Speakers

John Bronskill is a Software Architect who leads the Infer.NET Engineering team - a .NET library for machine learning - at Microsoft Research Cambridge. Over the last 18 years, John has worked as a developer on a wide range of products at Microsoft including Windows, Office and Expression Studio.

Vanessa Evers is a full professor of Computer Science at the University of Twente’s Human Media Interaction group. Her research interests focus on on interaction with intelligent and autonomous systems such as robots or machine learning systems as well as cultural aspects of Human Computer Interaction. She has published over 80 peer reviewed publications, many of which in high quality journals and conferences in human computer interaction and human robot interaction.

Luciano Floridi is currently Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford, Oxford Internet Institute, Governing Body Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford, Senior Member of the Faculty of Philosophy, Research Associate and Fellow in Information Policy at the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, and Distinguished Research Fellow of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. Floridi is best known for his work on two areas of philosophical research: the philosophy of information and information ethics.

Mike Hearn is a Bitcoin developer who focuses on wallet development and infrastructure upgrades. He is also known for research into advanced usages of the protocol, such as how to do high speed micropayments, de-centralised debt markets, dispute mediated transactions and autonomous businesses. Before working on Bitcoin full time, Mr Hearn was a senior engineer at Google, where he spent seven and a half years working on Maps, Earth, anti-spam and account security.

Maurits Kaptein is a social scientist and researcher primarily interested in both persuasion as well as quantitative research methods. He received his Ph.D. with honors form the Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Currently he is an assistant professor in Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the Radboud University Nijmegen. He has written a book “Persuasion Profiling: How the internet knows what makes you tick” about digital persuasion which has been published in English in 2015.

Andrew Keen is a British-American entrepreneur and author. He is particularly known for his view that the current Internet culture and the Web 2.0 trend may be debasing culture. Keen is especially concerned about the way that the current Internet culture undermines the authority of learned experts and the work of professionals.

Marcel Krom studied Business Information Management. After several jobs in IT, he became business unit manager within a software development company. After that he build the Value Added Services IT for PTT Post as IT Manager. From 1998 to 2002 he started a business consultancy firm as shareholder. In 2003 he became IT Director of Cendris, the Value Added Services company of PostNL (Document management, Direct Mail and Direct Marketing products and services). In 2006 Marcel was appointed as General Manger of Cendris, and in 2009 he was appointed as CIO of PostNL. From 2011 till 2014 Marcel was, as member of the Executive Committee of PostNL, also responsible for the International Business. In 2015 Marcel is CIO, responsible for Demand and Delivery of IT.

Abdel Labbi currently leads the Information Analytics team at IBM Research in Zurich, Switzerland. His main activities are focused on designing and implementing large-scale decision support systems for various IBM business units and clients. Over the last decade, he has led and managed several teams and projects in various industries spanning the whole value chain of a business, from Supply Chain Optimization to Sales & Marketing Effectiveness, Operations, Financial Planning and Operational Risk Management. He is a member of the IBM Academy of Technology and holds a PhD in Applied Maths and an MBA in Corporate Management. Before joining IBM, Dr Labbi was an Assistant Professor at the University of Geneva. 

Paul Mason is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and author of the book “PostCapitalism: A Guide to Our Future”. In his book he argues that our world is in the process of seismic change. At the heart of this change is information technology, a revolution that is driven by capitalism but which, with its tendency to drive the value of much of what we make towards zero, has the potential to destroy an economy based on markets, wages and private ownership - and is already doing so.

James McQuivey is vice president and principal analyst at Forrester. He is the foremost analyst tracking and defining the power and impact of digital disruption on traditional businesses. His consumer models identify the ways consumers have embraced digital experiences and platforms, and his strategy models help companies prepare to serve those consumers. Though he applies this knowledge to a wide variety of industries, he spends the majority of his consulting time with consumer media and consumer electronics companies that are at the forefront of dealing with digital disruption. In February 2013, James published his book Digital Disruption: Unleashing the Next Wave of Innovation.

Steve Mills joined IBM in 1973 after graduating New York’s Union College and has held a variety of leadership positions throughout his IBM career. In January 2015, Mr. Mills was named Executive Vice President, IBM Software and Systems. Mr. Mills has played a leading role in the growth of IBM Software Group since its inception in 1995. In this capacity, he was responsible for directing approximately 110,000 employees spanning development, manufacturing, sales, marketing and support professions. With the addition of Systems, Mr, Mills was responsible for IBM's products that contribute $40B of IBM's revenue and provide critical business integration infrastructure that powers more than 100,000 enterprises around the world.

Göran Sandahl is co-founder and CTO of Unomaly. Software always fails, eventually. Founded in 2010, Unomaly is a machine-learning tool that monitors IT systems in real time, searching for any anomaly that could indicate a fault - including new issues, not just historic ones.