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

Lt. 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.

Jeremiah Owyang
Founder
Crowd Companies

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.

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.

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.

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.

Speaker
Carlos Quezada
VP of Customer Experience Strategy, HP Enterprise

Carlos Quezada is an accomplished executive with a diverse background and a remarkable 22-year record of success in startups. He is recognized as an authority in leveraging big data and machine learning to optimize operations and uncover profitable service opportunities. Carlos is an experienced leader in IoT, WLAN, Big Data analytics, and Machine Learning Go-to-market Strategies. He is dedicated to fostering high-performance teams and delivering exceptional service. Carlos is a sought-after consultant for startups and established organizations, providing invaluable insights for transforming service strategies. He specializes in cutting-edge concepts like “Xaas,” Customer Success, and Self Service operations.

Carlos is an engaging speaker known for expertise, innovation, and a proven ability to revolutionize businesses. He is committed to driving corporate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives through active participation on DEI boards and sponsorship of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs).

Speaker
Dr. Sohini Roychowdhury
Head of AI/ML, Generative AI products for Corporate Data and Analytics Office
Accenture

(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.

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, build strategy, and has executed award winning PoC’s and NRE’s by collaborating with startup companies around the world. He is also an active supporter of Start Up Accelerators and participates as a mentor and advisor. Through his activity as a Corporate Venture Capitalist, he has deeply engaged in the start up community, many 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 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, 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.

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.

William Zheng
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
Founder, Group CEO
U+

(bio pending)