Tobias Peyerl leads the Strategic Intelligence team at OpenAI, where his work focuses on understanding and reducing emerging risks from advanced AI systems and ensuring that AI products and systems are developed in ways that are beneficial to humanity. His team works at the intersection of AI safety, intelligence analysis, geopolitics, online ecosystem integrity, and national security, helping anticipate how powerful AI systems may be misused and building practical approaches to make them safer.

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Before joining OpenAI, Tobias spent nearly six years at Google, where he led work across intelligence analysis, trust and safety, and risk governance. He has also served as a political affairs officer at the United Nations, working on issues related to international security, conflict prevention, and emerging threats. Tobias holds a Ph.D. in International Law from the Graduate Institute in Geneva and has studied at Harvard Law School, Sciences Po Paris, NYU, and Humboldt University in Berlin. He has guest lectured at UC Berkeley, UCLA, USC, University of Tokyo, and Columbia.

Kasley Killam is a leading expert in social health and author of The Art and Science of Connection: Why Social Health is the Missing Key to Living Longer, Healthier, and Happier. As a Harvard-trained social scientist, 2X TED speaker, sought-after advisor, and award-winning founder, Killam has been dedicated to improving well-being through human connection for nearly 15 years.

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Globally recognized for her thought leadership on social health, Killam’s collaborations with top organizations like Google, the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the World Economic Forum contribute to building more socially healthy products, workplaces, and communities.

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Discover her insights in outlets like The New York Times, Forbes, NPR, CNBC, and The Washington Post and join her newsletter community at www.kasleykillam.com.

Carmem Domingues is a Harvard, Columbia, and Cambridge-educated global AI leader who turns complexity into clarity. With a rare blend of technical expertise, business
acumen, and cutting-edge research, she equips audiences with actionable insights, the skills and confidence to leverage AI strategically, ethically, and eCectively.

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With nearly two decades of experience across the private and public sectors, Carmem Domingues has helped organizations globally – from startups and Fortune 500 companies including Goldman Sachs and Delta Airlines; to HSBC, Oliver Wyman, the World Bank, the OAS, the IADB, and the White House – harness the power of data, technology, and AI to drive real results.

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A self-described techno-realist, Carmem cuts through the noise and hype surrounding AI, delivering grounded, research-backed insights that are as relevant to the C-suite as they are to the frontline.

Passionate about AI Literacy, she launched the first bilingual, multi-platform AI Education and Communication initiative. During her tenure as Senior AI Advisor to the White House, she developed the AI Training for the Federal Workforce for over 3.3 million civil servants and military personnel.

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Carmem breaks down complex technical concepts translating them into digestible and relatable insights for technical and non-technical audiences alike. Her current research explores the impact of AI on human cognition, critical thinking, and relationships, and its consequences to individuals, businesses, and societies at large. Carmem’s multidisciplinary approach weaves together technical expertise with history, political economy, philosophy, and foreign policy to illuminate both the promises and the perils of AI, and provide insights into the future.

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In a world where everyone is trying to predict the future of AI, she takes a diCerent approach: she doesn't oCer unfounded predictions. Instead, she teaches her audiences how to think about AI in a holistic manner, and equips them with the frameworks and confidence to navigate the rapidly and constantly evolving technological and geopolitical landscape of an AI-driven world, whatever the future may bring.

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Having lived and worked across the US, Latin America, Europe, and Australia, Carmem brings a rare global perspective to every stage.

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Whatever the setting, Carmem always thoughtfully customizes her engaging and insightful presentations to the right level of depth, making them relevant and impactful for each audience. Across keynotes, workshops, and trainings, Carmem’s audiences leave not just better informed, but genuinely prepared to think critically, inspired to take action, and empowered to deploy AI strategically in their organizations and their lives.

David Bryant is Chief Creative Officer at IBM Research, where he leads creative strategy,  narrative and design across IBM's quantum computing, AI, and semiconductor research portfolios. He has worked inside the quantum industry since 2018, first as Marketing Director at Rigetti Computing and then as Chief Experience Officer of IBM Quantum, with global responsibility for the design and marketing of IBM's quantum program, including the Red Dot "Best of the Best" award-winning industrial design of IBM Quantum System Two.

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He holds three quantum computing patents, spanning technical invention and industrial design, including a 3D method for visualizing the resources of large-scale quantum processors.

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His thirty-year career spans technology and advertising, with creative leadership roles at Google and agencies including Wieden+Kennedy, BBH, and FCB. A Computer Science graduate of King's College London, he specializes in translating frontier science into stories, systems, and designs for the wider world.

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He will speak at the Frontier Summit on quantum computing, and the intersection of creativity and frontier science.

Aarti Choudhary is a technology leader at AMD, She is global responsible AI lead, contributing to the company’s work at the intersection of high-performance computing, AI, and the rapidly evolving intelligent-systems ecosystem. With a strong interest in responsible AI, physical AI, robotics, and technology education, she helps connect advanced computing innovation with practical, human-centered impact and human machines collaboration.

Her work reflects a commitment to building trusted AI systems and expanding access to technical learning and opportunity. Aarti is particularly passionate about the role of open ecosystems, industry collaboration, and hands-on STEM education in preparing the next generation of innovators.

She brings a cross-disciplinary perspective spanning AI strategy, ecosystem development, robotics, governance, and community engagement. Through her work with AMD and the broader technology community, Aarti advocates for scalable, inclusive, and responsible approaches to AI—supporting innovations that are not only powerful, but also safe, transparent, and beneficial to society.

Louise Agersnap is an innovation scaling leader, systems strategist, and practicing artist working at the intersection of innovation, leadership, technology, creativity, and public purpose.

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As leader of the Innovation Hub at the World Health Organization, she focuses on how promising ideas move beyond pilots to achieve impact at scale. Her work explores how governments and public institutions can steward innovation ecosystems, mobilize diverse actors, and create the conditions for solutions to take root, spread, and endure.

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Louise led the development of WHO’s Guidance and Toolkit on Scaling Innovations in Public Health Systems and leads WHO’s Digital Innovation Investment Platform, bringing together policymakers, innovators, investors, industry, and other ecosystem actors to accelerate demand-driven innovation. Current areas of focus include AI, virtual care, robotic telesurgery, and the responsible scaling of emerging technologies in underserved settings.

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Drawing on more than two decades of experience across the United Nations and in collaboration with government, academia, civil society, and the private sector, Louise is particularly interested in the human capabilities required to lead through complexity and uncertainty — imagination, curiosity, courage, and collaboration. She serves on advisory boards in Europe and India and, as a practicing visual artist whose work has been exhibited internationally, sees creativity as an essential capacity for leadership, innovation, and systems change. In 2025, she was recognized by the Creative Bureaucracy Festival in Berlin for her contribution to public-sector innovation.

Max Lytvyn is a co-founder of Grammarly and currently focuses on advising Superhuman’s growth team.

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Before helping build Grammarly, Max co-created MyDropBox, a plagiarismdetection company, and served as the Director of Product Strategy at Blackboard Inc. after it acquired MyDropBox. Max’s favorite aspect of working at Grammarly is exploring new opportunities and puzzling out challenges. He’s also inspired by working with and learning from a talented, values-driven team.

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Max holds a BBA in information systems from the International Christian University in Kyiv and holds an MBA from Vanderbilt University.

As President of Pure Earth, Drew McCartor leads global efforts to protect people from the world’s most damaging toxic pollutants. Over a 20-year career, he has designed and led large-scale interventions across Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas to reduce the public health impacts of these toxicants.

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Originally trained as a lawyer, Drew’s work centers on the conviction that ending epidemics such as the global lead poisoning crisis is a solvable challenge. He focuses on translating evidence into practical, systemic solutions that governments and partners can implement at scale.

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By mobilizing significant investments into the global lead poisoning response, Drew has enabled Pure Earth and its partners to launch ambitious initiatives in dozens of lead-affected countries, encompassing health surveillance, pollution and contamination assessments, remediation, and national policy reforms.

Asmau Ahmed’s expertise uniquely bridges the realms of atoms and bits, where her background in Chemical Engineering converges with decades of experience in leveraging big data analysis and predictive algorithms in the software industry. She excels in building and scaling ML/AI technologies to develop innovative solutions with significant social and financial impact. Her track record includes crafting technology and business solutions for complex global challenges across various sectors, including manufacturing, finance, consumer tech, and climate sustainability.

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Most recently a senior executive at Google, Asmau managed engineering and product teams, tasked with proactively enabling Consumer Trust (and Responsible AI) through exceptional experiences across Google’s consumer-facing platforms – Google Search, Maps, Ads, Gemini, and Shopping – reaching billions of daily users. Prior to this, she reported to the CEO of Google X, Alphabet’s innovation factory, where she co-led a factory of 600 innovators, data scientists, and engineers focused on deep data analytics, ML, and AI, tasked with building the next Google-sized business. Within Google, she founded Pathfinder, a moonshot portfolio investing in the intersection of society, innovation, and AI.

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Before her tenure at Google X, Asmau led a global portfolio of technology solutions for critical financial industry challenges, serving the CEOs of the top eight financial institutions through a consortium. This portfolio included 14 critical technologies and products, some developed in collaboration with governments, spanning cloud, privacy, cybersecurity, payments, and more. Throughout her career, she has held diverse roles as an engineer, CPO, venture-funded founder/CEO, and investor. Notably, she founded Plum Perfect, a visual search and advertising technology solution, serving enterprises like Target and QVC. As one of the 7th Black women to secure millions in venture funding in the US, she remains dedicated to changing the statistics for women in tech funding.

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Asmau’s work extends beyond her professional roles, as she actively contributes to various boards and advisory roles. She serves on the boards of Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and Quinstreet (NASDAQ, Audit and technology committees), guiding the leadership team through crucial developments including business divestitures and several acquisitions. As an advisor, she lends her expertise to the Yale Entrepreneurship Society, Wing, Women who Invest, and Black ComputeHer, and Sound Ventures. Notably, she held a two-term position as a member and technology advisor on Walmart’s Opportunity Leadership Council.

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Asmau has been recognized as a “Top Woman in Digital” by Cynopsis Media; “Black Business and Tech Professionals Changing the Game” by Huffington Post; and one of “26 Women Of Color Diversifying Entrepreneurship In Silicon Valley, Media, And Beyond” by Vanity Fair.

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Asmau holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS with Honors in Chemical Engineering from the University of Virginia. Beyond her professional endeavors, she is a devoted mother to two children. Her latest passion project, inspired by her son, focuses on finding solutions to integrate special needs children into mainstream classrooms and camps.

Harjit Sajjan served in Canada’s federal Cabinet for nearly a decade (2015-2025), bringing a rare combination of frontline military experience, geopolitical insight, and international development leadership to national and global decision-making tables.

Before entering politics, Sajjan served as a decorated officer in the Canadian Armed Forces, completing multiple overseas deployments including in Bosnia and Afghanistan. He played a critical role in NATO operations and earned commendations for his operational planning and leadership. Simultaneously, he served as a detective with the Vancouver Police Department, focusing on organized crime investigations. This dual-track career shaped his critical analysis approach to crisis management in government and on the international stage.

As Canada’s Minister of National Defence (2015–2021), Sajjan led a major modernization of defence policy through Strong, Secure, Engaged; a 20-year strategic plan backed by $553 billion in funding. Under his leadership, Canada committed to increasing annual defence spending by 73%, from $18.9 billion in 2016–17 to $32.7 billion by 2026–27, reaffirming the nation’s commitment to NATO and global security. He oversaw Canada’s contributions to NATO and G7 missions, led complex procurement initiatives, and responded to emerging threats including cyber warfare, hybrid conflicts, and Arctic sovereignty. He worked closely with allied governments, defence industries, and intelligence agencies across North America, Europe, and the Indo-Pacific.

A cornerstone of his defence tenure was leading the Communications Security Establishment
(CSE), Canada’s cryptologic and cyber security agency. In 2018, he championed the creation of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, consolidating federal cyber expertise into a unified hub serving as the national authority on cybersecurity for both public and private sectors.

Following his Defence portfolio, he was appointed Minister of International Development (2021–2023), where he led Canada’s $8 billion+ global development portfolio. His work spanned climate finance, global health (including COVID-19 vaccine equity), and humanitarian response, often at the intersection of diplomacy, infrastructure, and private capital mobilization. His leadership helped shape Canada’s Indo- Pacific Strategy and strengthened bilateral partnerships across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

From 2023 to 2025, Sajjan served as Canada’s Minister of Emergency Preparedness, spearheading initiatives to enhance national resilience against climate-related disasters, critical infrastructure threats, and cross-jurisdictional emergencies.

Outside of public service, Harjit Sajjan is an avid runner and licensed skydiver, finding balance and focus through physical endurance. His passion for discipline and precision, mirrors his approach to leadership on the global stage.

With deep relationships worldwide including Washington, Brussels, and key multilateral institutions, Harjit Sajjan is uniquely positioned to advise on geopolitical risk, defence-sector investments, and cross- border strategic growth. His ability to synthesize national security, development finance, and foreign policy has made him a sought-after voice on global strategy.

Halak Shrivastava is a lawyer and global technology policy expert, specializing in AI, data governance, and privacy. She has held roles at Google and public policy consulting firms where she advised on AI data policy issues across regulated verticals, financial services, healthcare, and energy.

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Currently, she leads Global Public Policy and Regulatory Affairs at Cohere, where she advises on policy strategies with countries and customers for AI adoption in regulated industries.

Tom brings more than 20 years of experience designing and launching development initiatives that mobilize large-scale capital from foundations, multilateral and bilateral institutions, and commercial enterprises, with work spanning Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and South Asia. At the Gates Foundation, he works with the Philanthropic Partnerships team in the fight against poverty, disease, and inequity around the world, with a current focus on innovative finance and AI deployment in a development context.

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At the Global Development Incubator, Tom oversaw its spin-off from Dalberg Advisors, a strategic consulting firm, and led a diverse portfolio of interventions, with a particular focus on financial services, including efforts to unlock commercial lending and capital for underserved rural and climate-related enterprises. Earlier in his career, as a partner at Dalberg, he led engagements in health, energy, and crisis and humanitarian response, and helped establish the firm's agriculture practice.

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While Tom is currently based in Washington, DC, his heart has taken up residence in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom.

Veronica De La Cruz is an Emmy, duPont, and Peabody Award-winning national news anchor, journalist, media strategist, and executive communications advisor whose career spans more than two decades at the forefront of global storytelling, media, and technological change. Raised in part in the Greater Toronto Area, Veronica developed an international perspective early in life. She later lived and worked in Paris, where she practiced journalism and wrote about differences in healthcare policy and access across countries, before building a distinguished career in U.S. national media. She has anchored for CNN, MSNBC, and NBC News and served as an evening anchor for CBS San Francisco.

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A digital and streaming video pioneer, Veronica has witnessed and helped shape the evolution of how news, ideas, and information reach audiences. Today, she is a sought-after media strategist and executive communications advisor to C-suite leaders, founders, and executives across finance, technology, and the startup ecosystem. She prepares leaders for high-stakes interviews, keynote appearances, investor communications, and major public moments, helping them communicate complex ideas with clarity, credibility, and impact.

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Veronica's commitment to issues that affect people's lives is also deeply personal. Her brother Eric died after being unable to access the care he needed because he was underinsured. In his memory, Veronica went to Washington to advocate for healthcare reform in the U.S. and became a voice for greater access to care. She also founded a nonprofit dedicated to raising funds for pediatric transplant patients and their families.

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Across her work as a journalist, interviewer, strategist, advisor, and nonprofit founder, Veronica brings a rare perspective shaped by international experience, decades inside leading news organizations, and close work with some of the most influential leaders in business and technology. She understands the power of storytelling not only to inform and influence, but to shape public conversation, move people to action, and create meaningful and impactful change in people's lives.

Mischa Dohler is now VP Emerging Technologies at Ericsson Inc. in Silicon Valley, working on cutting-edge topics of 5G/6G, AR and Generative AI. He serves on the Spectrum Advisory Board of Ofcom and on the AI/ML Technical Advisory Committee of the FCC.

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He is a Fellow of the IEEE, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET); the AP Artificial Intelligence Association (AAIA); and a Distinguished Member of Harvard Square Leaders Excellence. He is a serial entrepreneur with 5 companies; composer & pianist with 5 albums on Spotify/iTunes; and fluent in several languages. He has had ample coverage by national and international press and media, and is featured on Amazon Prime.

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He is a frequent keynote, panel and tutorial speaker, and has received numerous awards. He has pioneered several research fields, contributed to numerous wireless broadband, IoT/M2M and cyber security standards, holds a dozen patents, organized and chaired numerous conferences, was the Editor-in-Chief of two journals, has more than 300 highly-cited publications, and authored several books. He is a Top-1% Cited Innovator across all science fields globally.

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He was full/tenured Professor in Wireless Communications at King’s College London and Director of the Centre for Telecommunications Research from 2013-2021, driving cross-disciplinary research and innovation in technology, sciences and arts. He is the Cofounder and former CTO of the IoT-pioneering company Worldsensing; cofounder and former CTO of the AI-driven satellite company SiriusInsight.AI, and cofounder of the sustainability company Movingbeans (acquired). He also worked as a Senior Researcher at Orange/France Telecom from 2005-2008.

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Between 1990-1993, he won several olympics in maths and physics; and was part of the 3rd round of the International Olympics in Physics for Germany.

Taylor Black directs AI & Venture Ecosystems at Microsoft's Office of the CTO and serves as Inaugural Director of the Leonum Institute for AI & Emerging Technologies at the Catholic University of America. He teaches entrepreneurship both there and at UW's Foster School. His two decades of venture building—including corporate venture studios and deep tech incubation—inform his intellectual project: understanding how innovation actually happens and what AI means for human cognition and flourishing.

Few executives arrive at F100 C-suites by way of the Australian Outback.

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Anthony Reeves' career has never followed a predictable path. That instinct for discovery led him to deliver his first AI keynote in 2017, a series of AI-focused podcasts in 2018, and later that year an AI keynote at Cannes Lions that's still being discussed today.

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At Amazon, he led a global team during its fastest growth period, running Super Bowl campaigns and building the standards that shaped how every brand appears on the platform. He served as CMO of LVMH's startup houses and Maisons, scaling acquired brands to compete alongside the world's biggest luxury names without losing what made them worth acquiring in the first place. At WPP, he helped Nike realign its e-commerce strategy after the brand left Amazon, and scaled Airbnb's media by nearly 4x during the height of the pandemic. And as Global Head of Brand and Creative at Kohler Co., he led a 153-year-old American brand through a different kind of bet: refusing to use AI-generated people in its advertising.

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He is the author of Eat the Donkey: Why Great Companies Embrace Discomfort, and speaks on what it actually takes for a company to stay distinctive instead of drifting toward average.

I work at the intersection of three domains that don't often overlap: venture capital, data science, and AI.

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At Operator Collective, I run the firm's operations and data function and serve as its first Chief AI Enablement Officer - developing the systems, workflows, and research programs that let a lean VC team punch above its weight. That includes leading OpCo Intelligence, our research and knowledge-sharing initiative, and driving AI adoption across investment processes, LP relations, and internal ops.

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Before VC, I spent two decades as a structural engineer and project manager, working on complex built environment projects for the Getty, Apple, LACMA, the Academy Museum, the LA Coliseum, and more. I came to data science through that work, earned my Master’s in Information and Data Science from UC Berkeley, and moved into venture to apply it in a new domain.

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I write and speak on AI, data strategy, and the operational side of VC. Winner of the Visualize 2030 Data Visualization Challenge and ENR California Top 20 Under 40.

Jennifer Heil is an Olympic champion, entrepreneur, and co-founder of revvel, an AI company building the future of personalized human performance, starting with women. Revvel is encoding the knowledge and judgment of the world's leading human performance experts—the practitioners behind Olympic champions and professional athletes—into AI, making their expertise accessible beyond elite sport while keeping those experts actively involved in shaping and continuously improving the product.

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A Guinness World Record holder, Stanford Graduate School of Business Leadership Award recipient, and one of the most accomplished freestyle skiers in history, Jennifer has spent her career building systems that help people perform at their best. From winning Olympic gold to co-founding B2ten, helping shape Canada's Safe Sport movement, and serving as Team Canada's Chef de Mission for the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games, she has consistently focused on translating elite performance into lasting impact.

Born Ronald William Artest Jr. , in Queensbridge, New York, Artest changed his name to Metta World Peace in September 2011 in an effort to encourage happiness and wellness. He is the father of four children.

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Founder of Artest Management Group and Co CEO of XvsXSports , Metta looks to build his management company piece by piece.

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World Peace played professional basketball for 19 years. In his career he played for 6 NBA teams. He won the NBA World Championship with the LA Lakers in June 2010 and received the J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award – the NBA’s highest citizenship and community service honor – in April 2011. He was selected to the 2005-06 NBA’s All-Defensive Team, was voted by the media as 2003-04 NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year and was the only man with 271 steals in his first two seasons in the NBA, breaking Michael Jordan’s record. His autobiography, “No Malice: My Life in Basketball” was released in May 2018 with Triumph Publishing and a documentary on his life in basketball, “Ron Artest: The Quiet Storm” was released on Showtime in May 2019. World Peace is currently pursuing many entrepreneurial projects including the XvsXsports project which will launch to the general public in October 2020.

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World Peace is also known as a prominent mental health advocate, pop culture personality and media favorite. He raffled off his 2010 NBA World Championship Ring with the proceeds going to his nonprofit, Xcel University (now known as Artest University). The online ring raffle raised more than $650,000. Funds were donated to nonprofits that provide mental health therapists and mental health services to their communities and to provide scholarships to underprivileged youth in the New York City area.

Dr. Nicci Gilbert-Daniels is a Grammy-nominated artist, media executive, and cultural architect committed to advancing creative ownership and authentic representation. A founding member of the iconic R&B group Brownstone, she is also one of television’s most impactful executive producers, having created TV One’s groundbreaking franchise R&B Divas and BET’s acclaimed docuseries From the Bottom Up. Her upcoming documentary film Broken Things and short film Social Conflict continue her mission of truth-centered storytelling by addressing critical issues impacting the safety and well-being of women and children.

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As Founder and CEO of WIRF Media and visionary behind the emerging streaming platform Divine 9 TV, Dr. Nicci is building a national infrastructure that empowers communities especially women of color to create, own, and distribute content that uplifts, educates, and inspires. Her career includes partnerships with industry legends such as Michael Jackson’s MJJ Records, Tyler Perry, and Queen Latifah, and she is also the founder of Curvato, a lifestyle brand created for the underserved plus-size market. She is a fierce advocate for generational wellness, wealth-building, and the protection of intellectual property ownership as a foundation for lasting community empowerment.

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Her work has been recognized with numerous honors, including two Grammy nominations, BET Her Woman of Impact, Lincoln Shining Star, InfluenceHER Awards, Billboard Music Awards recognition, and the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award presented under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. A proud member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc., she is also the founder of the From the Bottom Up Foundation and serves on the boards of Hip Hop Sisters, Saving Our Selves, Beyond the Game Foundation, and The Center for Black Women’s Wellness.

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A true multi-hyphenate—singer, writer, producer, actress, speaker, designer, and advocate. Dr. Nicci Gilbert-Daniels is a fearless advocate for creative equity and generational legacy. Guided by faith, resilience, and purpose, she continues to build platforms that shift culture,
not just follow it owned by the culture, led by the divine.

Dan has spent nearly 40 years helping real world system builders make the world work differently. This emerging tribe of innovation choreographers creates complex systems that address hard challenges by weaving together people, organizations, technology, and resources.

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He is the author of the Fast Company Press book, “Do Bigger Things – a practical guide to powerful innovation in a changing world”. His hands-on experience ranges from enterprise scale collaborations with the world’s largest automotive manufacturers, to supporting imaginative rural health programs in Mongolia and Zambia. His work engages with innovators that have big audacious ideas ... like advancing the global ecosystem for remote tele-surgery ... or creating a new generation of system building businesses that thrive in an age of AI ... or protecting rainforests by creating economic systems that enable indigenous people’s culture and livelihoods.

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Of course, technology is one of the key LEGO blocks that empowers this enthusiastically messy approach to innovation. So, it’s not surprising Dan has been weaving tech into innovative real world systems for years. He has been a successful founder entrepreneur and for nearly a decade was the Global Innovation Lead for ThoughtWorks, an international technology consultancy working to advance cutting edge tech and innovation practices. Dan’s latest book, “Dreams With Teeth” is scheduled to be released in 2027.

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His favorite system building mantra is: “Everyone gets a pony.”

Jay is a Chief Commercial Officer at Rula Health with over 25 years of success leading growth for early and late stage healthcare technology and services organizations. Prior to Rula, Jay was the Chief Growth Officer for Quartet Health and led the expansion into risk-based Serious Mental Illness that doubled the company's revenue.

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Prior to Quartet, Jay served as the CEO for Wellvana Health, an early-stage tech enabled Management Services Organization (MSO) and developed the GTM Strategy.  Jay was the first Chief Growth Officer at Anthem’s Diversified Business Group (now called Carelon) where he was responsible for Sales, Account Management, and Marketing growing revenue from $1.5B to $7B+ for a portfolio of companies including AIM, Aspire, Beacon Health Options, CareMore, and HealthGuide.

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His areas of expertise include the payer space, partial and global risk, and healthtech.

VP of Marketing & Transformation Technology at Aritzia, where she leads technology, data & analytics, and AI across Marketing and enterprise Transformation.

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She has led large scale digital and data transformations, built high performing cross-functional teams, and developed capabilities that drive growth and operational performance.

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Her role focus remains on connecting business strategy with technology investment and turning data and emerging AI capabilities into measurable enterprise value.

Cam Lawrence is a Canadian business leader, operator, investor and board member focused on a central challenge facing Canada: how to turn world-class talent, research, and innovation into globally competitive companies and lasting economic growth.

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As CEO of Newlab, Cam led a global innovation platform designed to bridge the gap between breakthrough technology and real-world deployment—bringing together founders, capital, industry, government, and universities to build thriving innovation ecosystems.

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A Vancouver native, Cam has spent more than two decades building and transforming companies across Canada and the United States. He served as CFO of publicly traded PNI Digital Media through its acquisition by Staples, subsequently becoming CEO of the business unit, and later served as CFO of GNC. He currently serves as CFO of Mountain Equipment Company (MEC).

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Cam brings an operator’s perspective to the conversation about Canada’s competitiveness: what it takes to commercialize innovation, scale ambitious companies, attract capital and talent, and build the ecosystems that allow both to thrive.

Dr. Steffi Diem is an experimental plasma physicist and fusion engineer working to turn the power of the stars into a practical, abundant energy source on Earth. A professor of nuclear engineering and engineering physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, she leads the Pegasus-III Experiment, where her team develops innovative, compact technologies aimed at making fusion energy more affordable and scalable.

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She also founded the Fusion Impacts Collaborative, an interdisciplinary team examining what fusion means for economic opportunity, environmental sustainability, and energy equity — and how it can be deployed responsibly at global scale. Diem was appointed as the first U.S. Science Envoy for fusion energy, spoke at the White House summit on commercial fusion energy, and testified before Congress on the field's technology challenges.

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She was selected as a member of the National Academies' New Voices in Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and was previously a research scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Daniel Friedmann is Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Sanctuary AI, and is currently helping ICEYE as a strategic advisor.  Daniel was Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Carbon Engineering Ltd., a climate solutions company, until November 2023. During his time at CE, CE’s Market cap increased 40X, common share value 20X, employees 15x, and its first commercial plant was financed at 1.1 billion USD with no shareholder dilution.  Prior to Carbon Engineering, Friedmann led aero-space company MDA as CEO for 20 years, during which time the company went public, its revenue grew 19-fold, and market capitalization increased 35-fold.

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Daniel was named Brendan Wood TopGun CEO in Canada in 2015-2016, a designation awarded as an expression of the highest level of confidence in a CEO, as voted by key investors and stakeholders.

Jason is a strategic storyteller, experiential expert, and brand builder.

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He leads teams that create marketing and experiential programs that engage audiences to drive awareness, consideration, adoption, and advocacy. He is a seasoned practitioner of human-centered design to create content, experiences, and programs for brands including Autodesk, UC Berkeley, and Visa.

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Jason has extensive experience building fresh, innovative programs that connect with people to achieve business goals. He is continuously curious, collaborates across silos, and uses creative storytelling to convey complex ideas through digital and physical media.

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His teams innovate by experimenting, measuring, and optimizing. He encourages teams to think big, work hard and have fun!

Alexis Crowell is a seasoned technology executive with over 20 years in the industry. She currently serves as Chief Marketing Officer of Axelera AI as well as the General Manager of the Americas.

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Crowell is an agile and proven global leader who has lived and worked on four continents. Her career path has been unconventional and has spanned software engineering in cloud and client technologies, artificial intelligence and deep learning frameworks, edge compute & digital transformation, product marketing, and partnering with some of the industry’s largest entities as we collectively build solutions for end users.

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She has a strong conviction that Artificial intelligence can be a powerful ally for unlocking our potential and advancing towards a more sustainable future. She has served as the regional leader for Sustainability and ESG efforts and served as the Intel representative to the APAC Sustainability Council.

Niamh Donnelly is Co-Founder and CTO of Akara Robotics, a company developing autonomous robots and AI that improve healthcare outcomes and transform hospital efficiency.

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Recognized as one of Europe’s top emerging tech leaders, Niamh has been awarded the European Rising Innovator Award by the European Commision and under her leadership, Akara’s robots have received international acclaim, including being named among TIME magazine’s Best Inventions of the Year (2025).

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With deep expertise in machine learning, robotics, and applied AI in healthcare, Niamh has built and scaled technical teams across Europe and the U.S., bridging the gap between research and real-world clinical impact.

Vimala Nandula works at AdventHealth leading Strategic Innovation and Industry Partnerships.

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Previously, Vimala led product strategy initiatives at HBO Max. Prior to that, she served as Associate Director of Corporate Development at Ginkgo Bioworks, where she led strategic partnerships and acquisitions that expanded the company's biotechnology platform. Earlier in her career, she focused on healthcare and technology investments at the Harvard University Endowment. She also worked as an Investment Banking Analyst at Goldman Sachs, advising on mergers and acquisitions across the healthcare and consumer sectors. Vimala was also a policy research intern at the White House during the Obama Administration, conducting research on financial markets.

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Vimala earned her MBA from Harvard Business School and her Bachelor of Science in Economics from The Ohio State University.

Aishatu R. Yusuf, MPA, Ed.D. (c), has over a decade of experience in crafting innovative solutions to address some of society’s most complex problems. She approaches systemic change management head-on from an intersectional framework that confronts both the impact and extent of race and gender bias in the administration of justice for marginalized groups, including low-resource communities, system-impacted people, youth, girls, and women. At Impact Justice, Aishatu has created, evaluated, and sustained a portfolio of transformational projects that work to reform and transform social systems. Some of these projects include California Justice Leaders: a first-of-its-kind AmeriCorps reentry mentorship program for formerly incarcerated young adults, The Homecoming Project: a social justice extension of the sharing economy model that pairs returning citizens with welcoming community hosts, and Food in Prison Project: the first national effort to call attention to the crisis of food inside America’s prisons.

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Aishatu has presented at conferences, universities, and government agencies nationwide. She has provided legislative testimony, drafted education policy for Congressional leaders, and has been interviewed by numerous national and local publications, on-air television, and podcasts. Aishatu holds a doctorate, Ed. D., from the Johns Hopkins University School of Education, a Master of Public Administration from Northeastern University, and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Utah.

Rob Franklin is Senior Vice President of Brain-Computer Interfaces at Blackrock Neurotech, where he leads strategy and development across implantable BCI technologies spanning research, clinical translation, and commercialization. With over 16 years of hands-on experience in intracortical neural recording and stimulation systems, he has worked closely with academic researchers, clinicians, regulators, and industry partners to translate cutting-edge neural interface technologies into robust, scalable clinical systems. His work includes direct involvement in first-in-human studies and long-term implanted BCI deployments.

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Rob brings particular expertise at the intersection of neurotechnology engineering, regulatory strategy, and translational execution (with a focus on ensuring BCI technologies are reliable, manufacturable, and positioned for broad clinical adoption). He also serves as co-chair of the iBCI-CC workgroup on modular components, interoperability, and standards, helping to shape the technical foundation for next-generation neural interface platforms.

Shawna Olsten is a senior marketing and brand leader with 18+ years of experience building and scaling teams across fashion, performance, lifestyle, and now fintech. She's held leadership roles at Aritzia, Reigning Champ, SAXX Native Shoes, Kit and Ace, and Quiksilver, and currently leads Brand Marketing at Wealthsimple.

Executive technology leader at lululemon with over 20 years of experience driving digital transformation, AI adoption, and engineering excellence at global enterprise scale. Passionate about applying artificial intelligence to improve business outcomes, software delivery, and technology investment decisions.

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Outside of work, currently writing a children’s football book series and building an AI-powered golf performance app that helps golfers improve through data-driven insights. A frequent mentor and advisor on engineering leadership, innovation, and the future of AI in the enterprise.

I’m the Founder, CEO, and CTO of HUGE. My background is design-centric, and my work focuses on the relationship between people and AI. Specifically, how we move beyond centralized AI, and toward truly personal, user-owned AI.

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HUGE is an applied AI research and product company building the foundations for human-centered personal AI. We are developing an agent platform, along with supporting software and hardware, designed around privacy, ownership, and trust.

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Our core thesis is Digital Intimacy: AI becomes genuinely useful when it can understand a person’s context over time, but that intimacy has to be earned through user control, strong privacy, and meaningful ownership.

I currently serve as COO of Secant Fuel, a climate technology startup creating high-value green fuels from waste carbon streams. I also work with Hard Climate as a Venture Partner, where we create and grow climate technology companies. I work across strategy, operations, fundraising, and helping teams navigate the messy reality of building hard tech.

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What fascinates me most is how complex systems actually change. Whether it's climate, technology, organizations, communities, or ecosystems, I'm drawn to questions that don't have obvious answers and that require people with very different perspectives to work together.

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Some of the most meaningful conversations I've had recently have been with founders, scientists, conservationists, investors, and community builders who are all trying to solve very different problems and often run into the same human challenges: uncertainty, incentives, trust, leadership, and change.

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I live on Vancouver Island, where I spend a lot of time outdoors, thinking about the relationship between people and the places they inhabit. I am particularly interested in supporting founders, supporting women in STEM and entrepreneurship, and exploring how people and organizations can create meaningful impact in the world.

Shanna Porporino is Director of AI Commercialization at TELUS, where she leads the global B2B commercialization strategy for AI, including the go-to-market strategy for the TELUS Sovereign AI Factory.

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With nearly 20 years at TELUS spanning sales, marketing, enablement, operations and commercialization, Shanna has built her career around turning complex strategies and emerging technologies into scalable business outcomes. Today, her focus is on bridging the gap between AI innovation and adoption—working across startups, enterprises, technology partners and Canada’s AI ecosystem to help organizations move from experimentation to real-world deployment and growth.

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Shanna is also helping build new pathways for Canadian AI companies to scale, developing partnerships across the startup and accelerator ecosystem and connecting high-potential companies with the infrastructure, expertise and commercial opportunities needed to grow.

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Prior to leading AI commercialization, Shanna held senior leadership roles focused on sales transformation, cross-sell and post-acquisition integration. Her work has included building globally scaled sales programs, launching AI-enabled sales automation, and establishing cross-functional teams.

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At the centre of Shanna’s work is a simple belief: the value of AI isn’t in the technology alone—it’s in our ability to turn it into something businesses can adopt, scale and use to create meaningful outcomes.

Gurpreet Jhaj is a dynamic leader currently serving as Vice President of Marketing at Vancity, a role she assumed in May 2022. With a career spanning multiple continents including the UK, USA, India, and Canada, Gurpreet brings a rich tapestry of global experience and cultural insight to her work.

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Gurpreet is widely recognized for her ability to foster innovation, build high-performing teams, and champion a customer-centric approach in marketing strategies.

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Since settling in British Columbia over the past decade, she has been engaged in the local community residing in Vancouver’s Gastown neighborhood and advocating for an equitable, inclusive, and sustainable future.

Dr. Oskar is a physician and tech entrepreneur based in New York City.

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At 21, while in medical school, he launched his first tech company and continued building healthcare products, quickly establishing himself as a leader in healthcare innovation. He developed the first HIPAA-compliant medical voice AI for smart speakers, leading to influential research with Cedars-Sinai Hospital on voice-first clinical systems.

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Committed to helping people live healthier and longer lives, Dr. Oskar is currently focused on science-backed longevity and making healthy lifestyles more affordable for Americans. He is also exploring the clinical applications of machine learning, neural networks, and other advanced computational methods.

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Beyond his professional work, Dr. Oskar actively supports the local art community, grooves on the drums at jam sessions, and enjoys concerts at the New York Philharmonic.

As VP of Growth at Engine Digital, I work closely with agency leadership and senior client teams to develop new opportunities, strengthen existing partnerships, and help organizations make clear, confident decisions about their digital future.

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My work sits at the intersection of strategy, relationships, and execution, partnering with VP and C-Suite leaders across Canada and the U.S. as they navigate complexity, prioritize investment, and align teams around shared outcomes.

Ambrosia Vertesi has spent her career helping build some of the tech industry's fastest-growing companies. Over the past 15 years, she has led organizations through hypergrowth at Ironclad, Duo Security, and Hootsuite, scaling global teams from startup to enterprise, helping companies achieve billion-dollar valuations, and earning repeated Fortune Best Workplace recognition.

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A co-founder of HROS, the world's largest HR open-source community, Ambrosia also served as an Operating Partner at Operator Collective, partnering with founders and operators to support and invest in the next generation of enterprise technology companies.
Drawing on her experience designing high-growth cultures, Ambrosia speaks on how AI is reshaping leadership, organizational scale, and the operating systems behind great companies.

Colin built a team of 16 employees across 3 countries to commercialize multiple low carbon materials and deliver over 185,000 lbs of product last year. Prior to founding Applied Bioplastics, Colin delivered complex software installation and support projects across the healthcare and banking sectors.

Denise Hamilton is a speaker, author of Indivisible, and endlessly curious human. These days, she’s thinking about how we rebraid the social fabric and build the human infrastructure needed for the future. She also creates real-world opportunities for connection through In Person, Good Givers and Write Away.

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Come find her if you want to talk big ideas, speaking, convening, travel, collage—or if your game night needs a dangerously competitive new player.

I tell stories with data and build startups. I write for Forbes, and am starting up HumanoidMegaHub, an ecosystem map of the humanoid robot space.

Yvette Schmitter is CEO and co-founder of Fusion Collective, an independent AI governance, audit, and assurance firm built on one principle: the auditor cannot be the vendor. As companies hand real decisions to AI agents, her team builds the accountability layer that lets a business trust an agent to act in its name, and that turns a risky, stalled deployment into one a board will approve. That work earned Fusion Collective and its Fusion Sentinel platform a 2026 A.I. Awards shortlist in three categories: Most Innovative AI Technology, Best Consideration of Ethics and Governance in AI, and AI for Good.

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Her track record runs through technology's largest rooms. She directed one of the largest cloud migrations in AWS history, served as a Digital Architecture Partner at PwC, and held earlier leadership at Deloitte and Ernst & Young. An ISO 42001 Lead Auditor, she advises not-for-profits working with the US Congress and UK Parliament on AI regulation, speaks at TEDx, and hosts The Code Breakers Podcast, with work featured in Forbes and The New York Times.

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At Frontier Summit she takes the stage and the moderator's chair, leading panels and fireside chats on the Inflection Point, the moment AI shifts from answering to acting. She came to ask the hard questions, the ones that move a curated room of changemakers from talk to change that does real good. The people she most wants to meet are enterprise leaders deploying AI agents, Microsoft partners building AI practices, investors backing applied AI, and founders who need independent assurance to win enterprise trust.

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Her path to this work began at the edge of the industry, a little Black girl who taught herself computers by flashlight on a closet floor, and she still finds the clearest view of a system at its margins.

I’m a Lawyer-Poet. Former international prosecutor & present-day builder of human connection through story. I am deeply committed to the human collective. I build Responsible AI Literacy ecosystems that hold space for truth telling, adapting and accountability.

Alison Coates leads climate and community investment for Vancity, shaping and overseeing Vancity’s response to the climate crisis and the partnerships that deliver progress on Vancity's impact priorities.

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Alison is an award winning social and environmental sustainability professional who has held senior leadership positions in Canada and internationally and has led on the development of global sustainability strategies in the financial sector.

Colombian director, producer, and cinematographer based in Austin, Texas. National Geographic Explorer whose work spans six continents, with long-running social impact commissions for the UN — most recently documenting salmon restoration efforts with First Nations and Parks Canada.

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His Texan trilogy chronicles communities of color on the frontlines of climate change: La Cosecha (SXSW 2023), Floodplain (Silver Anthem winner, 2024), and Una Nave Frágil (National Geographic Society, World Premiere SXSW 2026). Boca Chica (2023, PBS), co-directed with Ái Vuong, examines SpaceX's impact on the wildlife refuge and local communities that surround its rocket launch facility on the border of the US and Mexico — with screenings at Jackson Wild, Wildscreen, and Big Sky. He is currently co-directing two projects: feature doc Where the Sun Sets, on border communities in Southeast Asia (Austin Film Society grantee), and a Nat Geo-financed short documentary on Nakota youth navigating identity in Canada.

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Founder of TÁPI Story and the School of Slow Media (SoSM) — a leadership program and community of practice for slower, more human storytelling, started in Southeast Asia — and, most recently, co-founder of CAUCE, a content incubator in Latin America for natural history and wildlife filmmaking. A Jackson Wild Media Lab Fellow and TEDx speaker, his commercial and impact work spans Google Arts & Culture, UNDP, NALAC, Square, Visa Innovation Labs, The National Bank of Cambodia, and Pepsi-Buffalo Bills, among others.

Christian F. Nunes, MBA, MS, LCSW-C, LCSW, an internationally recognized speaker and expert in mental health, gender equity, and digital safety, created Saving Ourselves Foundation with a vision rooted in a fundamental truth: communities already possess the skills, knowledge, and power needed to create lasting change. What they need is to center survivors, and they deserve equity, access, and safety.

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Christian’s expertise spans evidence-based clinical practice, policy advocacy, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ), and organizational transformation. She consistently weaves social work, research, and social justice frameworks throughout her work. Her insights have shaped national conversations on CNN, The Dr. Phil Show, Forbes, The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Washington Post, among other media outlets.

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Christian is a licensed clinical social worker with over 20 years of experience, a Certified Clinical Trauma Specialist, and the founder and CEO of Equity Bound Solutions LLC, where she guides organizations through equity-centered transformations, with a focus on psychological safety. She is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Social Work (DSW) at Simmons University, and continues to advance scholarship on trauma-informed practice and systemic change.

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Previously, she served as National President of the National Organization for Women (NOW) from 2020-2025. Christian made history as only the second African American woman to hold this role in the organization's 60-year legacy.

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Under her leadership, she transformed NOW. She modernized the organization and anchored it in intersectional feminism and anti-racist practice. She restructured its systems, governance, and strategic priorities to center racial justice and intersectionality, mobilized a new, diverse generation of feminist leaders, and amplified marginalized voices within the movement.

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She is also the author of the children's book No Hug Today, about consent and bodily autonomy.

Arun is the CEO of Aloe, the AI lab building superhuman critical thinking. Aloe is focused on developing AI that people and industry can genuinely trust – and on shaping the tools needed to help humans and our society thrive in the decades ahead.

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Arun is an AI researcher whose path began with cognitive science and philosophy, where he studied how human thinking works, and how it breaks. His career has spanned research, design, and founding multiple startups; his contributions to AI were recognized by the US with an Einstein visa before he chose to return to Canada from Silicon Valley to found Aloe. He combines technical depth with insatiable curiosity and values-driven leadership. He is a decade-long Vipassana meditator.

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Amy Peck is the Founder & CEO of EndeavorXR, a leading global XR strategy & consulting firm. She is one of the world’s foremost strategists on immersive and intelligent technology including Digital Twins and applied AI. She advises Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and advanced technology startups on how to leverage emerging technology to optimize all aspects of business. She is a globally recognized futurist, and gives lectures, workshops and keynotes on emerging technology, business and innovation. 

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Amy was named one of the Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Tech and Top 100 Women of The Future. She serves as Executive Advisor to Booz Allen Hamilton within their CTO Applied R&D group working across Digital Twins, AI & Spatial Computing. She also serves as Lead Advisor, AI & New Media, for the Royal Commission of Riyadh City and The Royal Court. 

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Amy serves on the Venture Board Harvard University’s HealthLab Accelerator (H2A). She is an angel investor and Venture Partner at the Capital Region XR Accelerator. Amy sits on the Board of Advisors for multiple companies and is Executive Board Chair of Prospera Women, a global organization supporting female-led startups. She works with universities and government agencies advising on the development of innovation hubs, accelerators and emerging technology programs. 

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Her own personal mission is to see technology accessible to all - fundamentally improving every aspect of our lives and elevating the way we work, learn, communicate and play.

Managing Partner at Emerging Ventures Capital - investing in Seed-Stage US and Canada based B2B tech startups.Emerging Tech "Super Angel". Invested in over 500 startups.

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Prior to entiering current carrerr as inversor, Built, operated, and exited 4 successful different businesses in the Insurance and Finance industries over a 28-year period. Now focusing on investing in early-stage emerging tech startups both as a very active angel investor, and through Emerging Ventures, in my role as Managing Partner. Happy to use my accumulated experience, connections, and financial resources to help the next generation of bright, energetic founders build their businesses.

Toni Thai Sterrett is a filmmaker, creative, and founder of CinePartna, an AI-powered screenwriting app built to supercharge instead of replacing writers which just soft launched at Microsoft in December 2025.

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A creator turned founder, Toni was the first tech founder selected by The Greene Space (WNYC/NPR) to be named an Artist in Residence. She’s spoken at CES, Harvard, Princeton, Cannes Film Festival, Google, SXSW, JP Morgan Chase, Consensus, Korea Tech Week, and more.

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She co-produced and co-starred in the Gotham Award-nominated film, August the First, and has directed commercials and branded content for Pantene, Clinique, Nissan, KMart, BET, etc. Toni was chosen by Ava DuVernay as Vibe’s Next Female Filmmaker.

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She’s been featured in Revolt, Yahoo Finance, The NY Times, Time Magazine and on the Apple App Store (for the entire month of February 2022) . Toni has hosted/moderated conversations for Amazon, Bumble, Coindesk, Will Packer Productions, SXSW, HBO, Walmart, and Showtime. She guest lectures at Columbia University’s MFA film program, NYU, Parsons School of Design and The School of Visual Arts about emerging technology, filmmaking, creativity, and agency in an evolving world. She’s als the founder of Bad Grrls Creative Club, a community of top creators at the intersection of film,fashion, art and tech.

Johnny is the founder and CEO of Supergroup, a messenger that gives you super powers. He was a founding engineer at Slack where he worked for 11 years.

Tony Patrick is a worldbuilder, social practice artist, comics creator,  and immersive director.

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Patrick is a Sundance Institute World-building Fellow, 2021 Sundance Film Festival New Frontier Artist, IFP/RYOT 5G Storytelling Alum, Guild of Future Architects Founding Member, NYU ITP & IMA Professor, NYU Future Imagination Collaboratory Fellow, NYU Red Burns Fellow, CommonField Fellow, NEW INC alum, For Freedoms Artist, Wide Awakes Founding Member, Buckminster Fuller Institute Design Science Studio Advisor/Mentor, RLAB Mentor, Today@Apple NYC Youth Program Mentor, Futurist Writers Room Co-Designer, and Restoring the Future Co-Designer. Patrick attended the Dramatic Writing Program at New York University.

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As an author/director of numerous screenplays, short films, and documentaries (HBO, Cinemax, and the CBC) in conjunction with a series of published comics under his belt (Batman & The Signal, X'ed), Tony's penchant for creating fictional and immersive worlds catapulted him into numerous future-facing residencies and served as the inspiration for sculpting co-creation spaces which produce new artworks, prototypes, frameworks, and civic solutions in his Community-World-building initiative (the ReWriters Room) with artists, entrepreneurs, institutions, and communities-at-large.

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When he’s not advocating for underrepresented students to embark on game design/tech careers through his Tenfold Gaming Initiative (TGI), he’s building his latest venture, the School of Lived Experience, a renewal center framework comprised of somatic community-centric programs, interactive public art experiences, co-creation hubs, and virtual engagement platforms which provide ongoing opportunities for local communities, students, and artists to interact, heal, & build together.

I lead tech partnerships at Rula, a behavioral health platform connecting patients with the right therapist and helping clinicians focus on care instead of admin. My focus is on partnerships with tech and AI companies — people are increasingly turning to AI for mental health support, and I’m building the bridges that get them to real, measurable care.

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I bring 25 years of partnerships and strategy experience from Google, IBM, and Unity, where I built alliances with companies like Apple, Walmart, and Capgemini. My career has centered on the same throughline: connecting the right people, products, and platforms to unlock outcomes that matter.

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Let’s connect if you’re working at the intersection of AI, healthcare, and human outcomes.

Chief Economist at Vancity Credit Union, shaping economic insight at the intersection of growth, affordability, and community impact. Experience across government, consulting, and finance to advance inclusive and resilient economic systems.

Bryan Yu is Chief Economist at Central 1 Credit Union where he leads the organization’s economic thought leadership, subscriber research service, and IFRS9 credit loss modelling businesses. His teams provide actionable economic research and advisory services to support credit union executive teams and their boards across the country.

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Bryan regularly provides his economic outlooks at industry events spanning sectors like financial services, forestry, housing, and resources and is frequently interviewed by national and local media to provide economic commentary. He previously held economist positions at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the BC Real Estate Association and holds BA and MA degrees from the University of Manitoba and Simon Fraser University. Bryan serves on the appointed management board of Invest Vancouver, and serves on the board of directors S.U.C.C.E.S.S. and the Canadian Association for Business Economics.

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Central 1 is a treasury and payments organization owned by B.C. and Ontario credit unions that serves financial institutions across the country.

I’m an entrepreneur and product leader, currently focused on making home design easy. Previously I was co-founder and CEO at Flight (acquired by Figma), Spaces (acquired by Slack), and OpenCal (acquired by Groupon).

Dr. Meaghan Thumath is the founder of the HERO Lab (Health Equity and Resilience in Outbreaks) at UBC and a global leader at the intersection of artificial intelligence, health security, and crisis response. With a career spanning frontline epidemic response, academia, and high-stakes advisory roles to the UN and WHO, she translates deep scientific expertise into scalable platforms. Her current venture develops AI systems to counter disinformation and strengthen resilience in defense, pharmaceutical, and emergency sectors—domains where accuracy, speed, and trust are decisive.

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Backed by competitive research grants, international partnerships, and venture interest, her work has already shaped public health strategy in Canada and abroad. She brings a rare mix of credibility—Assistant Professor at UBC, DPhil (Oxford)—and entrepreneurial drive, proven by spinning cutting-edge research into actionable tools.

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Looking forward, Meaghan is scaling frontier AI systems that safeguard societies against the twin threats of misinformation and instability, positioning her company to lead in a $100B+ trust-tech market.

I'm Brett Macfarlane, a leadership adviser and researcher with an innovation specialism and trained in organizational psychology. I help leaders and teams navigate the messy, high-stakes work of innovation—where the real barriers aren't in your strategy deck, but in the unspoken dynamics that keep even talented teams stuck.

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I've spent two decades in the pressure cooker: advising executives and teams at Apple, Google, Barclays, Diageo, and Accenture; coaching founders through scale-up chaos; and helping central banks and top consultancies build the muscle to turn strategy into reality. I know what it feels like when good plans hit invisible walls—and I know how to surface what's actually blocking progress.

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My approach is rooted in an unexpected place: Canada's Olympic development system, where I trained and coached as an elite athlete. High-performance sport taught me that success isn't about working harder—it's about working with the emotional and psychological forces that either unlock potential or keep people stuck. That insight led me to develop the Innovation Leadership Map and Emotional Gearing frameworks—research-based methods for navigating the anxiety, authority struggles, and frustration that decisively shape innovation outcomes.

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I hold a master's in organizational psychology with distinction from INSEAD and have published research on the emotional dimensions of innovation leadership and contributed to the American Psychological Association. My work combines psychodynamic insight with behavioural science—not to make people "feel better," but to build the resilience, clarity, and strategic agility that high-stakes leadership demands.

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Since founding my leadership development practice in 2022, I've partnered with Fortune 500 companies, central banks, top-tier consultancies, and venture-backed tech firms who need confidential, science-led support—not generic coaching or change management. I share insights from this work through my newsletter Connecting Dots, keynote speaking, and university lectures.

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Outside of work, I'm an avid cyclist with the Rapha Cycle Club and a lifelong skier. I'm still drawn to that edge between control and letting go—on the mountain and in the work.

Calvin Gerus is a Sr. Principal AI Product Leader at RBC Borealis, RBC's AI research and development group, where he helps lead the ATOM foundation model product and many strategic AI Agent initiatives. He has spent more than a decade building AI products, with a career that runs through building big data platforms and data products at Autodesk, helping Borealis AI transition from fundamental research to applied AI, to advising start-ups on AI native product development.

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Outside of RBC, Calvin helped found The Pearl, a consumer AI app grounded in depth psychology focused on AI alignment and Safe AI.

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He holds a BSc in Electrical Engineering with a biomedical specialization from the University of Calgary and an MBA in Entrepreneurship from Hult International Business School.

Michelle Chang is a Founding Partner and CFO of The New Industrial Corporation (NIC), a New York-based investment management firm backing the next generation of industrial innovation through venture capital and project finance. At NIC, Michelle drives the financial architecture behind a portfolio at the intersection of deep tech, infrastructure, and real assets — the kind of patient, high-conviction capital that frontier ecosystems depend on to scale.

Michelle brings a rare combination of operational depth and investment acumen built across two decades and multiple industries. As Group Head of Finance at Plenary Group Americas, she helped scale one of North America's leading infrastructure finance platforms, developing the reporting and operational infrastructure that supported major expansion across Canada and the US. As CFO of both Native Shoes and Rove Concepts, she led the financial, logistics, and technology build-outs behind two high-growth consumer brands navigating rapid multi-jurisdictional scale.

Michelle understands what it takes to build something real — and what it takes to fund it. She is committed to seeing Vancouver fulfill its potential as a global leader in frontier technology, and to ensuring the investment infrastructure is in place to make that happen.

Aaron Rallo is a technology entrepreneur and former Amazon Director whose work spans startup innovation and enterprise-scale AI. He founded TSO Logic in 2012 to help enterprises reduce data center costs through data-driven insights; the platform evaluated hundreds of thousands of workloads, delivered 30%+ savings for customers, and was acquired by Amazon in 2019.

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At Amazon Web Services, Aaron served as a Director in the Agentic AI organization, leading global teams that developed AI agents,
graph-based analytics, and LLM-powered tooling to automate high-judgment tasks in large-scale application modernization.

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Since leaving Amazon, Aaron has shifted to building AI hands-on, and is the founder of Trovia, an expert-centric AI platform.

Gerhard Abel is co-founder and managing director of PLANET architects, an internationally active interdisciplinary architecture and design office.
With his international team of 30 architects, interior designers, product designers, graphic designers and organisational developers, he is passionate about designing future-oriented working, learning and living spaces. Using participative, people-centred design processes, he develops solutions that strengthen social interaction and provide positive impulses for the community.

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As a keynote speaker, guest lecturer and co-initiator of the FUTURE EXPERIENCE FORUM, Gerhard Abel is a recognised voice on the future of work and transformative workplace design.

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He is also a member of the Creative Industries Council of the Federal Ministry Ministry Economy, Energy and Tourism, Republic of Austria.

Co-Founder and Design Innovation for PicCollage Company. My work focuses on concept design, branding, and visual storytelling. I love to explore design principles and how technology can assist creativity. Inspiration often comes from finding patterns in everyday life—from crafting and sports to exploring the city, nature and patterns around us.

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Fascinated by the science of aesthetics and human behavior —of how we perceive beauty, make choices, and express ourselves—I draw from these themes to inform both my creative process and personal exploration.

Natalie is a president and founder of Collective IQ, a company that provides marketing operations solutions for clients across various industries. With over 25 years of experience in marketing communications, creative direction, and branding, she leads a team of experts who collaborate on projects from strategy to execution, leveraging their diverse skills and perspectives.

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Natalie is passionate about creating impactful and engaging marketing campaigns that deliver results and value for her clients. She has a proven track record of overseeing creative operations and accounts while implementing processes and systems, managing budgets and media, and ensuring brand consistency and quality.

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Natalie’s a disruptor in her industry having created an innovative marketing agency model over 10 years ago that broke all the rules of traditional agencies with top-tier brands who trust her to help their teams make sure to hit their KPI’s.

Senior Marketing and Innovation leader, with a passion for emerging tech, big creative ideas and interesting collaborations.

Berend Zwartsenberg is Chief Scientist at InvertedAI, where he leads work on developing end-to-end models for planning for self-driving applications as well as behavioral models for realistic simulation. He contributed to the development of the first published diffusion model for driving behavior, to foundational research on how diffusion models generalize and deployed driving models on a real vehicle. His work spans multi-agent behavioral models, invariant generative models, score-based generative models and reinforcement learning with roughly 20 papers and one patent.

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Before InvertedAI he was a postdoc at the University of British Columbia with Frank Wood and Trevor Campbell. He holds a PhD in experimental condensed matter physics from UBC, where he studied spin-orbit interactions in strongly correlated electron systems, and a Masters cum laude from the University of Amsterdam, for which he received the Pieter Zeeman Prize.

Peter leads strategy and growth at Bimotal, a DeepTech startup focused on actuator technology for Physical AI and more. Prior to Bimotal, Peter has experience leading consulting engagements at KPMG and driving product and customer growth at Series B startup Doss. He holds a BMath from the University of Waterloo and a MBA from Berkeley Haas.

BaD Mktg combines strategy & creative with proprietary AI tools plus a distributed network of content creators to power a uniquely agile creative agency. We focus on driving business KPIs by delivering the right work our clients need while delighting audiences with our highly crafted – & thumbstopping! – creative storytelling.

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Our founders Ian Buck & Yotam Dor bring 35+ years of experience across PR, social, influencer, advertising, events, community & film production.

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We’ve created & executed thousands of campaigns for clients including Microsoft, Samsung, BMW, RBC, BMO, Amex, P&G, Jamieson Vitamins, Canada Goose, Sport Chek, Canadian Tire, Tim Hortons, Cadillac Fairview, and many more.

Janice is an entrepreneur and investor in the tech industry. She founded and served as CEO of Neurio Technology, a company that specializes in residential energy monitoring and management systems. Following Neurio's acquisition, Janice became an angel investor and Managing Partner of the Women's Equity Lab investment fund.

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She also serves as an advisor and board director to various companies and not for profit organizations. She has received numerous accolades for her achievements, including nominations for Ernst & Young's "Young Entrepreneur of the Year" and recognition as a "Top Forty Under 40" by Business in Vancouver.

I’ve spent my career building at the intersection of technology, robotics, real estate and community building. Innovation has always been at the core of my work, driving ideas that scale businesses and create lasting impact.

Dr. Mallory Flynn, co-founder and CEO of Insporos, has a PhD background is in mathematics and statistics/AI, with over a decade of experience developing new modeling methods for complex, structured biological data.

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She is deeply motivated by the challenge of translating advanced analytics into tangible impact, particularly where in physical AI, where complex biology and computational decision making directly intersect.

FRANK PALMER
Founder, Brand Frank | Strategic Advisor | Agency Builder

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EXECUTIVE PROFILE
Visionary business and creative leader with 50+ years building, scaling, and transforming agencies into
market leaders. Known for decisive leadership, sharp strategic thinking, and developing top-tier talent.
Proven ability to diagnose complex business challenges and turn them into clear, actionable growth
strategies.

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LEADERSHIP HIGHLIGHTS
• Built and led multiple high-performance agencies including Palmer Jarvis, DDB Canada, and PS&CO.
• Orchestrated merger with DDB Worldwide, establishing a leading Canadian creative network
• Led organizations through ownership transitions, restructures, and competitive market shifts
• Developed industry-leading talent; protégés founded Rethink and Broken Heart Love Affair
• Built long-term partnerships with global brands including Volkswagen, McDonald’s, Unilever,
Budweiser, TELUS
• Resolved major financial challenges, including eliminating $750K debt through strategic negotiation

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CURRENT
Founder — Brand Frank
Advises CEOs, founders, and leadership teams on business strategy, brand positioning, and growth.

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PREVIOUS ROLES
Founder / Chairman — PS&CO;
Chairman / CEO — DDB Canada
Founder — Palmer Jarvis

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COMMUNITY & INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP
• Founder — National Advertising Benevolent Society (NABS Canada)
• Former Chairman — Special Olympics BC
• Led major public service initiatives supporting youth, health, and community organizations.
. Vancouver Police Foundation, Ronald McDonald House, Canadian Mental Health,
. President Kinsmen Club of Vancouver, Rick Hanson Foundation, B.C. Sports Hall of Fame.

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RECOGNITION
• Canadian Marketing Hall of Legends.
• Gold Medal — Association of Canadian Advertisers
• Marketing, Advertising, PR & Communication Hall of Fame (2020)• Canadian Marketing Hall of Gold (2023)

Better thinking. Better strategy. Better results.

Steve Dantas is the founder & CEO of datAInsyghts, a data services and AI platform that curates insights and strategies based on operational and business information inside small/medium companies. The objective is to provide SMEs with the same competitive advantages and AI capabilities that large organizations possess.

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Steve is a seasoned tech professional and serial entrepreneur. He loves helping people find their true talents and to coach/support them in deploying those talents in their daily work.

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Steve is also the founder of ReTyre, an initiative to re-career mid-career and late career professionals and provide them with validated and viable paths to fulfilment and stability.

Theodora Jean is an award-winning communications strategist and the Founder of Coldwater Communications, a boutique PR agency recognized three years running as Small Agency Team of the Year. With almost 20 years of experience in public relations, she leads high-impact, cross-sector campaigns spanning tech, government, non-profit, and entertainment, helping organizations tell impactful stories and navigate complex communications landscapes.

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She was recently honoured with the 2025 Entrepreneurial Leadership Award from the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS) and has served in leadership roles with the Squamish Chamber of Commerce and CPRS Vancouver.

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Theodora holds a Master’s in Communication from the University of Ottawa and an undergraduate degree from Queen’s University. She has also completed executive education at Harvard Business School focused on leading professional service firms and entrepreneurship.

Aaren spent his career inside the machinery of professional services: nearly eight years leading customer success at Traction on Demand, then global professional services strategy at Salesforce. He watched the model work for the enterprise and fail the little guy. Vistera is the fix he brought to market.

Sarah Rea is an entrepreneurial operator and advisor to founders and executives. For global tech companies (Intuit), established category leaders (Meridian, Sears), and startups, Sarah has developed and delivered new strategic plans, partnerships, go-to-market programs, services, and lines of business to add value to customers and drive growth.

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She specializes in the end-to-end design, development and execution of ambitious new business ventures, initiatives, and go-to-market plans with cross-functional teams and partners. An avid champion of the global startup ecosystem, and corporate-startup collaboration, Sarah has managed startup growth programs at Intuit and the Cleantech Open in Silicon Valley. She is an angel investor and member of Maple Leaf Angels in Canada.

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Sarah received her BA from Harvard and studied business at UC Berkeley.

As the COO of SplitX, I lead operations and strategy for a global community of tech leaders, ensuring that innovation, collaboration, and well-being are at the core of everything we do. My expertise spans marketing strategy, community building, and event management, and I am deeply involved in fostering impactful partnerships that drive growth.

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In my role, I’ve supported dozens of startups within SplitX’s ecosystem, helping them navigate challenges and scale effectively. My leadership ensures that SplitX remains a thriving hub for innovation and growth, while also prioritizing the personal well-being of our members.

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Outside of my professional work, I run a small ceramic design studio, creating custom, handcrafted pieces for hospitality venues and private clients. My work focuses on bespoke tableware and vases, blending modern Mediterranean aesthetics with traditional craftsmanship, reflecting my passion for interior design and architecture.

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My creative interests shape my leadership approach, where attention to detail and a sense of balance drive my decision-making. Whether managing operations or spearheading initiatives, I strive to make SplitX a global leader in the tech community, with a strong focus on both success and well-being.

I'm the founder of Dine Wilder, a community built on the belief that meaningful connection can change the trajectory of a life, a business, or an idea. Over the past two years, I've brought together more than 1,000 women through sold-out dinners, retreats, conferences, and curated experiences designed to create conversations that matter. I also founded The Room, a membership community for women who want deeper connection, bigger conversations, and access to inspiring people and ideas. As AI continues to reshape how we communicate, market, and build businesses, I'm fascinated by what becomes even more valuable in response: trust, belonging, community, and the irreplaceable magic of being in the right room with the right people. My work sits at the intersection of human connection and growth, exploring how technology can help us reach more people without losing the depth that makes us human.

Armando Matijević is a serial entrepreneur with 15+ years building companies across Silicon Valley and Croatia. He is the founder of SplitX, a frontier tech platform converging the world's most influential leaders around innovation, inspiration, and wellbeing. He is also a founder of Club Board, fan-engagement software for sports clubs.

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Armando is building at the intersection of technology and wellbeing, turning fyaka, the Croatian philosophy of presence and ease, into products and communities designed for high performers.

Mikayla Stewart is Co-Founder and CTO of Athena Collective, a growth platform for women founders, and Co-Founder of Coldstart, which builds custom AI operating systems for small and mid-size businesses. Alongside both roles, she consults with early-stage founders on fundraising and pre-Series A growth. She works as both product lead and developer, from her home base in Vancouver, BC. The work has been the same throughout: find where a business is stuck, and build the thing that unsticks it.

I build and commercialize emerging AI businesses, working across strategy, GTM, partnerships, product, and operations to turn ambitious AI investments into scalable revenue engines. A generalist by nature and an operator in practice, I bring structure to ambiguous opportunities — aligning teams around where to play and how to win, then building the commercial programs and accountability to deliver growth.

Gregg is Founder and CEO of Cosmos Collab, a consultancy that explores and demystifies emerging tech and media for companies navigating the business landscape across entertainment and enterprise.

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Additionally, Gregg is an executive committee board member and chair of events for the ‘Emerging Media Programming Peer Group’ of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (‘TV Academy’), advisory board member for SXSW’s ‘Innovation Pitch’ competition, and former two-term Vice Chair for the Producers Guild of America’s ‘New Media Council.

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His affiliations with these professional organizations have given him the ability to introduce ‘what’s next’ to creative communities and foster collaboration.

As Director of Data, AI Governance and Partnerships at Providence Health Care Ventures (PHC), Ms.Kim leads the creation, deployment, and continuous improvement of data and AI products across PHC's sites, and is responsible for the privacy,security and consent management frameworks that govern PHC's internal and federated data platforms. Her portfolio spans data science, analytics, product management,and information technology, She has directed the technical implementation of PHC's multi-omics and medical-imaging research engine, its infection-prevention surveillance and federated data systems.

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Soyean Kim is an accredited statistician (P.Stat. PhD) with more than twenty years of applied statistical and technical leadership experience across health care, public health, government regulation, utilities, and consulting. Her research interests lie at the intersection of statistical methodology and secure health-data infrastructure: privacy-preserving and federated analysis, causal inference and program evaluation using observational and administrative data, experimental design, and the validation and monitoring of predictive models deployed in clinical settings.

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She contributes internationally to data-governance and standards development as a member of the OECD Health Data Expert Group on Data Free Flow with Trust and the United Nations Privacy-Enhancing Technologies Lab, and she leads the pathogen-genomics program of HL7 GenomeX, the standards accelerator for global clinical genomics interoperability. She has presented on responsible access to sensitive microdata at the 55th Session of the U.N. Statistical Commission and at the International Seminar on Official Statistics, and has contributed to reference architectures andPHA4GE and the CINECA federated cohort network(Europe, Canada, Africa).

Ilya is the founder of Digital Panda, a global creative agency working at the intersection of art, marketing, and technology. He is continually curious, always learning and an official creative problem solver. When not obsessing over design, he plays golf with his two sons.

Dan Burgar is a global ecosystem builder and innovation leader shaping a more human, connected, and resilient future through technology, capital, and community. Based in Vancouver, he has played a defining role in elevating the region’s frontier technology ecosystem onto the world stage while building durable, cross-border networks spanning North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.

As Founder and CEO of Frontier Collective, Dan leads a global innovation platform that has catalyzed over $900M in economic impact, supported 350+ startups, and convened founders, investors, policymakers, and industry leaders across AI, climate, biotech, mobility, robotics, and frontier technologies. His work focuses on building the physical, social, and institutional infrastructure required for ecosystems to scale responsibly and collaborate across borders, including the vision for a 150,000+ sq ft Innovation Hub designed as a permanent international platform for innovation, creativity, and impact.

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Dan is also recognized as an early leader in the global VR, AR, and spatial computing industry. As co-founder of the exited venture Shape Immersive, he helped pioneer early commercial applications of immersive and real-time 3D technologies as the sector evolved from experimentation to scale. Through Shape, he collaborated with global brands including Red Bull, Disney, Sephora, the Olympics, and NIKE, contributing to Emmy Award–nominated work and helping establish Vancouver as a leading global hub for immersive and 3D talent.

Dan is a LinkedIn Top Voice in Technology & Innovation, a BIV Top Forty Under 40 honoree, a Van Mag Power 50 recipient, and a BC500 leader. He has spoken at major global forums including SXSW (Austin, Sydney, and London), Web Summit, Collision, London Tech Week, and TED.
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A trusted advisor to founders and institutions globally, Dan believes the next era of innovation must be built not only on technology, but on trust, human connection, and shared prosperity.

Arthur Camara leads product strategy and engineering at Alvo. A builder at heart, he specializes in turning ambitious ideas into shipped products. He's the former VP of Product at Dapper Labs, and led the launch of landmark web3 consumer products like NBA Top Shot, CryptoKitties, and Disney Pinnacle. His work has engaged millions of users and generated over $1B in transaction volume. He thrives on shaping innovative, consumer-facing technology.

Steve Lowry is the Founder of Legal Now – an AI first legal platform for startup legal documentation and advice. He is a seasoned technology executive, entrepreneur, and ecosystem builder with a demonstrated record in founding, scaling, and advising innovation driven ventures. He co-founded AInBC, the AI industry body for the Province of BC, and is an advisor to the Frontier Collective. Steve has served on the founding team of three startups and is currently the CEO of Broadsight, an AI-first workflow platform for communications leaders. His interdisciplinary background, spanning finance, corporate development, entrepreneurship, and strategic leadership, has provided the foundation from which he provides leadership to Vancouver’s technology ecosystem.