A podcast powered by Pega
Bold
stories.
Future
focused.
When business changes, it challenges us – and necessarily so. Listen in as our hosts uncover what success looks like when innovative minds rise to new challenges and excel in the face of change.
September 14, 2021 | 23 mins
Ep. 1: Equalizing the power of digital information ft. Fay ArjomandiIn this hyperconnected era, how can the average person gain back control of their data? Fay Arjomandi, founder and CEO of Mimik Technology is one changemaker aiming to do just that. Tune in as Fay shares her story, her vision for the future of data democratization, and more.
September 21, 2021 | 25 mins
Ep. 2: How hyperautomation aims to augment our workforce for the better ft. Lila Benhammou and Francis CardenHyperautomation is already making smarter work possible. Just ask Lila Benhammou, CEO of Humans 4 Help, or Francis Carden, VP of Digital Automation and Robotics at Pega. Listen as they talk about the role that automation can play as we continue to evolve how we work.
September 28, 2021 | 26 mins
Ep. 3: Tech outsiders and the breakthrough of hyperautomation ft. Rizel Scarlett and Sidney Madison PrescottHyperautomation is quickly changing how we work - all while the barrier of entry into the tech space is slowly lowering. Just ask two former tech outsiders who are seeing (and teaching) the effects of digitization firsthand at G-Code House and Spotify.
October 5, 2021 | 24 mins
Ep. 4: The evolving role of virtual reality in our current reality ft. Dr. Jacquelyn MorieThe world of virtual reality is leading us toward more meaningful interactions. Virtual reality pioneer and sculptor, Dr. Jacquelyn Morie, shares how these new, immersive environments have the power to help people build emotional connections, heal, and more.
October 12, 2021 | 23 mins
Ep. 5: The far-reaching significance of distributed cloud computing ft. Malini Bhandaru and Joe WeinmanThe power and scope of distributed cloud can’t be understated. But as its power continues to grow, how do we balance its scope with our real needs and our efforts at conservation and morality? Two experts dive into the history of cloud computing and its increasingly complicated future.
October 19, 2021 | 27 mins
Ep. 6: How AI is destroying our moral & civil efficacy ft. Elizabeth AdamsSmart phones, social media, and facial and voice recognition are commonplace for many. But do we know what, if any, ethical considerations shaped their development? CEO & founder of EMA Advisory Services, Elizabeth Adams wants to know. Join us as we uncover hard truths about the role civic tech plays in our communities.
October 26, 2021 | 25 mins
Ep. 7: Virtual spaces and how they transform the way we think ft. Kyle Rand and Dr. Skip RizzoDistance, isolation, and trauma are all too real for many, especially over the last year and a half. Kyle Rand, co-founder and CEO at Rendever, and psychologist, Dr. Skip Rizzo, are here to talk about their vision for changing how we can move forward through connections – with the limitless possibilities of VR.
November 2, 2021 | 27 mins
Ep. 8: Radical change through virtual spaces ft. Jessica Ochoa Hendrix, Dr. Jacquelyn Morie, and Dr. Skip RizzoWhat if you could test run your dream job? Students are now being given that opportunity with virtual spaces. Listen as Jessica Ochoa Hendrix, co-founder and CEO of Killer Snails, along with Dr. Jacquelyn Morie and Dr. Skip Rizzo chat about how immersive learning is the future of education.
November 9, 2021 | 23 mins
Ep. 9: How much should the influence of AI matter to your organization? ft. Nia Christian, Peter van der Putten, and Randy BeanArtificial Intelligence (AI) is all around us. Do you see it? Do you know when you’re experiencing it? Three experts, consultant Nia Christian, researcher Peter van der Putten, and CEO and Founder of NewVantage Partners Randy Bean discuss what AI is and where to look for the data that’s used to power it.
November 16, 2021 | 26 mins
Ep. 10: Immersive experiences, infinite possibilities ft. Catherine D. Henry, Galit Ariel, and Alan SmithsonUnlike virtual reality, augmented reality (AR) launches the virtual world into our tangible, physical world. Listen in as our guests, Catherine D. Henry, Alan Smithson, and Galit Ariel discuss how brands should embrace the immersive experiences of AR to get ahead.
November 30, 2021 | 22 mins
Ep. 11: How can synthetic data change the world? ft. Phil Bayer, Beatrice Milik, Emna Amor, and Peter van der PuttenAs AI becomes more capable, it must collect more data to adapt better to our world. By creating it artificially (and not at the expense of our privacy), our future becomes smarter that much faster. Listen to see how our guests have seen big results with synthetic data.
December 7, 2021 | 25 mins
Ep. 12: Looking back and thinking ahead: A season two retrospective with Pega CTO Don SchuermanAs our final guest of the season, Pega CTO and VP of Product Marketing Don Schuerman recaps the tech we’ve covered so far, as well as gives his perspectives on some fresh topics and new innovations.
A Pega Report
Future-proof 2025Pega surveyed over 1,300 senior leaders and executives globally and across sectors. And, we found five trends to watch!
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Host info
Jo Richardson
Director, Corporate Communications
Pegasystems
James Dodkins
CX Evangelist
Pegasystems
Jo has over 20 years in the PR & Communications industry, managing multiple clients and PR programs first at agencies and then in-house, running pan-European programs that align with corporate strategy.
Focused on working with internal teams to help bring our great customer stories to life. Jo likes to influence colleagues & customers to view earned media content as 'business development & prospecting collateral' that is valuable on many levels - for the sales cycle, for storytelling, for building your own internal brand & reputation!
James used to be an actual, real-life, legitimate, award-winning rockstar. He played guitar in a heavy metal band, released albums and tore up stages all over the world, James is now the CX Evangelist at Pegasystems where he researches extreme fandoms to understand how companies can create their own ‘Hyperfans’. He shares those strategies through transformative training, engaging video content and inspiring keynote talks.
James was awarded The UK's #1 CX Influencer by Customer Experience Magazine in 2020, The UK’s Most Outstanding CX Keynote Speaker by Corporate Vision Magazine in 2021, The World’s #10 Customer Service Guru by Global Gurus in 2021, as well as countless other notable mentions in industry publications like Business Insider, The Times and Forbes.
James is also a two-time #1 Best Selling Author and the Ex-host of Amazon Prime’s weekly topical CX show, ‘This Week In CX’.
James lives in Solihull in the UK, with his wife Phillipa, daughter River, son Oakley and dog Polo. He loves listening to and playing music and is still a recording artist today in the new alt-rock band ENDSCAPE.
Mel Reid is an English golfer who began her career as rookie of the year in 2008 and joined the LPGA Tour in 2017. After six wins on the Ladies European Tour, she won her first LPGA Tour event in October 2020. Reid is a pro ambassador for Athlete Ally, an organization educating athletic communities at all levels about the obstacles to inclusion for LGBTQIA+ people. Reid’s commitment to and advocacy for the LGBTQIA+ community aligns with Pega’s core value of inclusivity, which we believe fosters creativity and innovation.
Banu Kannu is co-founder and chief experience officer at Uncommon Conferences, a consultancy that empowers organizations to drive change through virtual and in-person participant-led gatherings. She is a seasoned marketer, content creator and business development professional with over 15 years' international experience across several industries. She’s passionate about the big picture but doesn’t lose sight of the small details that keep everything ticking. Her diverse and international background make her an ideal bridge – between people, organizations and ideas.
With over 30 years of experience, Kumud Kalia is a global business executive who has led organizations in multiple industry sectors, from startup to large companies. He is familiar with scaling for high-growth, M&A, in/outsourcing, critical business processes and all aspects of information technology and cyber-security. Kumud has lived and worked in multiple countries, and is currently located in Silicon Valley as Chief Information Officer at biotech leader Guardant Health. He has operating experience as a cybersecurity leader, internet & cloud technology leader, and has led countless business transformation initiatives.
Jeanne Ross conducts academic research targeting the challenges of senior business and technology leaders at large global companies, particularly the 100 companies that sponsor MIT CISR (Center for Information Systems Research). She has facilitated discussions of business design (i.e. enterprise architecture) with executive committee members of major companies.
David Moricca is the founder & CEO of Socialive, an enterprise video creation & live streaming SaaS platform. Trusted by organizations from startups to the Fortune 100, Socialive brings unprecedented ease and scale to high-quality video content creation for teams across the enterprise.
With 15 years of leadership and innovation in digital media, David is helping drive and shape the video-first communications revolution in business. Before Socialive, David developed and launched Scholastic's first digital learning platform and worked as a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Company.
A New Jersey native, David holds a B.A. from UNC Chapel Hill and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Kristine Dery is a Research Scientist at MIT Sloan School of Management in the Center for Information Systems Research (MIT CISR).
Kristine’s research in the dynamic between technology and the way people work has been a focus of her publications and teaching for the last fifteen years.
Currently, she is investigating how organizations design their employee experience to enable their people to deliver value in the digital world. Her research questions focus on:
- how digital capabilities are deployed internally to create more effective ways of working and
- the impacts of new ways of engaging with talent in the digital era. This work has stemmed from a historical research focus on the relationship between HRM and IT, mobile connectivity, human resource information systems, gamification, and remote working.
Kristine serves as a Senior Editor for MIS Quarterly Executive, and has published in Sloan Management Review and other leading academic and practitioner publications.
Prior to her academic career, Kristine held management roles in the tourism and airline industries in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.
Kristine is based in Sydney and is responsible for fostering research relationships with companies in AsiaPac and the delivery of workshops for senior executives and nonexecutive Board directors.
About MIT Centre for Information Systems Research (CISR) (cisr.mit.edu)
Supported by a consortium of over 90 public and private organizations from all over the world, researchers at CISR have been studying one key question since the establishment of the Research Centre in 1974: How do organizations generate business value from IT?
Grounded in the MIT tradition of rigorous field-based research (MIT’s motto is “Mens et Manus” - “Mind and Hand”), MIT CISR’s mission is to help executives address the digital challenges of leading dynamic, global, and information-intensive organizations. Through close relationships with our sponsoring organizations and other practitioners, MIT CISR researchers have done ground-breaking research on Digital Strategy, Digital Workplace, Data Strategy, Innovation Portfolios and Enterprise Architecture and many other topics of interest to digital leaders. We have developed concepts and frameworks to guide management practice and support digital leaders to reframe organizational understanding of digital. The relevance of our research is ensured by the active participation of corporate sponsors from a wide range of industries.
Gary Scholten served as executive vice president, CIO, and Chief Digital Officer of Principal Financial Group. He was named CIO in 2002, CDO in 2017 and served in those roles until he retired in 2020. He was responsible for overseeing the global company’s use of technology and driving digital strategy into all aspects of the business, as well as leading the company’s use of offshore staffing and overseeing Global Sourcing. Prior to being named CDO, Scholten led corporate strategy and provided executive oversight of Human Resources for Principal.
While at Principal Scholten chaired Principal Global Services, Private Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Principal Financial Group. He also served on two Principal International Chilean Boards and on the board of Robust Wealth, an acquired FinTech subsidiary. Scholten previously served multiple terms as Chairman of the Board for the Technology Association of Iowa.
In retirement, Scholten was named an MIT Center for Information Systems Research fellow, serves on the Board of Advisors for Paanini, Inc. and is a member of Diamond CIO Council. He is pursuing Board of Director opportunities with public and private companies.
Leyla Soleymani received her PhD from University of Toronto in 2010 in Electrical and Computer Engineering and joined McMaster as an Assistant Professor in 2011. Dr. Soleymani is currently an Associate Professor and University Scholar in the Departments of Engineering Physics and Biomedical Engineering at McMaster and is the Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Miniaturized Biomedical Devices. Dr. Soleymani’s research is focused on developing new materials for improving the performance of biosensors and biointerfaces. The materials developed by Dr. Soleymani has been applied to point-of-care biosensors for molecular diagnostics (landmark paper published in Nature Nanotechnology) and pathogen repellent materials (referred to as RepelWrap) that significantly reduced the accumulation of bacterial and viral contamination on surfaces (published in ACS Nano, covered extensively in mainstream media including CNN Health, and funded by the Department of National Defence).
Dr. Soleymani was awarded the Ontario Early Researcher Award in 2016, the Engineering Innovation of the Year Award by the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (Hamilton/Halton) in 2020, and the grand prize for Tech Brief’s Create the Future Contest in 2020 for her work on biosensors and biointerfces. Dr. Soleymani has 60 high-impact publications and holds several patents in the areas of biosensing and biointerfaces. Multiple patents from Dr. Soleymani’s research have been licensed by Canadian and multi-national biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.
More recently, Dr. Soleymani has co-founded a start-up company to commercialize the RepelWrap for reducing the spread of infectious disease through high touch surfaces. Dr. Soleymani is an active member of the Biomedical Engineering community and is a frequent invited speaker at international conferences such as the Electrochemical Society (ECS) meetings, American Society for Chemistry (ACS) meetings, and Pittcon. Dr. Soleymani’s research has been broadly covered by the national and international mainstream media including CTV News, CNN Health, the Guardian, and the Times of India to name a few, generating tremendous interest from the industry and healthcare communities.
Dr. Didar is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Biomedical Engineering and a member of the Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR) at McMaster University. He is also Canada Research in Nano-Biomaterials. Before joining McMaster in 2016, Dr. Didar was a postdoctoral fellow at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. There, he designed and developed a robust and clinically relevant extracorporeal dialysis-like treatment (DLT) device for sepsis. Since joining McMaster in 2016, he has established a world class interdisciplinary research platform on smart, multifunctional nano-biomaterials, and has fostered strategic industry collaborations within the biomedical and food sectors. Due to his contributions to this field, he was awarded the Ontario Early Researcher Award in 2019 and the Engineering Innovation of the Year Award by the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers in 2020. In 2019, Dr. Didar co-invented a plastic wrap (RepelWrap) that repels pathogens from surfaces. This technology won the 2020 Grand Prize for the Create the Future Design Concept by Tech Briefs magazine. RepelWrap is currently being adapted for halting the spread of COVID-19. Dr. Didar has published over 40 journal papers, over 10 patent applications and has presented over 30 national and international invited talks and keynote speeches.
Sophie Wade is an international keynote speaker and author of Executive MBA textbook Embracing Progress. Next Steps for the Future of Work. She is a LinkedIn Instructor with popular courses on Empathy for Sales Professionals and HR Professionals and Generation Z. After senior strategy and finance roles, she is now the Workforce Innovation Specialist and Founder of Flexcel Network, a Future-of-Work consultancy. Sophie’s executive advisory work and transformative workshops help companies adapt for current business conditions and establish sustainable ways of working for long-term growth. Her interventions enable executives and managers attract, engage, and retain a productive, multigenerational, and distributed workforce. Sophie received a BA and MA from Oxford University and an MBA from top international business school, INSEAD.
For two years, Mr. Stuart McGuigan, was a member of the Senior Executive Service, Chief Information Officer (CIO) and the Assistant-Secretary level head of the Bureau of Information Resource Management on March 25, 2019. As Chief Information Officer (CIO), he establishes technology strategic direction and provides oversight for $ 2.4B of technology programs across the Department.
Mr. McGuigan joined the Department of State from Johnson & Johnson where he was responsible for global Information Technology strategy and operations for an organization with 130,000 employees at over 170 overseas and domestic locations. With an established reputation for rapidly aligning technology innovation with global business needs, Mr. McGuigan brings over 33 year of industry background including experience as Senior Vice President and CIO of CVS Caremark, Senior Vice President and CIO of Liberty Mutual, and Senior Vice President of Information Services for Medco Health Solutions.
Mr. McGuigan earned Master of Science and Master of Philosophy degrees in the Cognitive Science program at Yale University and has a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Fairfield University. In 2018, Mr. McGuigan was inducted into www.CIO.com’s CIO Hall of Fame, and he is the recipient of the “Lifetime Contribution Award” from NASSCOM—India’s top not-for-profit IT organization, enabling India’s growth of its $154 billion dollar IT-Business Process Management (BPM) industry.
Tom Davenport is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College, a Visiting Professor at Oxford University’s said School of Business, a Fellow of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and Senior Advisor to Deloitte’s Analytics and AI practice. His most recent book is The AI Advantage from MIT Press, and he’s written twenty books and over 300 articles for Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, and many other publications. He has been named one of the world’s Top 25 Consultants by Consulting magazine, one of the 100 most influential people in IT by Ziff-Davis magazines, and one of the world’s top fifty business school professors by Fortune magazine.
R. Daniel Okonkwo, Esq. is an attorney and public policy expert with significant experience in the policy, advocacy, the nonprofit sectors. Daniel currently serves as the Market Lead—Mid-Atlantic, in Community Engagement at JPMorgan Chase & Co. In this role, he is responsible for building relationships with key stakeholders, grantmaking in the Mid-Atlantic region, and meeting the firm’s CRA obligations. Daniel also manages a national grant portfolio, which focuses on nonprofit capacity building and civil rights organizations.
Daniel comes to JPMorgan Chase from Ballast Research where he advised Fortune 500 companies on their federal and state advocacy. Prior to Ballast Research, Daniel was a founding member and the Executive Director of D.C. Lawyers for Youth (DCLY), a policy and advocacy organization that worked to reform the District’s youth justice system. While working to start DCLY, Daniel was a Senior Consultant in the Regulatory Practice Group at the EOP Group, Inc., a lobbying and political consulting firm. He started his career as a trial attorney in the Office of the Public Defender in Miami, FL where he represented clients in the County Court Division and Felony Drug Court. Prior to entering law school, Daniel had an accomplished career as a professional basketball player.
Daniel has extensive ties to the local and national nonprofit networks and municipal leaders. He currently sits on the board of the Juvenile Law Center (Philadelphia). He has served as an appointee to the District’s Juvenile Justice Advisory Group, the Safer Stronger DC Advisory Committee, the Non-Profit Advisory Committee, and most recently, the Commission on Health Equity. Daniel also values supporting local nonprofits and has been a board member of the DC Alliance of Youth Advocates, Advocates for Justice in Education, the WAMU (88.5FM) Community Council, and the National Juvenile Justice Network.
Daniel received his J.D. from Georgetown University and a B.A. from Yale University.
Ginny Clarke was most recently Director, Executive Recruiting at Google from August 2016 until November 2020. In this role, she led the Diversity, Non-tech Recruiting, and the Leadership Internal Mobility teams. Her team of North American recruiters found and hired senior leaders (Directors +) for finance, sales, marketing and other G&A functions across Google.
She recently left to form Ginny Clarke, LLC, her own talent and leadership consulting business, which includes keynote speaking, podcasting and writing. Her podcast, Fifth Dimensional Leadership is for leaders, thinkers and future-makers dedicated to creating the conscious workplace of tomorrow.
Before Google, Ginny was a Partner at Spencer Stuart, the global executive search firm, based in Chicago. For 12 years, she worked in the firm’s Financial Services and Financial Officer Practices, and co-founded and led Spencer Stuart’s Global Diversity Practice. She left Spencer Stuart to write a book titled Career Mapping: Charting Your Course in the New World of Work, which was published in 2011. The book provides a framework that empowers individuals to plot and assess their professional competencies, and strategically navigate their careers.
After the book was published, Ginny ran her own executive search and talent management firm for 3 years before becoming a Senior Partner for Executive Search in the U.S. at Knightsbridge, a Canadian human capital solutions firm.
Ginny started her career in banking at First National Bank of Chicago (now Chase). After a short stint, she spent a number of years in the real estate investment management business with Jones Lang LaSalle (“JLL”) and Prudential Real Estate Investors. Her responsibilities included asset management, portfolio management, capital raising and client servicing.
She earned her BA in French and Linguistics from the University of California at Davis, and her MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School. Ginny is the single mother of an adult son, Julian, who works in the entertainment industry.
Fay is the Founder of Mimik and has been the president and CEO of the company since January 2020. She founded the company as Disternet, which was later rebranded to Mimik.
While incubating Mimik; Fay was also the CEO of a group of mobile companies under Nantworks, including Tensorcom, NantMobile, and Mobile Genomic Health, leading the consumerization health solutions between 2014 – 2016.
Prior to NantWorks, Fay was the CEO of Vodafone xone. Fay successfully launched Vodafone xone in Silicon Valley in September 2011, which became the global incubation center of the Vodafone Group and the beta brand for Vodafone consumers in the UK, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Egypt. Fay spearheaded the partnership work with emerging and disruptive technologies to enable start-up companies to develop, test, and prepare for commercial deployment in global markets. Additionally, her role expanded to lead Vodafone Ventures, the strategic corporate venture capital arm of Vodafone Group. Fay was also the President of Vodafone Americas Foundation, an outreach program whose mission is to mobilize communities to resolve shared problems and to enable mobile technology to advance social change in addition to exceptional leadership and vision. Prior to Vodafone, Fay was the co-founder and CEO of two other start-up companies L3 Technology, Mobidia that was acquired by App Annie Inc.
Fay is an official member of the Forbes Technology Council. Fay has been granted many patents. In 2020 she was named by Linux Foundation and State of the Edge as the Edge Woman of the Year, she was recognized as the 2018 Alumni of the year at Concordia University. In 2014, she was named by San Francisco Business Week as one of the most influential women business leaders in Silicon Valley. In 2007, she was the Canadian technology and innovation representative to the White House. Fay received the distinguished Business in Vancouver’s 2006 “Top 40 Under 40″ award presented to outstanding leaders in their chosen fields.
Fay is a highly sought-after global speaker, and industry thought leader given her specialization in digital communications, software applications, and protocol development. Fay is also currently the Executive Chairman of H2 Wellness and Advisor to StudyTracks.
Clay is the co-founder of Digital FastForward. He has spent most of his career helping leaders build and execute strategies around new disruptive technologies. Formerly with Forrester Research, a leading market research firm, Clay oversaw research and client advisory projects focused on digital innovation, digital automation, design thinking, and lean startup practices.
Lila Benhammou is a serial woman entrepreneur passionate about DATA. She dives in the challenges and pitfalls for any organization wanting to tackle data challenges and organization.
She shares a lot of stories about clients she did help on their data journey and shares with us some good tips about how to align processes, upskilling on new skills and embracing technology to serve businesses.
Francis Carden, VP. Intelligent Automation and Robotics, Pegasystems. Francis was a founder of the RPA technology acquired by Pega in 2016 and a speaker, thought leader and evangelist on everything to do with “automation". Since joining Pega, Francis has been proactively involved in the core technology and marketing around the Intelligent Automation space, bringing together stories and insights across the globe. He is actively involved in Pega's leading Intelligent Automation platform which includes many of the latest advances in technology from Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, low-code, case management to end to end automation and Robotics. Francis has more than 30 years of experience running multinational technology companies and selling innovative technology all over the world.
Rizel Scarlett (nee Bobb-Semple) developed a deep passion for leveraging code to create inclusive communities because of her experience with impostor syndrome and being the only Afro-Caribbean woman in the room. After participating in Hack.Diversity, Code2040, and Resilient Coders, programs which assisted her in navigating her non-traditional career path, Rizel felt inspired to help create a safe space to empower women learning to code. Today, she serves as the Director of Curriculum and Engagement at G{Code} House. Additionally, Rizel holds a Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science at Boston University and works as a Junior Developer Advocate at GitHub. At the time of the interview for Bold stories. Future focused., she was a Full-Stack Software Engineer at Botany, a startup aimed at fostering more collaborative engineering teams.
Sidney Madison Prescott is a keynote speaker, author, and robotics evangelist specializing in the creation of Robotic Process Automation Centers of Excellence for Fortune 250 companies. Sidney heads up the Global Intelligent Automation initiative at music streaming powerhouse Spotify.
Sidney is also a published author. Sidney co-authored the Amazon #1 Best Selling book, Robotic Process Automation using UiPath StudioX: A Citizen Developer’s Guide to Hyperautomation. The book allows readers to build robots using real-world prototypes.
Sidney currently resides in Manhattan’s Upper East Side with her two small dogs, Addison & Grey Sloan. She is an avid snowboarder and SoulCycle fanatic.
Jacquelyn Morie’s 30 years of researching & creating meaningful VR experiences includes multi-sensory techniques for VR that can predictably elicit emotional responses from participants. Her company All These Worlds, LLC is active in social VR, Mindfulness, storytelling & stress relief applications. In 2016 she concluded a project for NASA called ANSIBLE, a full virtual world ecosystem designed to provide psychological benefits for future astronauts who will undertake extremely long isolated missions to Mars. It was tested in the HISEAS analog facility in Hawaii, with a team of 6 scientists sequestered for a year to simulate the conditions of isolation on Mars, including long communications delays. She also investigates the use of personal avatars for how they affect our human selves. She invented a novel scent release device RemniScent, to aid in the evocative power of VR experiences.
Dr. Morie has advanced degrees in both Fine Art and Computer Science. Her career also spans exceptional accomplishments in education, developing digital media programs at the Ringling College of Art and Design, the University of Central Florida, the Walt Disney Animation Studios, VIFX, Blue Sky and Rhythm and Hues, and Otis College of Art and Design. She was instrumental in the creation of the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), where she served as a Senior Researcher for 14 years.
She is currently on the board of directors of several future-oriented immersive media companies, and is also a senior technical advisor to the XPRIZE’s ANA Avatar Prize, which challenges teams to create a robotic avatar people can inhabit from a distance. Her new 22-chapter book, co-edited with Kate McCallum, The Handbook of Research on the Global Impacts and Roles of Immersive Media, was published by IGI Global in early 2020.
Dr. Malini Bhandaru over her multi-decade career has worked on technologies spanning Cloud, IoT/Edge, Big Data for Autonomous Driving, Server Processor design, Network Alarm Correlation, and Speech Recognition based products. Over the last decade she has been worked on Open Source, contributing as a developer and lead to projects such as Kubeflow for Machine Learning Operations, EdgeX Foundry – an IoT/Edge framework, OpenStack, and OpenDaylight. She fosters collaboration and seeks to democratize technology to make possible new advances. She has worked at startups and multi-national companies such as VMware, Intel, and through acquisitions Oracle, Microsoft, and Verizon. She has a doctorate in Machine Learning from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and over 20+ patents. Malini was one of 10 finalists for the 2020 Edge Woman of the Year Award and a co-author of the first edition of The OpenStack Security Guide.
Malini is passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion, promoting Math and Science through Science Olympiad coaching, offering adult computer literacy training, guiding projects at the university level, and mentoring and sponsoring technical women in the corporate world. She has offered Command Presence workshops at OpenStack Summits in Tokyo, Barcelona, and Atlanta, presented at Grace Hopper Celebration, and is a frequent speaker at Women Transforming Technology (WT2) and Women-Who-Code events on technical topics as well as on negotiation skills and career growth.
Joe Weinman was most recently SVP at Telx (now Digital Realty) and has held executive positions at Bell Labs, AT&T, and HP, in areas such as corporate strategy, R&D and innovation management, partner and business development, product management, operations, and sales and marketing. He currently serves on the advisory boards of Syntropy Networks, EDJX, RampRate, the Pace University Lubin School of Business, and the Pacific Telecommunications Council. He’s been awarded 27 patents.
He’s a global keynoter and digital strategist recognized for his insights at the intersection of business, technology, and academia who has spoken at hundreds of events and is the author of the Amazon #1 New Release Digital Disciplines: Attaining Market Leadership via the Cloud, Big Data, Social, Mobile, and the Internet of Things (Wiley CIO, 2015), also available in Chinese: 新动能 新法则 (PTPress, 2016); Cloudonomics: The Business Value of Cloud Computing (Wiley, 2012), also translated as 云经济学 (PTPress, 2014) and 云端时代 (PTPress, 2015); co-editor of Fog and Fogonomics: Challenges and Practices of Fog Computing, Communication, Networking, Strategy, and Economics (Wiley ICT Series); and a contributor to Regulating the Cloud: Policy for Computing Infrastructure (MIT Press, 2014) and Guide to Big Data Applications (Springer Studies in Big Data, 2018).
His business and technical articles have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Forbes, CIO, InformationWeek, The New York Times, Business Week, Entrepreneur, Wired, CNN Money, and elsewhere; he has appeared on satellite, broadcast, and online channels of ViacomCBS, Sky, TVB Pearl, Channel NewsAsia, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal; and he was the contributing editor of the cloud economics column for IEEE Cloud Computing magazine for five years.
He has a BS and MS in Computer Science from Cornell University and UW-Madison and has completed executive education at the International Institute for Management Development, Lausanne, Harvard Business School, and MIT Sloan School of Management.
Connect with “joeweinman” at Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, WeChat, or Gmail.
Elizabeth M. Adams (she/her/hers) is a global AI Ethics Advisor helping executives, governments and organizations gain familiarity with AI Ethics guidance and standards. She passionately teaches, advises, consults, and speaks on the critical subjects within and across Tech Inclusion, Humane Tech and Social Influence in AI. Elizabeth is an Affiliate Fellow at Stanford University’s Institute of Human-Centered AI and is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Business Administration at Pepperdine University, with a research focus on Leadership of Responsible AI. Over the past 20 years, she has refined her leadership acumen in tech design by leading a variety of large-scale technology initiatives for the government and Fortune 500 companies as a tech equity champion.
Seeing the negative effects of social isolation take a toll on his own grandmother, Kyle Rand devoted his studies to cognitive decline in the aging population. He researched neuroprosthetics at Duke University, studying the link between functional structural changes in the brain that occur with age and the associated deficits in economic decision-making skills. This propelled Rand to create a solution to serve the older adult population, and so Rendever was born. Kyle Rand is now the CoFounder & CEO of - a virtual reality platform aimed to improve the aging process by bringing the outside world to seniors. The platform is used to combat the effects of social isolation and address mental health, memory care, continued education, and physical health.
Skip Rizzo is a clinical psychologist and Director of Medical VR at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies. He is also a Research Professor with the USC Dept. of Psychiatry and School of Gerontology. Over the last 25 years, Skip has conducted research on the design, development and evaluation of Virtual Reality systems targeting the areas of clinical assessment, treatment, and rehabilitation across the domains of psychological, cognitive and motor functioning in both healthy and clinical populations. This work has focused on PTSD, TBI, Autism, ADHD, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and other clinical conditions. In spite of the diversity of these clinical R&D areas, the common thread that drives all of his work with digital technologies involves the study of how Virtual Reality simulations can be usefully applied to human healthcare beyond what’s possible with traditional 20th Century methods. To view some videos on his work, go to: https://www.youtube.com/user/AlbertSkipRizzo/videos
Jessica Ochoa Hendrix, CEO of Killer Snails, has worked in K-16 education since 2003. Ochoa Hendrix was awarded the 2019 TED Residency, an in-house incubator within TED for breakthrough ideas and gave a TED talk on incorporating VR into the classroom. Ochoa Hendrix serves as the Principal Investigator for Small Business Innovation Research Grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Institute of Educational Sciences. Prior to co-founding Killer Snails, she most recently worked as an educational consultant whose clients included Relay Graduate School of Education and the Charter Network Accelerator. Previously, she worked for Uncommon Schools as the Director of Organizational Learning as the network grew from 16 to 32 schools. Ms. Ochoa Hendrix received her MBA with a concentration in Social Enterprise from Columbia Business School and was awarded the prestigious Board of Overseers Fellowship and the Nathan Gantcher Prize for Social Enterprise. Prior to business school, she worked in marketing for the Harvard Business Review and The Economist and taught for four years for The Princeton Review. She holds a BA from the University of Texas at Austin, is a proud alumna of Project Entrepreneur and serves as a member of the World Economic Forum's Expert Network in Future of Education, Gender and Work, Virtual and Augmented Reality and Entrepreneurship.
Jacquelyn Morie’s 30 years of researching & creating meaningful VR experiences includes multi-sensory techniques for VR that can predictably elicit emotional responses from participants. Her company All These Worlds, LLC is active in social VR, Mindfulness, storytelling & stress relief applications. In 2016 she concluded a project for NASA called ANSIBLE, a full virtual world ecosystem designed to provide psychological benefits for future astronauts who will undertake extremely long isolated missions to Mars. It was tested in the HISEAS analog facility in Hawaii, with a team of 6 scientists sequestered for a year to simulate the conditions of isolation on Mars, including long communications delays. She also investigates the use of personal avatars for how they affect our human selves. She invented a novel scent release device RemniScent, to aid in the evocative power of VR experiences.
Dr. Morie has advanced degrees in both Fine Art and Computer Science. Her career also spans exceptional accomplishments in education, developing digital media programs at the Ringling College of Art and Design, the University of Central Florida, the Walt Disney Animation Studios, VIFX, Blue Sky and Rhythm and Hues, and Otis College of Art and Design. She was instrumental in the creation of the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), where she served as a Senior Researcher for 14 years.
She is currently on the board of directors of several future-oriented immersive media companies, and is also a senior technical advisor to the XPRIZE’s ANA Avatar Prize, which challenges teams to create a robotic avatar people can inhabit from a distance. Her new 22-chapter book, co-edited with Kate McCallum, The Handbook of Research on the Global Impacts and Roles of Immersive Media, was published by IGI Global in early 2020.
Skip Rizzo is a clinical psychologist and Director of Medical VR at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies. He is also a Research Professor with the USC Dept. of Psychiatry and School of Gerontology. Over the last 25 years, Skip has conducted research on the design, development and evaluation of Virtual Reality systems targeting the areas of clinical assessment, treatment, and rehabilitation across the domains of psychological, cognitive and motor functioning in both healthy and clinical populations. This work has focused on PTSD, TBI, Autism, ADHD, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and other clinical conditions. In spite of the diversity of these clinical R&D areas, the common thread that drives all of his work with digital technologies involves the study of how Virtual Reality simulations can be usefully applied to human healthcare beyond what’s possible with traditional 20th Century methods. To view some videos on his work, go to: https://www.youtube.com/user/AlbertSkipRizzo/videos
Nia is an Innovation Engineer at Digital FastForward where she leads robotic automation projects for different clients in banking, healthcare, and higher education. She takes pride in developing solutions that will provide the best value to clients by employing design thinking strategies.
Peter van der Putten is the Director for AI Solutions at Pega. He works with global brands to transform their business through the responsible use of artificial intelligence. This may span many areas of their business, helping them to engage 1:1 with their customers to improve customer value and build trusted relationships; by using AI to anticipate and proactively resolve service issues; and by inserting intelligence into processes to maximize efficiency and business outcomes. He also looks after Pega’s strategy to pervasively use actionable, always on AI across all its products and go to markets, and ensuring AI is used in a trustworthy, responsible and ethical manner.
Van der Putten is also an assistant professor at Leiden University, the Netherlands, where he teaches in the AI and Media Technology programs. In his research he goes beyond artificial intelligence into artificial ‘x’, and studies intelligence, creativity, emotions, relationships, religion and other things that make us human through artificial creatures. He also speculates about the future with humans, technology and nature. He holds a PhD in AI from Leiden University and a MSc in AI from Utrecht University, the Netherlands.
Randy Bean is an industry thought leader, author, and speaker in the field of data-driven business leadership. He is known for his frequent columns in Forbes, Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, and The Wall Street Journal. His book, Fail Fast, Learn Faster: Lessons in Data-Driven Leadership in an Age of Disruption, Big Data, and AI, will be published on August 31, 2021. Bean is founder and CEO of NewVantage Partners, a strategic advisory firm which he founded in 2001. Bean also serves as co-chair of the James Merrill House, an internationally acclaimed writers residency program. He is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and resides in Boston, MA and Stonington Borough, CT.
Catherine D. Henry is a leading voice in XR and one of the top women covering augmented reality, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence –– combining futurism with creative technology and strategic implementation. Catherine is SVP Growth at Media.Monks, where she advises leading global brands on how to enter the Metaverse; a new era of brand virtualization with innovative ideas and cutting edge technology, from enterprise to entertainment. Catherine decodes technology and interactive experiences to help companies become more resilient, efficient, and productive. With a career spanning nearly 20 years in global financial services leading institutional sales for private and equity tech investments, Catherine enables teams to better communicate, collaborate and create with tech –– no matter where they are. Catherine D. Henry is a Black female tech geek & AfroFuturist who holds an MBA, MA in economics, and speaks five languages. She also did post-graduate work in immersive media & VR Film making at NY Film Academy (2016).
Galit Ariel is a TechnoFuturist, author and creative, featured at global conferences and organizations such as TED, SXSW, Slush, The European Union, Bell Labs, and many more. She explores the wild and imaginative side of immersive technologies and is the author of Augmenting Alice - The Future of Identity, Experience and Reality. The book explores the way Augmented Reality’s diffusion will shift core paradigms and interactions related to culture, space, embodiment, agency and ethics. Through her art/tech futures agency ‘Future Memory Inc.’ she helps organizations and policymakers shape their technological futures and develop better digital experiences, interaction tools and narratives. Galit is currently conducting her research-by-creation PhD at York University, exploring paradigms of immersive presence.
Alan Smithson’s purpose in life is to inspire and educate people to think and act in a socially, economically and environmentally responsible way.
Mr. Smithson is a Co-Founder of MetaVRse, a code-optional platform that makes it easy to create & share interactive 3D experiences instantly on the web.
He is a proud Father, Business Leader, TEDx Speaker, and Podcast Host. Mr. Smithson co-invented the World’s first touchscreen DJ system, Emulator — featured on Dragons’ Den and winning DJ Mag’s Innovative Product of the Year in 2011. His 10-year-old daughter invented sandals that leave a heart-shaped tan line on your feet called Love Sandal winning Top 20 Under 20 at only 10 years old. He is an Independent Global Advisor on the Business of XR for Fortune 500 Companies and UHNW Family Offices.
Philip Bayer is a User Experience Engineer at Google, working in artificial intelligence research. He studied computer science and industrial design at Brown University and The Rhode Island School of Design. Philip leverages his creative background to rapidly prototype innovative solutions to human-centered problems, then uses his technical background to scale those solutions up to address broader challenges. He has worked extensively on Google's Project Guideline, a project that enables visually impaired runners to run unassisted. He developed software to create synthetic data for the project, this enables the team to train computer vision models on a world that doesn't exist yet.
After spending two years in the business development team of Statice, where she engaged with enterprises stakeholders to learn about their data challenges, Beatrice Milik moved to a Sales Engineer role. She combines hands-on technical knowledge with a positive commercial attitude. Before joining Statice, Beatrice worked as a Data Analyst at HMGU Munich. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Biomedical Engineering, and an insatiable curiosity for data science.
Emna Amor is a Machine Learning Engineer with a computer science engineering degree. She handles most deep learning matters at the company. Before Statice, she worked on sequential data like videos, unstructured and structured datasets at Daimler Mobility and Kodak One. Emna enjoys being part of the full solution process, supporting data architecture and building ready to production pipelines using the newest technologies.
Peter van der Putten is the Director for AI Solutions at Pega. He works with global brands to transform their business through the responsible use of artificial intelligence. This may span many areas of their business, helping them to engage 1:1 with their customers to improve customer value and build trusted relationships; by using AI to anticipate and proactively resolve service issues; and by inserting intelligence into processes to maximize efficiency and business outcomes. He also looks after Pega’s strategy to pervasively use actionable, always on AI across all its products and go to markets, and ensuring AI is used in a trustworthy, responsible and ethical manner.
Van der Putten is also an assistant professor at Leiden University, the Netherlands, where he teaches in the AI and Media Technology programs. In his research he goes beyond artificial intelligence into artificial ‘x’, and studies intelligence, creativity, emotions, relationships, religion and other things that make us human through artificial creatures. He also speculates about the future with humans, technology and nature. He holds a PhD in AI from Leiden University and a MSc in AI from Utrecht University, the Netherlands.
Don Schuerman is CTO and Vice President of Product Strategy at Pegasystems, responsible for Pega’s industry-leading platform and CRM applications. He has 20 years of experience delivering enterprise software solutions for Fortune 500 organizations, with a focus on digital transformation, mobility, analytics, business process management, cloud and CRM. Don has led enterprise software implementations and provided technology and architecture consulting to senior business and technology executives from Fortune 500 organizations, including American Express, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, and BP. Don holds a BS in Physics and Philosophy from Boston College.