SPEAKERS.

Osh Agabi
Osh Agabi (Founder & CEO, Koniku Inc.), has over 15+ years of experience in neuro-electronic interfacing in Industry and Academia. As a strategic projects lead at a robotics startup in Switzerland he implemented learning algorithms for pick-and-place robots which worked alongside humans in a factory setting. They achieved success in developing robots which categorized objects autonomously in 2003/2004. That company was eventually sold.
He led a cross disciplinary industry and academia team to develop an in vitro reflex arc for modeling implantable neural chips, 2008. These chips interfaced with the peripheral nervous system (PNS). As a visiting scholar and during his PhD studies at the Imperial College in London, he built and customized 2 photon microscopes for studying synaptic transmission and primitives of vision in the mouse visual cortex and Alzheimer’s disease models. He left Academia in 2015 to establish Koniku. Koniku is based in Berkeley CA. Osh. Speaks 5 human languages.

Nicolai Andersen
is Deloitte’s Chief Innovation Officer and is responsible – across disciplines – for the development of new business models and products. He manages strategic innovation projects in the area of digital transformation and heads the Deloitte Garage innovation unit. He holds a Masters Degree in Business and Engineering and worked for Arthur Andersen before joining Deloitte. He has more than 20 years’ experience of advising companies around the world and is a recognized expert on the effects of technological, economic and social trends on companies and their ability to compete. Nicolai Andersen is a member of the Executive Committee of the "D21 Initiative", where he heads the Digital Ethics working group.

Françoise Baylis
Françoise Baylis, PhD is University Research Professor at Dalhousie University. Her research in bioethics is at the intersection of policy and practice. Through her academic and advocacy work, she aims to move the limits of mainstream bioethics and develop more effective ways to understand and tackle a range of public policy and practice issues. Her goals are to challenge us all to think broadly and deeply about the direction of health, science and biotechnology, and to promote social reform. Baylis is a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Nova Scotia, as well as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Her forthcoming book is Altered Inheritance: CRISPR and the Ethics of Human Genome Editing (Harvard University Press, 2019).

danah boyd
danah boyd, is an internationally recognised authority on the ways people use networked social media as a context for social interaction. She has been called the “high priestess” of online social network sites by the Financial Times. Dr. boyd’s research focuses on the intersection of technology, society, and policy. Currently, she is Founder & President of Data & Society, a research institute focused on examining the social and cultural issues that emerge around data-driven technologies. She is author of It’s Complicated and co-author of, Participatory Culture in a Networked Era, and Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out. danah is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, and a Visiting Professor at New York University. She is on the board of the Crisis Text Line, a Trustee of Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, a member of the U.S. Department of Commerce Data Advisory Council and is on the advisory boards of the Electronic Privacy Information Center and both University of California at Berkeley and University of Michigan’s School of Information. Previously, danah was Fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Reverend Sebastian Feydt
Sebastian Feydt was born in Cottbus in 1965 and later attended the Kreuzschule (School of the Cross) in Dresden. He studied Evangelical Theology in Leipzig and as part of his period of ministry training, he spent a year in the Evangelical Provost´s Church Jerusalem belonging to the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Holy Land. After successfully completing the second examination in Theology in 1995, he was ordained to the Church of Bethlehem in Leipzig where he remained pastor until 2007.
In 2007, Sebastian Feydt was appointed to the Church of our Lady in Dresden. As one of the two pastors in this house of prayer, he regularly holds sermons, wedding and christening services, organises the many different facets of spiritual life within the Church of our Lady and also carries out peace work.
Sebastian Feydt regularly publishes homiletic meditations and studies (Kreuzverlag Stuttgart) und is co-author of the book “Devotions from the Church of our Lady. Words from beneath the dome”. (Evangelical publishing house). He is also a member of the jury which awards the Saxony Citizen´s Award presented annually in the Church of our Lady.

Urs Gasser
Dr. Urs Gasser is the Executive Director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and a Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School. His research and teaching activities focus on information law, policy, and society issues and the changing role of academia in the digitally networked age. At Berkman Klein and in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab, he co-leads the Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Initiative, with a particular interest in global governance issues and the broader implications of next-generation technologies, including questions of human autonomy and inclusion. As a long-term research interest, he studies the patterns of interaction between law and innovation, and innovation with the legal system in the digital age.

Jen Gennai
Jen Gennai leads the Responsible Innovation team at Google which is responsible for operationalizing Google’s AI Principles specifically ensuring that Google’s products have fair and ethical outcomes on Google’s users and the world. Her team works with product, engineering and leverages a multidisciplinary group of experts in ethics, human rights, user research, behavioural analysis, racial justice and gender equity to validate that products and outputs align with Google’s Values AI Principles’ obligations around fairness, privacy, safety, societal benefit and more. Before she co-authored the AI Principles and founded the Responsible Innovation team, Jen had been working on machine learning fairness at Google for almost four years, focusing on user impact and adversarial testing.

Robert Habeck

Joerg Hellwig
Joerg began his career as a commercial trainee at Bayer AG. After spending several years in the US, he returned to LANXESS in Germany to restructure and sell its Synthetic Fibers business. Following an assignment at Reliance Industries in India, he came back as Managing Director of LANXESS’ Pigments business unit. Since 2017, he leads and orchestrates the Digital Transformation initiative at LANXESS as Chief Digital Officer. Focus areas are the digitalization of production, the introduction of new tools and systems throughout the value chain, as well as promoting the value of data to become an institutional asset for the entire group. Additionally, he is responsible for exploring new business models. As such, he founded CheMondis, where he serves as a supervisory board member today. This start-up company is currently growing a digital marketplace for the chemical industry. All the above goes along with overseeing skill and talent development for digital LANXESS as well as driving a new change and culture transformation.

Tina Klüwer
Dr. Tina Klüwer ist Geschäftsführerin und Mitgründerin von parlamind, einem K.I.-Unternehmen aus Berlin. Nach ihrem Abitur studierte Tina Klüwer Philosophie, Germanistik und Computerlinguistik in Köln. Danach wechselte sie zum Language Technology Lab des Deutschen Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz (DFKI), erst in Saarbrücken, später in Berlin, wo sie mehr als acht Jahre zu den Themen Chatbots, Dialogsysteme und Textanalyse forschte und international publizierte. Sie war darüber hinaus Dozentin am Institut für Kommunikationswissenschaften der Universität Bonn und Projektleiterin am Institut für Informatik der Freien Universität Berlin.
Tina Klüwer promovierte in Computerlinguistik an der Universität des Saarlandes zum Thema Modellierung von sozialen Signale in Chatbots. Sie ist Mitglied des K.I.-Bundesverbandes, Mitglied der Enquete Kommission für Künstliche Intelligenz des Bundestages sowie Associate des Discourse Research Lab der Universität Potsdam.
Mit parlamind bringt sie Ihre und weitere Forschungsergebnisse in intelligenten Produkten auf den Markt. Sie und ihr Team von K.I.-Experten entwickeln und verkaufen eine K.I.-basierte Software für die Effizienz- und Qualitätssteigerung im Kundenservice.

Michael Kretschmer
Michael Kretschmer was born in Görlitz on 7 May 1975. He is Protestant and the father of two sons. Following his schooling, he completed an office IT technician’s apprenticeship and gained entrance to a university of applied science through this alternative educational path. From 1998 to 2002, he studied industrial engineering at Dresden University of Applied Sciences, obtaining his degree in 2002.
Michael Kretschmer began his political career as a city councillor in his hometown of Görlitz from 1994 to 1999. From 1993 to 2002, he was on the regional executive committee of the Young Union (Junge Union) of Saxony and Lower Silesia. On 23 April 2005, Michael Kretschmer was elected secretary general of Saxony’s CDU party, and was confirmed in office several times thereafter. He has been the leader of Saxony’s CDU regional association since 9 December 2017.
He was first elected to Germany’s Bundestag as a direct candidate in the Görlitz electorate in 2002, and remained a member until 2017. From 2005 to 2009, he was the deputy chair of the Education and Research work group run by the CDU/CSU parliamentary party in the German Bundestag. Michael Kretschmer was deputy party leader, with portfolios in education and research, art, culture and media, from 2009 to 2017. From the German federal election in 2013 to September 2017, Michael Kretschmer was also the leader of the Saxon regional group within the CDU/CSU party in the German Bundestag.
On 22 August 2017, Michael Kretschmer was elected president of the Sächsischer Volkshochschulverband e. V. (Saxon association for adult education centres). He is also involved with the “Fürst-Pückler-Park Bad Muskau” development association.
On 13 December 2017, Michael Kretschmer was elected Minister-President of the Free State of Saxony.

Christian „Mio“ Loclair
Christian “Mio” Loclair, creative director at Waltz Binaire, is a media artist and choreographer from Berlin, Germany. He explores the harmonic friction of human bodies, movement and nature colliding with digital aesthetics.
Using cutting edge technology in interactive installations, audio-visual experiences, visual narratives and dance performances, he continuously illuminates the beauty and drama of human identity. He is publishing his work on mobile applications, digital projections and theater stages around the world for independent and commissioned projects.
Mio studied Computer Science at the University Potsdam and Hasso Plattner Institute, specializing in Media Engineering and graduated in Human Computer Interaction (2010). He published the scientific paper Pinchwatch about gestural micro interactions at the Mobile HCI 2010 Lisbon.
Mio started his professional career as a dancer in 2001 and became the winner of the International Battle of the year (Popping 2007), the Ruhrpott Battle (2007) and the Wutal Battle (2008 Pina Bausch Festival). Mio was chosen to represent Germany at the UK Bboy World Championships (2007, 2010) and portrayed the world champion of hiphop dance in the US Movie "You got Served 2". Furthermore he choreographed the theater pieces "Marionettes", "Reflection", "Volvere" and co-choreographed "110" (Niels Storm Robitzky) and "POW_2045" (Raphael Hillebrand).

Astrid Maier

Andrea Martin
Andrea Martin is Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for IBM Germany, Austria and Switzerland. She is responsible for shaping the IBM technical strategy in her market and representing IBM’s technical thought leadership externally. In her role, Andrea Martin uses her experience and global network from more than 25 years in the international services business, which also provides valuable input for her activities as an expert in the Commission for AI of the German Parliament (initiated in September 2018). Her credo: If we do not answer the ethical questions around AI, there will be no trust.
Andrea Martin has started her career at IBM in 1992 after earning her Master’s degree (diploma) in Applied Mathematics from the University in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Miriam Meckel
Miriam Meckel, PhD, is the founding publisher of ada, the platform for digital life and the economy of the future, at Handelsblatt Media Group. Previously she had been editor-in-chief since 2014 and publisher of WirtschaftsWoche, Germany’s most important weekly magazine for business in Düsseldorf, since 2017. Miriam Meckel has been Professor of Corporate Communication at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland since 2005. She was Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and Visiting Professor at the Singapore Management University for several years. Miriam Meckel received the Cicero Speaker Award in the category "Science", published numerous books, scientific journal articles and journalistic articles.

Angela Merkel

Milena Merten

Bertolt Meyer
Bertolt Meyer is a Professor for Work and Organizational Psychology at the Institute of Psychology at Chemnitz University of Technology in Germany. He misses his left arm and wears an advanced bionic prosthesis instead. His research includes studying the impact of technology on social systems. As an example, he has recently published a study about how developments in the area of bionics have the potential to change the societal stereotypes associated with physical disabilities. Meyer and his views on bionics have been featured in many media outlets, including the award-winning science documentaries "How to build a bionic man" (Channel4, UK) and "Homo Digitalis" (arte).

Daniel Rettig
Daniel is the Chief Editor of ada, the digital education platform of Germany’s leading business publisher, Handelsblatt Media Group. In this role, he is mainly responsible for the quarterly ada magazine. Previously, he worked at Germany’s leading business weekly WirtschaftsWoche for nearly eleven years, most recently as the Head of the Career and Management department. Daniel has written several non-fiction books and is fascinated by topics on the intersection between psychology, economics and technology.

Thomas Sedran

Peter Singer
„Journalists have bestowed on me the tag of “world’s most influential living philosopher.” They are probably thinking of my work on the ethics of our treatment of animals, often credited with starting the modern animal rights movement, and with the influence that my writing has had on development of effective altruism. I am also known for my controversial critique of the sanctity of life ethics in bioethics.“
“Several key figures in the animal movement have said that my book Animal Liberation, first published in 1975, led them to get involved in the struggle to reduce the vast amount of suffering we inflict on animals. To that end, I co-founded the Australian Federation of Animal Societies, now Animals Australia, the country’s largest and most effective animal organization. My wife, Renata, and I stopped eating meat in 1971.”
Peter Singer is the founder of The Life You Can Save, an organization based on his book of the same name. It aims to spread his ideas about why we should be doing much more to improve the lives of people living in extreme poverty, and how we can best do this. You can view my TED talk on this topic here.
His writings in this area include: the 1972 essay “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” in which he argue for donating to help the global poor; and two books that make the case for effective giving, The Life You Can Save (2009) and The Most Good You Can Do (2015).
He has written, co-authored, edited or co-edited more than 50 books, including Practical Ethics, The Expanding Circle, Rethinking Life and Death, One World, The Ethics of What We Eat (with Jim Mason) and The Point of View of the Universe (with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek. His writings have appeared in more than 25 languages.
Peter Singer was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1946, and educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford. After teaching in England, the United States, and Australia, in 1999 he becames Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. Since 2005 he has combined that role with the position of Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne, in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies. One of the big attractions of being in Melbourne is that his wife Renata and he can spend time with their three daughters and four grandchildren. They also enjoy hiking, and I surf.

Léa Steinacker
Léa is the Chief Strategy Officer and a member of the founding team of ada, a journalism-led platform for future insights curated by Germany’s leading business publisher, Handelsblatt Media Group. She is in charge of developing strategies, experimental formats, and live experiences and assessing emerging technologies as well as business models. Together with the founding publisher, Léa hosts a live-stream series on digital developments. In her previous role, Léa acted as the Chief Innovation Officer of WirtschaftsWoche, the nation’s leading business magazine. Prior to joining Handelsblatt Media Group, Léa worked on social justice in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She was selected as a 2018 Forbes 30 Under 30 leader, one of Medium Magazine’s Top 30 Under 30 journalists, an Atlantik Brücke Young Leader, and a Leader of Tomorrow by the St. Gallen Symposium. She holds a Master of Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, a Bachelor in International Affairs from Princeton University, and the International Baccalaureate from the United World College of the Atlantic.

Audrey Tang
Audrey Tang is Taiwan’s Digital Minister in charge of Social Innovation. Audrey is known for revitalizing the computer languages Perl and Haskell, as well as building the online spreadsheet system EtherCalc in collaboration with Dan Bricklin. In the public sector, Audrey served on Taiwan national development council’s open data committee and K-12 curriculum committee; and led the country’s first e-Rulemaking project. In the private sector, Audrey worked as a consultant with Apple on computational linguistics, with Oxford University Press on crowd lexicography, and with Socialtext on social interaction design. In the social sector, Audrey actively contributes to g0v (“gov zero”), a vibrant community focusing on creating tools for the civil society, with the call to “fork the government.”

Meredith Whittaker
Meredith Whittaker, Co-Founder and Co-Director, AI Now Institute, NYU; Distinguished Research Scientist at New York University; Founder of Google’s Open Research group
Meredith Whittaker is a Distinguished Research Scientist at New York University, Co-founder and Co-director of the AI Now Institute, and the founder of Google’s Open Research group. She has over a decade of experience working in industry, leading product and engineering teams. She co-founded M-Lab, a globally distributed network measurement system that provides the world’s largest source of open data on internet performance. She has also worked extensively on issues of data validation and privacy. She has advised the White House, the FCC, the City of New York, the European Parliament, and many other governments and civil society organizations on artificial intelligence, internet policy, measurement, privacy, and security. She is the co-founder and co-director of the AI Now Institute at NYU, which is a leading university institute dedicated to researching the social implications of artificial intelligence and related technologies.