For more than 20 years, Hassan Adekoya has dedicated his career to the City of New York - the largest municipal government in the United States. Most recently, as Chief Information Officer, Hassan has led unprecedented digital transformation for NYC Department of City Planning around portfolio modernization, new lines of business digital products and enterprise data management to name a few. Hassan has won numerous awards for his work including Global City on a Cloud Best Practice Award, Information Week’s Top 10 Government IT Innovator, Digital Government Achievement Award, Outstanding IT Achievement in Government Award, Best of NYC to name a few. Hassan earned a Master of Philosophy and Master of Science from the City University of New York’s Graduate Center and New Jersey Institute of Technology respectively, specializing in computer science. He also earned his bachelor's from the City University of New York’s Hunter College, majoring in computer science with a concentration in mathematics and geography. He is an avid soccer fan and follows the English premier league religiously.

Erdal Arikan was born in Ankara, Turkey. He received the B.S. degree from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, in 1981, and the S.M. and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, in 1982 and 1985, respectively, all in Electrical Engineering. Since 1987, he has been with the Electrical-Electronics Engineering Department of Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, where he is presently a Professor. Arikan is known for his work on polar coding, which is an error correction coding scheme that achieves Shannon capacity limits and is now part of the 5G standard. Arıkan’s work has been recognized by many prizes including the 2010 IEEE Information Theory Society Best Paper Award, the 2013 IEEE W. R. G. Baker Award, the 2018 IEEE Hamming Medal, 2018 Huawei Medal for Polar Coding, and the 2019 IEEE Shannon Lecturer Award.

Robert Armstrong directs the MIT Energy Initiative, an Institute-wide initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology linking science, technology, and policy to transform the world's energy systems. A member of the MIT faculty since 1973, Armstrong served as head of the Department of Chemical Engineering from 1996 to 2007. His research interests include energy, the rheology of complex materials, and polymer fluid mechanics. In 2008, Armstrong was elected into the National Academy of Engineering for conducting outstanding research on non-Newtonian fluid mechanics, co-authoring landmark textbooks, and providing leadership in chemical engineering education. Armstrong received the Warren K. Lewis Award in 2006 and the Professional Progress Award in 1992, both from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the 2006 Bingham Medal from the Society of Rheology, which is devoted to the study of the science of deformation and flow of matter. Armstrong was a member of MIT’s Future of Natural Gas and Future of Solar Energy study groups and is co-chairing the Future of Storage study currently underway. He co-edited Game Changers: Energy on the Move with former Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

Maher is leading GE Global Digital Energy Solutions as Senior Executive SVP, Chief Business Innovation Officer, covering Power Generation, Grids, Storage, Renewables & Energy Efficiency Services. Before GE, Maher spent 21 years with SAP where he had several local, regional and global leadership positions focusing on Solution Engineering, Global Field Operations, Software innovation & development through incubating new products (Corporate in-Venturing), Industry business development, Value Engineering and General Management. Beside his permanent role at GE, Maher is Chairman of the GB of REEEP (as of 21st of April 2018), President of ESMIG, Vice-Chairman of ETIP SNET Executive Committee and Chairman of its Digital Energy group. Maher is also a member of the Scientific Audit Committee of TNO.

As the deputy publisher of MIT Technology Review China, Mr. Xu Chen has gained 25-year-experience in media industry. He served as the executive editor of Newsweek China, editing consultant for Institutional Investor China and the chief editor of the world's largest MMS media group. He was also a council member of the third Beijing Internet Association. Mr. Chen has founded China's first crowd-funding platform and IP blockchain lab, and also co-founded National Business Daily and etc. in mainland China. He has won several national awards in media sector. He is the author of books such as The Chief Editor is Dead and The Blockchain+. Mr. Chen holds an EMBA from Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China.

Claire Delaunay is vice president of engineering at NVIDIA, where she is responsible for the Isaac robotics initiative and leads a team to bring Isaac to market for roboticists and developers around the world. Prior to joining NVIDIA, Delaunay was the director of engineering at Uber, after it acquired Otto, the startup she co-founded. She was also the robotics program lead at Google and founded two companies, Botiful and Robotics Valley. Delaunay has 15 years of experience in robotics and autonomous vehicles leading teams ranging from startups and research labs to Fortune 500 companies. Delaunay holds a Master of Science in computer engineering from École Privée des Sciences Informatiques (EPSI).

Dr. Yaniv Erlich is the Chief Science Officer of MyHeritage.com and an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Computational Biology at Columbia University (leave of absence). Prior to these positions, he was a Fellow at the Whitehead Institute, MIT. Dr. Erlich received his bachelor’s degree from Tel-Aviv University, Israel (2006) and a Ph.D. from the Watson School of Biological Sciences at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (2010). Dr. Erlich’s research interests are computational human genetics. Dr. Erlich is a TEDMED speaker (2018), the recipient of DARPA’s Young Faculty Award (2017), the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award (2013), Harold M. Weintraub award (2010), the IEEE/ACM-CS HPC award (2008), and he was selected as one of 2010 Tomorrow’s PIs team of Genome Technology.

Gokcen has more than 20 years of commercial and digital leadership experience. He brings extensive knowledge of digital transformation from global industries. In September 2018, Gokcen took on the role of Schneider Digital Chief Technology Officer at Schneider Electric. Gokcen is responsible for 3 core missions: developing digital architecture and rationalizing Schneider Digital landscape; driving the developer system and agile posture; transforming the development paradigm toward API-first modern application development and deploying transversal competencies and platforms for Schneider Electric. Prior, Gokcen was the Chief Digital Officer at A.P. Moller – Maersk, where he was in charge of the digital strategy, products and establishment of IT partnerships. He joined A.P. Moller - Maersk from GE where he spent 12 years and, among others, led the strategy and business development of a digital energy business. Gokcen holds a PhD in Computer Science from Tulane University and is the co-author of several technology-related publications and filed 3 patents.

Dr. Catherine Havasi is a technology strategist, AI researcher, and entrepreneur. In the late 90s, she was a crowdsourcing pioneer when she co-founded the Common Sense Computing Initiative, or ConceptNet, the first crowd-sourced project for artificial intelligence and the largest open knowledge graph for language understanding. Her work at MIT has spanned computational creativity, transfer and meta learning, natural language understanding, and educational outreach, resulting in several spin-out companies: Dalang, Luminoso, and Learning Unlimited. She is currently a visiting scientist at the MIT Media; she directed the Digital Intuition group there under a prior appointment. She also runs the AI strategy consulting firm Snowcap AI.

Fred is the founder and Chairman of Primavera Capital Group, an investment firm with global and domestic market leading portfolio companies headquartered in China and around the world. Fred is a respected economist whose main areas of research include macroeconomics, entrepreneurship, and international finance. He served at the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, and he has advised the Chinese government on financial reform, SOE restructuring, and macroeconomic policies. Fred also served on the Hong Kong Government's Strategic Development Committee and the Advisory Committee for the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. Fred is currently the non-executive chairman of Yum China Holdings Inc., and is a member of several corporate boards including ICBC, UBS Group AG, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, among others. In addition, Fred is the co-chair of the Nature Conservancy’s Asia Pacific Council, a Trustee of the China Medical Board, a member of the Council of Foreign Relations’ Global Advisory Board, a member of Harvard University’s Global Advisory Council, and a member of the Advisory Committees of several world leading institutions including the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School, Stanford Center for International Development, and the Jerome A. Chazen Institute of International Business at Columbia University. Fred serves as the co-director of the National Center for Economic Research and a professor at Tsinghua University, and he is also an adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Peking University. Previously Fred was Chairman of Greater China and a Partner at Goldman Sachs, where he was instrumental in building the firm's franchise in the Asia Pacific region. Fred holds a Master in Engineering Science from Tsinghua University, and a Master and Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University.

Kris is the U.S. Advisory Blockchain Lead in our Emerging Technologies group focusing across industries on how crypto-assets and blockchain-enabled ecosystem applications will impact business models and shared business processes. Over the last 18 years, he has advised major organizations in consumer and industrial products, energy, transportation & logistics, health care, technology, media and financial services firms in areas such as digital business and technology strategies, operating model design and implementation, performance re-engineering and measurement, and large-scale transformation delivery. Kris joined PwC through the acquisition of Diamond Management & Technology Consultants in 2010 where he was a Principal. Kris holds a combined masters degree from Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business and the H.J. Heinz School of Public Policy and Management.

Ms. Junxia Liao began her VC/PE career in 2002, specializing in the investment and financing of early-stage enterprises of emerging industries. In 2014, Ms. Junxia Liao joined CreditEase Wealth Management VC/PE FOFs as Managing Partner. Under her leadership，CreditEase Wealth Management VC/PE FOFs have indirectly invested a large number of high-quality deals, covering many high-growth sectors such as TMT, Health Care, Consumer Service，Advanced Manufacturing, Fintech, and Clean Technology etc. Till now, CreditEase Wealth Management FOFs has become one of the largest Private Equity FOFs in China. Prior to joining CreditEase Wealth Management, Ms. Liao has accumulated rich industry insights and networks serving as Head of Research and Consulting at Zero2ipo and Partner at an RMB VC fund. In addition to her industry expertise, she is also the co-author of book “Twenty Years of Venture Capital Investment in China”. Ms. Liao has graduated from Renmin University of China with Master’s Degree in Economics. Ms. Liao also received multiple prestigious awards such as‘ 2018 TOP 10 KOL of FOFs Industry by FOFs Weekly’，‘2017 Distinguished Young Investor of Private Equity Industry ’,‘2017-2018 TOP 100 Chief Investment Officer by CLPA’etc.

Antoinette is responsible for building out the international licensing and communities line of business for MIT Technology Review, MIT’s independent media company. Her responsibilities include identifying and building out long term strategic relationships, evaluating international business opportunities, negotiating contracts, strategically building MIT Technology Review’s brand internationally, and ensuring obligations are met and quality controls are measured and adhered to. Prior to coming to the U.S.A. in 2001, Antoinette was the Relationship Marketing Manager for JD Group Pty Ltd in South Africa, at that time the largest group of national retail chains in the Southern hemisphere, and the Marketing Manager for the first IT chain South Africa. Ms. Matthews has a Bachelor's degree in Marketing and Financial Management from the University of Pretoria.

Michael Reilly was appointed executive editor of MIT Technology Review in 2019 after first serving as Senior Editor, News and Commentary and then Deputy Editor. He spent seven years with New Scientist magazine, writing about and editing coverage of everything from astrophysics to AI. He has worked at the Discovery Channel, Wired, and in media startups. Prior to becoming a journalist, Michael was a geologist and holds a Master’s degree in igneous geochemistry. In 2018, he was a fellow at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, where he completed the Arthur Sulzberger Executive Leadership Program.

Mi Lei, Founding Partner and Co-CEO of Casstar; Ph.D. of Optical Science, Xi’an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of CAS; Executive Director of Shaanxi Institute of Advanced OEIC Technologies; Vice-Director of Young Scientists’ Social Responsibility Alliance. Devoted himself to industrialization of scientific and technological achievements, Dr. Mi compiled the concept of “hard & core technology”, initiated the Hard & Core Technology Innovation Alliance and pointed out that “tech entrepreneurship will be the mainstream of China’s development in the next thirty years”. With the aim of driving the regional economic development and creating the tech-startup ecosystem, Dr. Mi has founded the first angel fund and incubator that targeted at the field of hard & core technology in China, which has invested and incubated more than 240 high-tech companies, and the management scale of the platform fund reached 5.3 billion yuan.

Simone Schuerle is assistant professor at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, where she heads the Responsive Biomedical System Lab. With her team, she develops diagnostic and therapeutic systems at the nano-and microscale with the aim of tackling a range of challenging problems in medicine. Prior to taking this position, she researched at MIT on nanosensors for in vivo tumor profiling as well methods to enhance drug transport (2014-2017). She is recipient of several awards and fellowships and was honored with the distinction of “Young Scientist” by the World Economic Forum (WEF) for her scientific contributions to society. In 2014 she co-founded the spin-off MagnebotiX that offers electromagnetic control systems for wireless micromanipulation. She earned her Ph.D. degree in 2013 at ETHZ.

Guanchun Wang,Ph.D from Princeton University.Former head of Baidu HCI team, Cofounder and CEO of Jinwankansha （acquired by Baidu) . He has been awarded the Elite Award of the 30 New Generation Digital Economy Talents by the World Internet Conference (WIC) , and was selected as a committee member of the Expert Committee of Talent Development Center of China Artificial Intelligence Industry Alliance, and one of the “Leading Talents" in Shanghai.

Jiangtao (Gene) Wen received the BS, MS and Ph.D. degrees with honors from Tsinghua University. He was a Research Fellow at UCLA, where many of his inventions were adopted by international standards and licensed in the largest patent licensing agreement in the history of the highly ranked UCLA School of Engineering. After UCLA, he played technology leadership roles at PacketVideo Corp. (NASDAQ: WAVE/DCM), Mobilygen Corp (NASDAQ: MXIM), Ortiva Wireless (NASDAQ: ALLT), Ocarina Networks (NASDAQ: DELL) and QuickFire Networks (NASDAQ: FB). He has made instrumental contributions to the research and productization of mobile video technologies, low power ASIC design, and large-scale storage systems. Since 2009, Dr. Wen has held a tenured Professorship at Tsinghua University. He was a Visiting Professor at Princeton University. Among the numerous honors that Prof. Wen received are the 2010 IEEE Trans. CSVT Best Paper Award, a nomination for the 2016 IEEE Trans CSVT Best Paper Award, back-to-back gold medals in the 2018 and 2019 Salon International Des Inventions Geneva, the 2018 IEEE Capocelli Prize, Google Faculty Award 2018 and the 2016 Frost & Sullivan Global Enabling Technology Leadership Award. Dr. Wen was elected a Fellow of the IEEE in 2011. Besides teaching and conducting research, Dr. Wen also invests in high technology companies as an angel investor.

Dr. Xie Dong is Vice President of IBM, Chief Technology Officer of IBM Greater China Group. He’s responsible for the planning of IBM research and product development in China, with focus on AI, Hybrid Cloud, Industry Solutions, and Future of Computing. He’s also leading the transformation of development model, and technical talent development for IBM China. Dr. Xie Dong has led technical projects and made variable technical achievements in the areas of human-computer Interaction, digital content management and protection, interactive media, pervasive computing, internet-of-things, distributed system, and artificial intelligence, etc. Dr. Xie Dong began his career at the IBM China Research Lab after receiving his Ph.D. from Tsinghua University in 1996. He won IBM Outstanding Technical Achievements Award for three times.

Hocking Xu is the CEO & Co-Founder of AInnovation, and a partner of the Sinovation Ventures. Hocking has over 20 years of experience in the sales, servicing, and management of China-based companies that have exposure across multiple industries, including finance, telecom, media, retail, energy, manufacturing, aviation and high-tech sectors. Hocking also has in-depth knowledge and understanding of public service industries, including government, medical, and education. Prior to AInnovation, Hocking has held executive positions at Fortune 500 companies – Microsoft, SAP, IBM, Wanda. He was former vice president at Microsoft Greater China, former vice president of SAP Greater China, former general manager of IBM Greater China Finance Unit, former vice president of Wanda Internet Technology Group. Hocking graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and holds an EMBA degree from Peking University.

The managing partner of Empower Investment, the honorary president of Chinese Angel Association, the committee member of China Venture Capital Association and the angel investor of Deppon Express. Min got a master’s degree of business administration from Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. Min has more than 20 years experience of senior management in financial auditing and venture capital fields, having worked for several well-known companies, such as PWC, Morningside Group, etc. The representative projects of Min are MoJi weather, JUMA, AirWheel, VIPMRO, etc.

Mr. Zheng Yelai was born in 1973 in Qianshan, Anhui Province, China. He is currently serving as President of Cloud BU at Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. He is responsible for strategy planning, development, operation, maintenance, as well as product and solution delivery for Huawei Cloud. Mr. Zheng has demonstrated his extensive expertise in cloud service, IT infrastructure, OSS, wireless network optimization and network planning, having been in charge of many top level projects at Huawei in these fields. He got a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Anhui Normal University in 1996 and later got a Master’s Degree in Engineering from Northwestern Polytechnical University in 1999. Mr. Zheng has served as Product Manager, Director, President of Sub-Product Line, President of Product Line, President of Business Unit, and a long list of other posts at Huawei during his nearly two decades of dedication. 1999 Joined Huawei; 2008 President of OSS and Service field, Wireless Network Product Line; 2010 President of OSS and Service field, Wireless Network Product Line; Chairman of UTMC; 2012 President of IT Product Line; Member of Strategy Development Committee; Core Member of Enterprise BG EMT; 2017 President of Cloud BU and IT Product Line; 2018 President of Cloud BU.

Dr. Bowen Zhou, IEEE Fellow, Vice President of JD.com, President of JD Cloud & AI and Chairman of the JD Technology Committee. Dr. Zhou reports directly to founder, chairman and CEO of JD.com, Richard Liu. Dr. Zhou oversees JD’s AI, Cloud, and IoT businesses, with a focus on technology, strategy, innovation, product development, scenario-based top-down design and commercial implementation. He is focused integrating JD’s cutting-edge technology proven in countless scenarios with the real economy to bring significant value to industry and society at large.