting AI transformation in InsurTech, Logistics and Manufacturing. Ignas believes his superpower is system-thinking: bringing structure to chaos, and connecting people, processes and technology to deliver solutions that solve most critical business problems.

Philippe Höij

Co-Founder at Twinfox.ai

Philippe Höij, based in Lund Sweden, is a top tier expert on model-based linked data products.  He has supported large global enterprise accounts with knowledge, B2B integration and cybersecurity expertise for over 25 years as a consultant across retail, information technology, and food packaging industry sectors.  Currently co-founder of Twinfox.AI, a business information management startup focused on business reporting and their SaaS deep tech model-based hypergraph platform with explainable deductive AI.

Rupert Steffner

Founder & CEO at Wunder

Rupert Steffner is the founder of WUNDER, a marketing AI startup that is helping brands boost marketing performance with a new AI trained to understand emotions. Rupert has over 25 years of experience in designing and implementing highly sophisticated technical and business solutions, with a focus on customer-centric marketing. Previously, Rupert was chief platform architect of Otto Group’s new business intelligence platform BRAIN and head of BI at Groupon EMEA and APAC. He also served as business intelligence leader for several European and US companies in the ecommerce, retail, finance, and telco industries. He holds an MBA from WU Vienna and was head of the Marketing Department at the University of Applied Sciences in Salzburg.

Rohit Sharma

VP, Algo Quants at Goldman Sachs

Vice President, Algo Quants and Senior KDB+/q developer having 9+ years of diverse experience in the design and development of applications related to KDB Big Data platforms, Market Surveillance, Transaction Cost Analysis(TCA), Low-Latency Algorithmic Trading Platform and Business Process Management etc.

Sivaram Annadurai

Independent AI Strategist / Solution Architect

I have 20+ years of experience (Coder - Empirical Learner - Teacher). I currently working on use cases in Video-Image-Text-Data / Database / BI space. I dabble with "Data". Generalist with a Passion for Product, Data, and Technology. Making AI Work = ML /  DL / GenAI Tech skills + Domain skills + Product + Competitor Landscape + Strategy (I have a fraction of all of it to get things in production :)) = Solution Architect + AI PM + DEV :). I am ex-Microsoft / ex-amazon / ex-sensormatic / ex-publicis.

Bilal Ben Mahria

Independent Knowledge Architect

Bilal Ben Mahria is a Knowledge Engineer with over seven years of freelance experience, specializing in the intricacies of knowledge graphs, metadata management, linked data, and semantic technologies. Throughout his dynamic career, Bilal has provided his expertise to more than ten clients globally, delivering tailored solutions that enhance data usability and intelligence. As a consultant, Bilal expertly guides organizations through the complex landscape of digital information systems, employing his deep understanding of various semantic frameworks to foster improved data integration and knowledge management.  His professional history is marked by significant roles including Ontologist, Knowledge Engineer, and Taxonomist, each underscoring his diverse skill set and commitment to advancing data-centric practices. In addition to his consulting work, Bilal is an active associate member of the Intelligent Systems & Applications Laboratory at FST, Fes, where he collaborates on cutting-edge research in artificial intelligence and knowledge-based systems. His work in these areas contributes to the ongoing development and refinement of intelligent information management strategies, promoting greater connectivity and insight across numerous domains. Bilal’s combination of practical experience and academic involvement makes him a valuable contributor to discussions on the future of knowledge technologies. His insights have been shaped by a global perspective on digital data challenges and innovations, enabling him to offer unique viewpoints and solutions in his field.

Ayse Arslan

Researcher at Berkeley AI Initiative (SPAR)

Ayse participated in various projects in partnership with international organizations such as UN, NATO and the EU. While serving as an adjunct faculty member in her home country Turkiye she attended various international conferences as a speaker and published over 80 articles in both peer-reviewed journals and academic books. She is also the author of 3 books in the field of Tech Policy. She completed her masters and doctorate degrees at both University of Oxford (UK) and University of Cambridge (UK). Currently, she lives with her family in Silicon Valley. Ayse is a researcher at Berkeley AI Initiative and is also a working group member for generative AI by National Institute of Standards and Tech (NIST).

Brian Garr

Chief Product Officer at Puretalk AI

I have been in the conversational AI space since 1999 starting at IBM and a series of AI startups with multiple successful exits. I have a "Heroes in Technology" award from the Smithsonian Institute, and I have spoken about AI on six continents.

Matteo Casu

Semantic Engineer at Semantic Partners

Matteo started studying semantics as a philosopher of language, but life somehow turned him into a software developer, project analyst, tech lead along the way. After 15 years, he still (sort of) believes graphs model this world (and others) better than tables.

Garima Gujral

Ontologist at Amazon

Garima Gujral is a Taxonomist, Ontologist and Subject Matter Expert for E-Commerce taxonomy design & governance. Her research interests include knowledge graphs, ontologies, structured and unstructured knowledge management.She was awarded a gold medal for Masters of Library and Information Science (2018-20 batch) at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India and the Indian Researcher Award 2022 by the International Research Association, London UK. She has authored over 50 publications in multidisciplinary domains such as health informatics, knowledge management, library and information science, digital divide, and scientometrics. Garima holds the vision of contributing towards a “Feminist Approach to Technology†through launching a series of concrete and transformative actions to achieve irreversible progress towards gender equality.

Chris Andrassy

Co-Founder / CEO at Astral Insights

Chris is an entrepreneur, consultant, and angel investor focused on AI enablement within the modern supply chain. He is currently the CEO of Astral Insights, working to develop and deploy enterprise-grade AI solutions across multiple global industries. As a speaker, he has made guest appearances at Duke University, Lehigh University, Guilford College, O'Reilly, The Association for Supply Chain Management, MODEX, Mission Matters News, Spectrum News, and others. As an investor, he focuses on early-stage companies in AI, automation, synthetic biology, and genomics.

Prasad Yalamanchi

Founder & CEO at Lead Semantics

Formal background in Computer science, Language and Knowledge theory and practice.  Founder and CEO of Lead Semantics  company that developed and markets TextDistil a Gen AI and Semantic Technology solution targeting Language and Knowledge in the enterprise.

Katy Salamati

Global IoT Solution Lead at SAS

Dr. Katy Salamati is the global head of IoT Solutions for Transportation and Infrastructure at SAS. Katy has over 15 years of experience improving infrastructure and transportation safety and mobility through applying innovative IoT, AI and advanced analytics, working with all modes of transportation from surface to air, rail, maritime and recently space.  Katy leads the application of IoT and AI streaming analytics in transportation industry for SAS’s IoT division and has worked with both public and private sector infrastructure, transportation and supply chain agencies. Katy has a PhD in Civil Transportation engineering and an MBA in technology commercialization and entrepreneurship from North Carolina State University. She also has a master’s degree in industrial and systems engineering from University of Southern California.  Previous to joining SAS, Katy worked as a program manager for Institute for Transportation Research and Education (ITRE) at North Carolina State University, where she worked on grants from USDOT, NSF and NCHRP projects. Katy has co-authored two NCHRP reports and has several best paper awards with TRB and many publications in TRR.  Katy is also adjunct faculty of Civil Engineering at NCSU.

Gaurav Jaglan

Independent Knowledge Architect

Semantics and Data Enthusiast with special focus on graph technologies. Have extensively worked in Knowledge Graph implementations, Ontology Engineering, Data Integration and Governance as well as research by developing and employing innovative R&D solutions. Have worked on multiple projects, laying down foundations for solutions directly/indirectly utilised by multiple fortune 500 companies.  Specialties: Research & Development in the field of Semantic Data Integration, Text Information Retrieval, Knowledge Engineering - Information Services, User Profiling Systems, Social Networking and Ontologies.  Technologies: Data Mesh/Knowledge Graphs/RDF/SPARQL/ONTOLOGY/TAXONOMY/PYTHON/ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE/BIG DATA/REST/OWL/SHACL/Data Analysis

Jorge Arango

Founder / Principal at Boot Studio

Jorge Arango is an information architect, author, and educator. For the past three decades, he has used architectural thinking to bring clarity and direction to digital projects for clients ranging from non-profits to Fortune 500 companies. He’s the author of "Duly Noted: Extend Your Mind Through Connected Notes," "Living in Information: Responsible Design for Digital Places," co-author of "Information Architecture: for the Web and Beyond," and host of "The Informed Life" podcast. Besides consulting, writing, and podcasting, Jorge also teaches in the graduate interaction design program at the California College of the Arts.

Danny Díaz

Data + AI Engineer at Banco Pichincha

I am Danny Diaz, a dedicated Data and AI Engineer with a strong background in optimizing data architectures and deploying AI models in cloud environments. At Banco Pichincha, I spearheaded the development of a super chatbot using generative AI and significantly advanced customer service automation with sophisticated machine learning techniques. My expertise includes data governance, ETL processes, and MLOps, which have dramatically improved the strategic utilization of data for insightful business decisions. I am also actively engaged in AI research, with a focus on the applications of deep reinforcement learning.

John Checco

Doctoral Candidate at Marymount University

John is an accomplished leader of information security and technology, focusing on supporting strategic cybersecurity initiatives. John is actively involved in the security community participating in the Cloud Security Alliance Zero Trust Exam and Working Group, president of New York Metro chapter of ISSA and co-chair for the annual NY Metro Joint Cyber Security Conference. John’s leadership experience includes roles as a trusted CISO advisor for Proofpoint clients, Senior VP for Bank of America’s Global Information Security, Research & Innovation Team, assisting in the creation of the public-private partner coalition now known as the Analysis & Resilience Center for Systemic Risk, as well as the inaugural appointee in the DHS Loaned Executive program for the National Cybersecurity Communications & Integration Center (reorganized as CISA) fostering public/private partnerships. Other accomplishments include spearheading the Business Information Security Officer (BISO) role across Bloomberg LLP, serving as elected President and Chairman of the Board for the NY Metro InfraGard Members Alliance (an FBI outreach organization).

Stefania Pecore

Independent AI and Data Science Expert

Stefania embarked on her journey with a university degree in foreign languages, recognizing the need for inclusive communication when language barriers existed. As the first to introduce an AI subject to her university in Italy focused on AI and automatic translation, her path unfolded. Subsequently, she pursued higher education, obtaining a master's and Ph.D. in CS, programming, and NLP in France. With a passion for leveraging technology to enhance communication, she played a pivotal role in assisting numerous enterprises across diverse sectors—education, manufacturing, biotech, and even venturing into video games—by integrating NLP solutions into their products. Eager to share her insights, she became a mentor for women, holding positions as a Google Women Techmakers, Women in AI, and Women in Games Ambassador. Recently in April, she was appointed as an AI Expert for UNESCO's Women4Ethical AI allowing her to further apply her expertise in fostering responsible AI and supporting Ethical approaches in AI systems creation.

Armin Mehrahbian

Principal Data Scientist at NASA GES-DISC

Armin Mehrabian is a Data Scientist at NASA's Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES-DISC). Armin's research interests include language models, knowledge graphs, high-performance computing, parallel programming, and hardware for neural networks. Armin holds a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from The George Washington University (2021). He is also an Adjunct Lecturer in the Computer Science Department at The George Washington University. At NASA GES-DISC, Armin is focused on leveraging AI and machine learning to enhance data and knowledge discovery.

Jans Aasman

CEO at Franz Inc.

Jans Aasman is a Ph.D. psychologist and expert in Cognitive Science - as well as CEO of Franz Inc., an early innovator in Artificial Intelligence and provider of Knowledge Graph Solutions. As both a scientist and CEO, Dr. Aasman continues to break ground in the areas of Artificial Intelligence and Knowledge Graphs as he works hand-in-hand with numerous Fortune 500 organizations as well as government entities worldwide.

Zeph Yap

Machine Learning Engineer at Nearmap

Zeph is a Machine Learning Engineer at Nearmap who has spent the last 4 years working on systems to improve the training data available to vision models, perform model training and support the release and deployment of models. Most recently, he is working on scaling up dataloading to support foundational model training.

Michelle Yi

Board Member at Women In Data

Michelle is a technology leader that specializes in machine learning and cloud computing. She has 15+ years of experience in the technology industry, contributed to the original IBM Watson showcased on Jeopardy, and enjoys building and leading teams that develop and deploy AI solutions to solve real-world problems. Michelle is passionate about diversity, STEM education/careers for our minority communities, and serves on the board of Women in Data.

Anandaganesh Balakrishnan

Principal Software Engineer, Data/ AI at American Water

Anandaganesh Balakrishnan is a data engineering and data analytics leader who has held senior leadership roles across the fintech, biotech, and utility domains. His expertise is architecting scalable, reliable, and performant Data Platforms for Advanced Data Analytics, Quantitative Research, and Machine Learning. He presently holds the position of Principal Software Engineer at American Water. He leads the development and optimization of data virtualization infrastructure and data engineering strategies. He collaborates with the enterprise architecture team to optimize and redesign the Organization's data architecture to benchmark and accommodate the next generation of tools. He advises application developers, data products team, database developers, data scientists, and other key stakeholders on data initiatives. His current research is AI on unstructured data, Large Language Models (LLMs), Generative AI (Gen AI), Self-service data analytics, and Data catalogs. He has designed low-latency data architecture frameworks tailored for energy trading. He has developed and executed data models and interfaces for the ING Global Finance Transformation Program. He is among the few global experts accepted into the SnowPro Subject Matter Expert Team.