Keynote Speaker
Alfred Shen
Lead Generative AI Specialist
Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Alfred Shen assists AWS customers in implementing Generative AI. He has steered projects for both prominent corporations and emerging startups across the high-tech, financial services, and life science domains. A seasoned AI/ML practitioner, Alfred’s specialties encompass applied Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, and Multi-Modality.

Throughout his career, Alfred has occupied various technical and leadership roles across multiple industries. His contributions have been highlighted in notable publications like EMNLP (Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing), ICLR (International Conference on Learning Representations), and Public Health. Alfred earned his Master of Science in EECS from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Speaker
Dr. Sohini Roychowdhury
Head of AI/ML, Generative AI Products, Accenture
Adjunct Professor, Santa Clara University

Dr. Sohini Roychowdhury is the Head of AI/ML and Generative AI Products at Accenture, USA. Prior to this, she formed the Founding team and served as Director of Curriculum and Machine Learning at an Ed-Tech Startup called FourthBrain that provides specialized hands-on courses in the field of Machine Learning and AI. FourthBrain is incubated and funded by Dr. Andrew Ng’s AI Venture fund.

Prior to her entrepreneurial venture, she was the Sr. Manager of Autonomous Drive and Head of University Relations at VolvoCars USA, and prior to that a tenure track Assistant Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Washington.

Dr. Roychowdhury’s latest research directions include computer vision applications processed using minimal training samples. She has applied machine learning and AI models on problems ranging from epidemiology, medical imaging, supply chain management, computer
vision for autonomous driving modules, and e-commerce streamlining for over 12 years now. To date, she has over 60 academic research papers and 20 granted patents to her name and she continues to create educational content through blogs in Towards Data Science and her YouTube channel, AI with Sohini with around 3k subscribers.

Jeremiah Owyang
General Partner
Blitzscaling Ventures, AI Fund

Jeremiah Owyang is a keynote speaker who brings industry insights, easy-to-understand visual frameworks, relevant examples, and pragmatic recommendations to audiences around the world. His insightful analysis, pragmatic recommendations, and dynamic presentations have made him a sought-after speaker at conferences and corporate events worldwide. Known for his ability to distill complex concepts into clear, actionable insights, Jeremiah ensures that audiences leave with a deeper understanding of the digital landscape than when they arrived.

Jeremiah’s speaking engagements have spanned prestigious events and organizations, including SXSW, Dreamforce, Oracle Open World, Swiss Economic Forum, and at corporate HQs including Nestle, BMW, Coke, Walmart, Visa, Wells Fargo, Airbnb, Pfizer, J&J, Whole Foods, and more. He operates from a backyard Airstream in Silicon Valley, a unique workspace that has been featured in USA Today.

Frode Odegard
CEO
Post-Industrial Institute

Frode Odegard studies how enterprises, investors, and policymakers can best navigate the transition to a post-industrial civilization and economy. He is the founder of the Post-Industrial Institute, which provides advisory, educational, and strategic services to corporations and investors to help them turn disruption into opportunity. Frode is also the founder of the Post-Industrial Forum, a global community formed to develop and promote a better understanding of the post-industrial transition and how to navigate it. Its members include investors, executives, and founders.

Laureen Knudsen
Chief Transformation Officer
Broadcom

Laureen has led enterprise transformations in four global companies. She works with industry leaders and internal experts to define the future of business and bring Lean principles to all parts of an organization, focusing on optimizing end-to-end value stream flows, removing waste, and ensuring executives can make data-driven decisions.nLaureen is the Co-Author of Modern Business Management: Creating a Built-to-Change Organization. Laureen is a Forbes Technology Council Member and she is also on the Forbes 2021 Top 100 Women in Tech list.

Dr. Trond Undheim
Research Scholar
Stanford Existential Risk Initiative

Trond is a futurist, scholar, podcaster, and venture partner, and an expert on the evolution of technology and society. He is a Research Scholar in Global Systemic Risk, Innovation, and Policy at the Stanford Existential Risk Initiative (SERI) at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University. He is also a venture partner at Antler, and a co-founder of technology foresight consulting firm Yegii.

Formerly with Tulip Interfaces, Hitachi Ventures, MIT, WPP, Oracle, and the EU, Trond is the co-author (with Natan Linder) of Augmented Lean (2022), he is the author of Health Tech (2021), Future Tech (2021), Pandemic Aftermath (2020), Disruption Games (2020), and Leadership From Below (2008). He hosts the Futurized podcast and is a Forbes columnist in manufacturing.

Trond’s work has featured in a variety of business, industrial, and mainstream media, including The Boston Globe, NPR’s Cognoscenti, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, IndustryWeek, and MIT News. He holds a Ph.D. on the future of work and artificial intelligence and is based between Wellesley, MA, and Palo Alto, CA

Amazon

Dr. Armita Peymandoust
Senior Vice President, Engineering
Salesforce

(bio pending)

Dr. Edgar Kalns

Specialist Leader
Conversational AI and Generative AI
Deloitte Consulting

Edgar is a Generative AI principal architect at Deloitte Consulting. His expertise comprises conceptualizing, architecting, and leading teams to deliver leading-edge solutions in Generative AI, Conversational AI, Speech Analytics, and Natural Language Processing. Over his 26 years in the field, Edgar has been at the forefront of building and innovating products at scale that delight millions of consumers.

Edgar has held senior technical leadership positions at SRI International (the birthplace of Siri), [247].ai, and Nuance Communications. Edgar holds 7 U.S. patents in Conversational AI and multi-modal interfaces and a Ph.D. in Computer Science. He is a frequent speaker at industry forums on Deep Learning, Conversational, and Generative AI.

Deborah Magid
CEO, Innovation Now
CVC in Residence, Pitch Global
Formerly with IBM Ventures

Deborah Magid is an esteemed CVC advisor with an impressive tenure as the Director of Strategy at IBM Ventures. In this role, she was the key liaison with the venture community for IBM’s software business, holding worldwide responsibility. She masterminded several acquisitions, strategic alliances, and minority equity investments. Deborah played a pivotal role in fostering IBM’s relationships with Venture Capital firms and their portfolio companies, aiming to drive innovation in the industry and at IBM, while also spearheading growth strategies for high-potential areas like AI, IoT, sustainability, security, analytics, and cloud computing.

Based in Silicon Valley, but with global ties extending to emerging regions, Deborah is a knowledgeable voice on subjects including open innovation, industry disruptions, ESG and climate, women in technology, and investment trends. She has served as a board director and past Chair of Silicon Valley Forum and is a member of the Corporate Venture Advisory Board of the NVCA.

Specialties: AI, IoT, Cyber Security, Analytics, Cloud; women in tech; emerging technologies, markets, and business models; venture capital; entrepreneurial ecosystems globally.

Col. David Vernal (Ret.)
Sloan Fellow, Stanford GSB
fmr. National Security Council

David Vernal is a retired Air Force colonel with experience in intelligence and cyber operations. He participated in electronic warfare operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the counter-terror fight in Iraq and Syria, the growth of cyber operations, supporting nuclear planning and command-and-control at U.S. Strategic Command, and managing policy deliberations as part of the National Security Council staff. His final active-duty assignment was as Director of Intelligence for Sixteenth Air Force, the service’s information warfare headquarters.

Currently a Sloan Fellow at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, David is studying the applications of Large Language Models for national security applications. He holds a bachelor’s degree in East Asian Studies from Harvard University and a master’s in Taiwan Studies from National Chengchi University, where he studied as a Department of Defense Olmsted Scholar.

Julianna Delua
Principal Specialist, AI/ML
Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Julianna leads in incubating new AWS AI/ML Services including generative AI, scaling existing AWS services, delivering workload/solution-specific domain expertise to clients, and developing repeatable solutions. As a strategic advisor to C-level executives, Ms. DeLua has served in business development, product management, and consulting for IBM, and Dell EMC prior to joining AWS. Ms. DeLua holds a Master of Science and Bachelor of Science in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Stefan Petzov
VP Innovation and Technology
Swisscom Silicon Valley Outpost

Stefan Petzov is leading Swisscom’s Innovation Lab in Silicon Valley. In this role, he is responsible for identifying and evaluating new technologies and services. Stefan is also responsible for strategic innovation initiatives and works closely with the senior leadership to ensure that Swisscom is always at the forefront of innovation.

William Zeng
Co-Founder
Sweep

William graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 3 years with a degree in Statistics and Machine Learning. He was the youngest senior machine learning engineer at Roblox at the age of 22. He is now working on Sweep, an open source AI powered junior developer. Use Sweep at https://github.com/sweepai/sweep!

Jay Onda
Director (Venture Investments)
Marubeni Ventures Inc.

Jay has been building his career on the forefront of innovation, technology, and design, to make visions of the future a reality. As a Director at Marubeni Ventures, Jay is supporting the growth and scale of their corporate venturing activities. He is focusing on a wide range of thematics from Web3, Data/AI, to Sustainability; sourcing companies from Seed to Series B on the Horizon 3 time scale. 

Marubeni is one of the world’s largest trading companies in Japan with a global network. Their business groups include Consumer Products (Lifestyle, Food, Ag); Materials (wood, chemicals, metals, and minerals); Energy & Infrastructure; Transportation and Machinery. 

Jay Onda was formally with Orange Silicon Valley focusing on their Startup Investment activities focusing on various strategic areas including AI, Machine Learning, Connectivity, 5G, Logistics and Smart Cities, B2B Enterprise, and Impact related themes. 

Jay was a founding member of Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley (YMVSV) where he serves as Venture Partner and Director of Strategic Investments in Menlo Park, California. Jay has also worked with various corporations to identify key up-and-coming trends, and build strategy, and has executed award-winning PoCs and NREs by collaborating with startup companies around the world. He is also an active supporter of Startup Accelerators and participates as a mentor and advisor. Through his activity as a Corporate Venture Capitalist, he has deeply engaged in the startup community, many of which have been acquired or are on the path of IPO. 

Early in his career, he worked as a Designer, UI/UX Engineer, and Product Manager. His focus on usability and user-centric design has contributed to the growth and success of companies he has worked for.

Kei Onishi
CEO and Managing Director
Yamaha Motor Ventures

Kei Onishi is the CEO and Managing Director of Yamaha Motor Ventures. He previously led Yamaha Motor Group’s global digital transformation efforts, focusing on digital marketing and data analytics.

Kei has also worked on Yamaha’s corporate venture capital activities in areas such as AI, Robotics, and Connectivity, along with developing IoT business as a spin-off company from Yamaha Motor.

Earlier in his career, he worked as a manufacturing engineer in Southeast Asia. He has earned MS in engineering from Nagoya University, and MBA from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Zafer Sahinoglu
General Manager
Mitsubishi Electric Innovation Center

Dr. Zafer Sahinoglu is currently the General Manager of Mitsubishi Electric Innovation Center (MELIC Ventures), which was launched in April 2020 as the innovation and investment arm of Mitsubishi Electric in North America. He is also serving as VP of Innovation at Mitsubishi Electric US (MEUS). In MEUS, he has developed and launched SaaS businesses and new products in the fields of energy management, infrastructure monitoring, touchless interfaces, and connected vehicles. He has led and managed product design and agile product development, built new business models, developed technology strategies, and bundled these steps into customized processes with continuous innovation.

Zafer was a senior principal research scientist in MERL between 2001 and 2016. In his MERL years, he was an inventor on more than 80 patents, co-authored more than 100 international journal and conference papers, made more than 50 key contributions to international standards including ZigBee, IEEE 802.15.4a UWB PHY and MAC, IEEE 802.15.4e MAC, and MPEG 21. His technical expertise includes deep learning, stochastic signal processing, space-time adaptive processing, ultra-wideband and OFDMA wireless communications, and indoor localization and tracking, biomedical signal processing, and Li-ion battery modeling. He has written two books on wireless communication and localization systems published by Cambridge University Press.

Zafer received his M.Sc. degree in Biomedical Engineering, Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, in years 2002 and 1998, respectively; and M.B.A. degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013.

Dr. Manish Kothari
Founding and Managing Partner, First Spark Ventures
Past President, SRI International

Prior to co-founding First Spark Ventures, Manish was President at SRI International, leading research institute in Silicon Valley and the birthplace of companies such as Intuitive Surgical, Nuance, and Siri. He incubated and invested in over 25 Deep Tech startups, in addition to advising translational programs with the US Government that include agencies such as NASA and Department of Education. Prior to that, he was serial entrepreneur in Medtech and software, including cofounding Mytrus, software startup focused on direct-to-participant clinical trials. It was the first company in the world to have FDA approved electronic informed consent. Manish has a postdoc from UCSF in Medical Physics, a PhD from Cornell in Bioengineering, and B.Sc. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai in Aerospace Engineering.

Dr. Archana Arcot, GHRP
Chief People Officer
Unifi

Dr. Archana Arcot is a strategic and transformative Global Human Resources leader with more than 20+ years of experience in International HR and Talent Management. Archana’s professional accomplishments are matched by her passion for working and contributing to HR professional bodies and communities that need help, anywhere in the world.

Archana has proven widespread expertise in establishing and leading large scale Global HR Functions and People Transition, Integration and Talent Transformation programs. She has extensive career experience in building and integrating HR and People Function in North and South America, Eastern Europe, and Asia. While excelling through various phases of development ranging from start-ups to high growth trajectory operations, she has successfully led, directed, and mentored some of the most elite Global HR teams.

Atlanta has been home for Archana since 2012 when she relocated to lead the HR function for a platform-based insurance company acquired by a large global conglomerate, and she was instrumental in establishing their HR Function which was relentlessly focused on driving business growth and achieving strategic priorities. Prior to Unifi, Archana has worked across multiple industries and for two decades has been associated with large scale technology and services organizations like Infosys BPM, Infosys McCamish (Insurance Platform) WNS Global Services (ITES) and previously with Bharti Airtel (Telecommunication)l and ONIDA (Manufacturing).

Thriving at the intersection of Human Resources and HR Technology, Archana takes a strong interest in global HR trends, the future of work, and talent integrations and more recently engaged with building scalable people strategies for frontline workforce in US.  She is skilled at using Digitization, HR Shared Services and Automation and social technology to simplify and elevate the employee experience.

Beyond her wealth of experience, Archana holds Doctoral Degree in Human Resources and an MBA in Human Resources.  She also earned certifications in Global Professional Human Resources (GPHR) and Change Management from PROSCI.  As an accomplished leader in her field, she was nominated to coveted leadership programs where she completed the Stanford Leadership Certification (USA) and INSEAD (France) Management Development Program.

Heather Jerrehian
VP of Product Management, Employee Workflows
ServiceNow

Heather Jerrehian is the VP of Product Management for Employee Workflows at ServiceNow, leading the data science team in delivering next-generation AI solutions and Workforce Intelligence products.  She is the former CEO of Hitch (acquired by ServiceNow) and has been a tech executive and serial entrepreneur for 20+ years, bringing an innovative and strategic approach for building new products and GTM strategies.   

She is a Founding LP for How Women Invest, and recently rang the closing bell at NASDAQ to kick off The New Table campaign to get 10,000 more women to the investment table.  Heather serves on Fast Company’s Executive Board and was named a Silicon Valley Women of Influence and Watermark’s Senior Executive of the Year.

Dr. Suresh Sunderrajan
President, Commercialization
SRI International

Suresh Sunderrajan brings over 25 years of experience and a passion for innovation at the intersection of technology and business. He focuses on developing SRI’s commercialization strategy and provides overall leadership for the institute’s commercialization efforts. Sunderrajan oversees SRI Ventures, Global Partnerships, the Nomura-SRI Innovation Center (NSIC), SRI Products and the Center for Innovation Strategy and Policy (CISP). Previous to SRI, Sunderrajan was Associate Laboratory Director for Advanced Energy Technologies at Argonne National Laboratory. He earned a doctorate in chemical engineering from North Carolina State University and a master’s degree in system design and management from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sunderrajan holds more than 30 U.S. patents and has received the Distinguished Inventor Award at Eastman Kodak.

Beti Cung
VP of Innovation & Labs
CSAA

Beti Cung is an experienced leader who excels in leveraging emerging technology and innovation to drive practical business value. Currently serving as the Vice President of Innovation and Labs at CSAA IG, Beti leads a team of talented data scientists and technologists focused on exploring AI and next-generation opportunities.

Previously, at Kimberly Clark, Beti played a key role in digital transformation and innovation, strategically investing in important use cases and implementing new technologies and business models. During her time at Microsoft, she led startup strategy and investment for Strategic and Emerging business.

Beti’s portfolio includes successfully re-platforming large-scale web properties for Williams-Sonoma Inc. and pioneering next-generation reporting for Qualcomm’s Subscriber Business Systems. As a founding member and Director of Technology at eStyle, a venture capital-backed multi-channel retail pioneer, she demonstrated her ability to navigate the early-stage technology landscape.

With a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Harvard University and an MBA from INSEAD in France, Beti brings a strong foundation in data analytics and a deep understanding of business needs across enterprise and consumer contexts.

Known for her strategic, data-driven approach, Beti excels in building high-performing teams and driving innovation for tangible business outcomes. Her extensive experience in delivering cross-functional initiatives further solidifies her ability to navigate the ever-evolving technology landscape, always with a focus on practical impact and scalability.

Jan Beránek
CEO, U+AI
Group CEO, U+NOVA GP

Jan Beránek manages a diverse portfolio of corporate innovation ventures that he develops and brings to market. Since starting U+ 14 years ago, Jan has scaled it from Eastern Europe to Silicon Valley. To date, U+ has brought 100+ products and businesses to market for Fortune 2000 companies, while creating over $2 billion in value for them. Over the past two decades, Jan has led digital innovation and transformation products in the US and Europe.

Offering his wisdom to future innovators, Jan is a mentor at Google for Startups, European Space Agency BIC, and WeWork Labs NYC. He holds a M.Sc. in Web and Software Engineering from the Czech Technical in Prague.

Dr. Pandian Angaiyan
Chief Technology Officer
Tech Mahindra

Dr. Pandian Angaiyan heads the technology office for Tech Mahindra’s Technology Business as CTO based out of San Jose office. He has three decades of experience in incubating & leading computing businesses based on niche technologies, which gives him the right tools to lead disruptive digital transformation initiatives for Tech Mahindra’s customers.

In his previous role, he has lead the Cloud Innovation Business for a global consulting company where he has played the role of Cloud Transformation Partner for several customers, helping define their cloud strategy, building a minimum viable products and eventually transforming them into full- fledged solutions. He also incubated and built platform based Cloud services group and established ‘High Performance Computing Practice’ with integration and acquisition of niche technological expertise and provided a differentiating solution benefiting major customers. Dr. Pandian has two decades of experience in various computing technologies starting from embedded systems all the way to hyper scale architectures.

Dr. Pandian has a Ph.D., in symbolic and numeric computational algorithms for real time applications from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and has a Masters of Technology in Computer Engineering from Mysore University, India.

Dr. Chetan Gupta
Head of AI Research
Hitachi

Chetan Gupta is a visionary and a leader in the field of Industrial AI. At Hitachi, he is the GM of the Advanced AI Research Center in Japan, leads the Industrial AI Lab in NA, and leads the Global AI CoE. He is proud to be a part of one of the strongest teams in applied AI that is building fundamental horizontal technologies for industrial and societal AI, building solutions across verticals, and opening new research frontiers in AI applied to real world challenges. Chetan has close to 200 papers and patents in applied AI, data mining/machine learning, data stream systems, complex event and related topics. Chetan holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics and M.S. in Mathematical Computer Science and Chemical Engineering.

Lawrence Lee
Leader, Strategic Opportunity Development
SRI

Lawrence leads a cross-functional team within SRI’s Commercialization organization that combines market analysis, customer validation, financial modeling, and technology transition to accelerate technology commercialization through contract research, licensing, and ventures.

Prior to PARC’s merger with SRI in May 2023, Lawrence served in multiple executive roles within PARC and its parent company Xerox. Most recently he was Vice President of Strategy & Planning, where he played a lead role in the design and launch of Xerox’s Deep Tech venture studio at PARC focused on Additive Manufacturing, AI, IoT, and Cleantech, and led global R&D strategy for Xerox in the Office of the CTO. Lawrence previously worked at two software startups; he co-founded Zoundry LLC and was VP of Business Development at Mirror Worlds Technologies, Inc.

Lawrence holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and is a graduate of Penn’s Management & Technology program at Wharton and the School of Engineering & Applied Science.

Alison McCauley
CEO
Unblocked Future

Alison is founder and CEO of Unblocked Future, a consultancy that drives adoption at the forefront of emerging tech, and has been working with pioneers in artificial intelligence since 2010. Her focus in on the human dimension of unlocking business value from transformative technology, and she has helped executives to navigate and inspire tech-driven change for over 20 years. Working at the nexus of the enterprise, disruptive innovation, and organizational change at the birth of many categories, Allison serves as a trusted advisor to both pioneers building new markets and the business leaders seeking to leverage new technology.

Alison is the author of international best-selling book Unblocked (published by O’Reilly Media, 2019), her articles have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Venture Beat. Over 90,000 students have taken her course created for LinkedIn, and she is a speaker at conferences around the world.

Dr. Tamar Bercovici
VP of Engineering, Box
Box

Tamar Bercovici is a VP of Engineering at Box, where she leads the Core Platform team in scaling the foundational platform for the Box Content Cloud. Tamar also runs the annual Box Hackathon and is a frequent invited speaker at leading technology conferences like Velocity, @Scale, and Grace Hopper. Tamar was named one of Forbes Top 50 Women in Tech 2018, and #1 on Okta and Business Insider’s Tech Up and Comers list 2019. Prior to Box, Tamar was an early-stage employee at XMPie (now a Xerox company). Tamar holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology.

Kelley Steven-Waiss
Chief Transformation Officer
ServiceNow

Kelley Steven-Waiss is a Chief Transformation Officer at ServiceNow, helping our customers drive workforce transformation. She previously served as Head of Workforce Innovation at ServiceNow and was the Founder & CEO of Hitch Works Inc., an internal talent mobility platform acquired by ServiceNow in June 2022.

Kelley brings more than 25 years of executive management experience, with 13 years as a Chief Human Resources Officer in technology. She serves on the board of FormFactor, Inc. (NASDAQ: FORM) and is Chair of the Advisory Board for the Silicon Valley Education Foundation. As a leading voice in the HR technology community, Kelley is also a published author of two books—”Valley Girls: Lessons of Female Founders in the Silicon Valley and Beyond” and, co-author of The Inside Gig: How Sharing Untapped Talent Across Boundaries Unleashes Organizational Capacity.

Kelley is a Forbes HR Council Member and Contributor, and a sought-after speaker on the topics of the future of work, the future of HR, and digital transformation. She was named one of the Most Influential Corporate Board Directors in 2019 by WomenInc. and received the YWCA’s Tribute to Women Award in 2020. Kelley is married and the mother of four children.

Frode Odegard
CEO
Post-Industrial Institute

Frode Odegard studies how enterprises, investors, and policymakers can best navigate the transition to a post-industrial civilization and economy. He is the founder of the Post-Industrial Institute, which provides advisory, educational, and strategic services to corporations and investors to help them turn disruption into opportunity. Frode is also the founder of the Post-Industrial Forum, a global community formed to develop and promote a better understanding of the post-industrial transition and how to navigate it. Its members include investors, executives, and founders.

Deborah Magid
CEO, Innovation Now
CVC in Residence, Pitch Global
Formerly with IBM Ventures

Deborah Magid is an esteemed CVC advisor with an impressive tenure as the Director of Strategy at IBM Ventures. In this role, she was the key liaison with the venture community for IBM’s software business, holding worldwide responsibility. She masterminded several acquisitions, strategic alliances, and minority equity investments. Deborah played a pivotal role in fostering IBM’s relationships with Venture Capital firms and their portfolio companies, aiming to drive innovation in the industry and at IBM, while also spearheading growth strategies for high-potential areas like AI, IoT, sustainability, security, analytics, and cloud computing.

Based in Silicon Valley, but with global ties extending to emerging regions, Deborah is a knowledgeable voice on subjects including open innovation, industry disruptions, ESG and climate, women in technology, and investment trends. She has served as a board director and past Chair of Silicon Valley Forum and is a member of the Corporate Venture Advisory Board of the NVCA.

Specialties: AI, IoT, Cyber Security, Analytics, Cloud; women in tech; emerging technologies, markets, and business models; venture capital; entrepreneurial ecosystems globally.

William Zeng
Co-Founder
Sweep

William graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 3 years with a degree in Statistics and Machine Learning. He was the youngest senior machine learning engineer at Roblox at the age of 22. He is now working on Sweep, an open source AI powered junior developer. Use Sweep at https://github.com/sweepai/sweep!

Jan Beránek
CEO, U+AI
Group CEO, U+NOVA GP

Jan Beránek manages a diverse portfolio of corporate innovation ventures that he develops and brings to market. Since starting U+ 14 years ago, Jan has scaled it from Eastern Europe to Silicon Valley. To date, U+ has brought 100+ products and businesses to market for Fortune 2000 companies, while creating over $2 billion in value for them. Over the past two decades, Jan has led digital innovation and transformation products in the US and Europe.

Offering his wisdom to future innovators, Jan is a mentor at Google for Startups, European Space Agency BIC, and WeWork Labs NYC. He holds a M.Sc. in Web and Software Engineering from the Czech Technical in Prague.

Dr. Pandian Angaiyan
Chief Technology Officer
Tech Mahindra

Dr. Pandian Angaiyan heads the technology office for Tech Mahindra’s Technology Business as CTO based out of San Jose office. He has three decades of experience in incubating & leading computing businesses based on niche technologies, which gives him the right tools to lead disruptive digital transformation initiatives for Tech Mahindra’s customers.

In his previous role, he has lead the Cloud Innovation Business for a global consulting company where he has played the role of Cloud Transformation Partner for several customers, helping define their cloud strategy, building a minimum viable products and eventually transforming them into full- fledged solutions. He also incubated and built platform based Cloud services group and established ‘High Performance Computing Practice’ with integration and acquisition of niche technological expertise and provided a differentiating solution benefiting major customers. Dr. Pandian has two decades of experience in various computing technologies starting from embedded systems all the way to hyper scale architectures.

Dr. Pandian has a Ph.D., in symbolic and numeric computational algorithms for real time applications from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and has a Masters of Technology in Computer Engineering from Mysore University, India.

Dr. Armita Peymandoust
Senior Vice President, Engineering
Salesforce

(bio pending)

Beti Cung
VP of Innovation & Labs
CSAA

Beti Cung is an experienced leader who excels in leveraging emerging technology and innovation to drive practical business value. Currently serving as the Vice President of Innovation and Labs at CSAA IG, Beti leads a team of talented data scientists and technologists focused on exploring AI and next-generation opportunities.

Previously, at Kimberly Clark, Beti played a key role in digital transformation and innovation, strategically investing in important use cases and implementing new technologies and business models. During her time at Microsoft, she led startup strategy and investment for Strategic and Emerging business.

Beti’s portfolio includes successfully re-platforming large-scale web properties for Williams-Sonoma Inc. and pioneering next-generation reporting for Qualcomm’s Subscriber Business Systems. As a founding member and Director of Technology at eStyle, a venture capital-backed multi-channel retail pioneer, she demonstrated her ability to navigate the early-stage technology landscape.

With a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Harvard University and an MBA from INSEAD in France, Beti brings a strong foundation in data analytics and a deep understanding of business needs across enterprise and consumer contexts.

Known for her strategic, data-driven approach, Beti excels in building high-performing teams and driving innovation for tangible business outcomes. Her extensive experience in delivering cross-functional initiatives further solidifies her ability to navigate the ever-evolving technology landscape, always with a focus on practical impact and scalability.