Speaker Biographies

Speakers

Stephen Roberts

Faculty Fellow, The AlanTuring Institute

Stephen Roberts is the Royal Academy of Engineering / Man Group Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Oxford, Director of the Oxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance and co-founder of the Oxford Machine Learning spin-out company, Mind Foundry. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Statistical Society and the Alan Turing Institute. Stephen’s interests lie in the theory and methodology of machine learning for large-scale problems, especially those in which noise and uncertainty abound. His current research focuses on scalable machine learning for the physical sciences and finance.

Abraham Liu

Chief Representative to the EU Institutions and Vice-President European Region, Huawei

Abraham Liu was appointed Vice-President for the European Region at Huawei in July 2018. At the same time, he is the Chief Representative of the company to the EU Institutions in Brussels. Abraham joined the Brussels Public Affairs and Communication team as Vice-President earlier this year and was appointed in May 2018 as the Chief Representative to the EU Institutions.

Mr Liu is no newcomer to Huawei, having joined the company in 2001 as a Wireless Product Manager. Over the years, he has worked in different roles across the globe, including as Country Manager of DR Congo, Vice-President of Huawei’s regional office in East Southern Africa, and Vice-President of Huawei’s Southern Pacific Region. Before moving to Brussels, he served as CEO of Huawei Malaysia. Mr Liu graduated from Central South University of China in 2001 after earning a Bachelor degree in Computer Science and Technology. He is married and a father of two.

Fabrice Morin

Scientific Coordinator and HBP SP10 Manager, Human Brain Project

Fabrice Morin works at the Technical University of Munich, where he is the manager of sub-project 10 in the Human Brain Project (HBP), a 10-year FET Flagship funded by the European Commission. His responsibility is to oversee the development of the Neurorobotics platform of the HBP, a set of simulation tools that aim at providing highly detailed simulations of brain models with embodiment in a physically realistic virtual environment. Before joining TUM, his previous position was as a researcher in the Health division of Tecnalia Research and Innovation (San Sebastian, Spain), a private nonprofit research organization that is one the largest of its kind in Europe. There, he worked in both the Neurotechnology and Biomaterials business areas, eventually becoming manager of the latter. During his career in R&D, Fabrice explored multiple fields: BioMEMS and cell-based biosensors, modelling of the electrode-electrolyte interface and neural computation. As a HBP member, he now hopes to contribute to furthering our understanding of the human brain, and from this new knowledge to establish guiding principles for new types of AI and robotics based on Neuroscience.

Juha Heikkilä

Head of Unit, Robotics, Directorate-General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology, European Commission

Dr Juha Heikkilä joined the European Commission in 1998, and since 2014 he has been the Head of the Robotics and Artificial Intelligence unit in the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology. The Commission has been funding a multidisciplinary programme on Cognitive Systems, Robotics and AI since 2004, focusing on smart and flexible robots and artificial systems. In 2014, a Public-Private Partnership in Robotics was set up, bringing together all the key European stakeholders. In this partnership the European Commission will invest up to €700 million via the Horizon 2020 framework programme in roadmap-based research and innovation between 2014 and 2020. The unit is also in charge of developing and coordinating the Commission policy and activities in Artificial Intelligence. Previously, Dr Heikkilä was involved in computational and corpus linguistic research at the University of Helsinki, and he has a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Cambridge.

Mario Mariniello

Digital Adviser, European Political Strategy Centre

In his capacity of Digital Adviser, Mario Mariniello leads the European Political Strategy Centre (EPSC) work related to Digital Single Market issues. Mario holds a Ph.D. in Industrial Organization from the European University Institute of Fiesole (Florence) and a M.Sc. in Economics from CORIPE (Turin). He currently teaches a course in Digital Economy at the College of Europe and has previously taught a course in European Economic Integration for Master students at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB).
Mario joined the EPSC from Bruegel where he was Research Fellow for Competition Policy and Regulation. With Bruegel, Mario published extensively on issues related to competition policy and ICT regulation. His columns and policy works have been published or quoted in leading international media, such as Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, La Tribune, Der Spiegel, Project Syndicate, Vox, Les Echos, De Standaard and others. He is a frequent speaker at international conferences.

Antti Peltomäki

Deputy Director General, DG GROW, European Commission

Mr Antti Peltomäki is Deputy Director-General of the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs Directorate- General since February 2012. In this function, Mr Peltomäki is responsible for “Single Market Policy, Regulation and Implementation”, “Industrial transformation and Advanced value chains”, “Consumer, Environmental and Health
Technologies”, and “Innovation and Advanced Manufacturing” Directorates.
Mr. Peltomäki is also the Commission representative at the Management Boards of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA).
Before that, Mr Peltomäki was Deputy Director-General in the Information Society and Media Directorate General where he was firstly responsible for research cooperation in the context of the seventh research framework (2007-2013) and thereafter for regulatory policy in the telecommunications, media and internet fields.
Mr Peltomäki has also worked as Head of the Commission's representation in Helsinki in 2006 – 2007.
Prior to joining the Commission in 2006, Mr Peltomäki worked for almost ten years in the office of the Prime Minister of Finland, initially as State Under-Secretary, then State Secretary for EU affairs.
A lawyer by training, Mr Peltomäki began his career as a coordinator of international research and training courses at the Helsinki University of Technology.

Salwa Toko

President, Conseil National du Numérique (French National Digital Council)

Salwa Toko is the President of the French Digital Council, a public advisory body to the French government. She is the Founder and President of BECOMTECH, a girls and women’s empowerment organisation that aims at closing the gender gap in the IT and engineering sectors. BECOMTECH, has been created with one and only goal : Building the First European Pipeline of Future Female Engineers. With support from public and private partners BECOMTECH works to educate, inspire, and equip high school girls and women with the skills and resources to pursue opportunities in computing fields.

Dino Pedreschi

Professor of Computer Science , University of Pisa

Dino Pedreschi is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Pisa, and a pioneering scientist in data science and big data analytics and their impact on society. Since 1994, he co-leads the Pisa KDD Lab - Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining Laboratory, a joint research initiative of the University of Pisa and the Information Science and Technology Institute of the Italian National Research Council, one of the earliest research labs centered on data mining. His main interests are on human mobility, social and complex network analysis, socio-economic nowcasting and forecasting, data science ethics, privacy and explainable AI. Dino is a co-founder of SoBigData, the H2020 European research infrastructure on Big Data Analytics and Social Mining, an ecosystem of ten cutting edge European research centres providing an open platform for interdisciplinary data science and data-driven innovation. Dino is the director of interdisciplinary Data Science PhD in Pisa, jointly offered by Univ. Pisa, CNR, Scuola Normale Superiore, Scuola S. Anna and Scuola IMT Lucca. Dino received a Google Research Award in 2008 for his early research on privacy-preserving data mining.

Alea Fairchild

Research Fellow, The Constantia Institute

Dr. Alea Fairchild is a Research Fellow at The Constantia Institute, which is a Brussels-based technology policy think-tank, focusing on innovation and technological advances and their impact on industry and society. As a technology commentator she has a broad presence both in the traditional media and extensively online. Alea covers the convergence of technology in the cloud, mobile and social spaces and she helps global enterprises understand the competitive marketplace and to profit from digital process redesign.

Alea is passionate about commercial marketing and innovation, and as an entrepreneur, has started several companies of her own. She loves working with start-ups and actively supports VCs in due diligence work. She also assists governmental institutions on technology policy issues.

Paul Adamson

Chairman, Forum Europe

Paul Adamson is chairman of Forum Europe and founder and editor of E!Sharp, an online magazine dedicated to covering the European Union and Europe's place in the world.

He is a member of the Centre for European Reform’s advisory board, Rand Europe's Council of Advisors and the external advisory board of YouGov-Cambridge, a polling think-tank. He is a member of the board of advisors of the European Institute in Washington DC, the advisory board of the Washington European Society and the advisory committee of the EU chapter of Women in International Security (WiiS).

Paul is a Visiting Professor at the Policy Institute, King’s College London, a patron of the University Association of Contemporary European Studies (UACES) and a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences.

He founded the consulting firm Adamson Associates, which was sold to Weber Shandwick and The Centre, which was later sold to Edelman.

In 2012, Paul was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) "for services to promoting understanding of the European Union”, a part of the Queen's 2012 New Year Honours Diplomatic Service and Overseas List. In 2016 he was made a Chevalier in the Ordre national du Mérite by the French government.

Raja Chatila

Chair, IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in AI and Autonomous Systems; Member, High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence

Raja Chatila is Professor of Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Ethics at Sorbonne University in Paris, France, and director of the Institute of Intelligent Systems and Robotics (ISIR). He also leads the SMART Laboratory of Excellence on Human-Machine Interactions. He contributed in several areas of Artificial Intelligence and autonomous and interactive Robotics along his career publishing about 150 papers.
He is member of the High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence appointed by the European Commission. He is chair of the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems. He is member of the Commission on the Ethics of Research on Digital Science and Technology (CERNA) in France. He was President of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society for the term 2014-2015.
He is Fellow of the IEEE and recipient of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Pioneer Award.

Kai Peters

Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Business & Law; Member, Group Leadership Team, Coventry University

Kai Peters is Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Business & Law at Coventry University and a member of the Coventry University Group Leadership Team.

Previously, he was Dean/Director of Ashridge, the business school located in Berkhamsted, near London from 2003 to 2015. Following the 2015 strategic alliance of Ashridge with Hult International Business School, Peters was appointed Chief Academic Officer of the combined institution.

Prior to joining Ashridge, Peters was Dean, and previously director of MBA programs, of the Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) of Erasmus University in the Netherlands from 1993 to 2003.

Peters serves on supervisory and advisory boards for the Amsterdam-based artificial intelligence company Newsconsole, and for the Hamburg-based e-Health company GAIA. He was a board member of Centrepoint, a London-based charity for homeless youth. He also serves in various capacities for educational associations including AACSB, EFMD, EFMD, GMAC and CABS. He is owner and was managing director (89-93) of a company in the German publishing sector and has worked for both IBM and Volkswagen in organisational development.

Peters has written or co-written 10+ books and chapters and 50+ academic and practitioner articles on leadership and management education including Steward Leadership: A Maturational Perspective in 2013 and Rethinking Business Schools in 2018. He has been twice selected in the UK for HR magazine’s top 100 HR professionals.

He holds degrees from York University, Toronto and University of Quebec in Chicoutimi; (Canada) and Erasmus University (Netherlands).

Catelijne Muller

Expert & Consultant on AI & Society, EESC; Member, European High Level Group on Artificial Intelligence

A master of laws by training, Catelijne Muller began her career in 1997 as a Dutch qualified lawyer. In 2012, Catelijne started working as an EU Policy Advisor for several Trade Union Confederations in The Netherlands, from where she started putting the impact of AI on Society on the (inter)national agenda. She was Rapporteur of the EESC opinion on Artificial Intelligence and Society that was adopted on May 31, 2017 and heads the EESC Thematic Study Group on AI. She is a member of EU High Level Expert Group on AI, that advises the European Commission on economic, social, legal and ethical strategies for AI. She is the director of Muller AI, a consulting and strategy firm on “Responsible AI”

Walter Weigel

Vice-President, Huawei European Research Institute (ERI)

Dr. Walter Weigel graduated from the Technical University in Munich, Germany, with the Master Degree in electrical engineering in 1984 and with the Ph. D. degree in 1990. From 1984 to 1991 he was assistant professor at the Institute of Data Processing at the Technical University in Munich.
Dr. Weigel is since 1st April 2015 VP of the European Research Institute of Huawei, based in Munich Germany.
He used to be from September 2006 to July 2011 the Director General of the European Telecommunication Standards Institute ETSI. Between February 1991 and February 2015 he held several positions within Siemens AG, including VP of External Cooperations and Head of Standardization in Corporate Technology, VP of the Research & Concepts-department of the Mobile Networks business unit as well as Head of the business segment Video Processing for the semiconductor business unit (today Infineon).

Hermann Brand

European Standards Affairs Director, IEEE

Hermann Brand has held many different positions in the industry. He started his professional carrier as a SW developer and system designer in telecommunications. He then worked as a researcher in the semiconductor business, investigating novel manufacturing processes and developing new microstructures. Back in telecommunications he managed several international R&D teams in mobile communications including researchers, system engineers and a group of delegates to different standards developing organizations. While his employer evolved into a diversified IT service provider, Dr. Brand also worked as technology manager, innovation manager and business developer.

Hermann Brand joined ETSI in 2008. Until 2012 he was responsible for various institutional services of ETSI, including new initiatives, partnership management, membership care, and meeting support. Since 2012, as Director Innovation, he has worked closely with members and other stakeholders to setup new standardization committees/groups covering e.g. machine communication, network function virtualisation and edge computing.

In June 2017 Hermann Brand joined IEEE as European Standards Affairs Director. His responsibilities include European standardisation policy, technology policy, co-operations and standards related services for industry, research organizations, and academia.

Frank Behrmann

Senior Solution Manager European Branch of Solution Management – Internet of Things, Huawei Technologies

As Diploma Engineer in Telecommunication Science, Mr. Behrmann has over 20 years experience in international business for complex IT and Telecommunication solutions.
He is an end-2-end ICT system expert, identifying, developing and driving new industrial Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0 innovations. Already since 2010 he helps customers and industry to identify and realize new revenue opportunities in the emerging IoT domain.
Mr. Behrmann has a long track record in various Product Management, Consulting, Sales & Marketing roles.
Prior joining Huawei in Mai 2015, he worked as a Senior Solution Consultant for global leading ICT players Telefonica, HP and Nokia-Siemens-Networks in Solution Sales and Business Development with projects in Machine-to-Machine (M2M), Cloud Computing and Unified Communications & Collaboration domain.
Previously Mr. Behrmann worked several years in Solution and Product Management for Communication Radio and Core technologies, incl. IP Multimedia Systems (IMS), Value Adding Services (VAS) and Fixed-Mobile Convergence at Nokia.

Thomas Hahn

Chief Software Architect, Siemens

Thomas Hahn, born in 1960, has been Chief Software Expert at Siemens AG since 2011. After studying computer science at Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen he joined the company in 1986 and worked as a product developer in the field of industrial networks in Erlangen. In 1993 he moved to Nuremberg, where he worked in product management for SIMATIC and as a project manager responsible for development of SIMATIC STEP 7. From 1997 he worked as Head of Development at Traffic Control Systems in Munich for two years. In 1999 he returned to Nuremberg, where he was Head of Software Development for Industrial Automation Systems. He held this post until 2011. In addition to his function as Chief Software Expert, he was Head of the Business Analytics and Monitoring technology field from 2011 to August 2013. Beyond his activities at Siemens, Thomas Hahn is a member or board member of various bodies, including the OPC Foundation, Big Data Value Association, Openlab CERN and Platform Industrie 4.0.

Dan Sobovitz

Digital Communication Strategist to Vice President, European Commission

Dan has led the digital presence and publications of the Vice President of the European Commission for the past 3.5 years. Previously, he had worked on large-scale digital campaigns with various international organisations, such as the EU Humanitarian Aid Dept. (DG ECHO), UNICEF, UNESCO, the Slovak EU Presidency, and others.

In 2013, he joined an international group of opinion-makers in co-founding ‘Ceci n’est pas une crise’, a civil society organisation which analyses the current wave of nationalistic populism and advocates for an inclusive and tolerant alternative.

When he’s not at his day job, Dan blogs and lectures about the interplay between technology, society, and politics. He is a citizen of Israel, Switzerland, and Hungary (and potentially a few other countries) but Brussels is where he currently calls home.

Ahmed Achchak

Student, French Grande École “École Centrale Paris”

Ahmed is graduating this year from CentraleSupélec (Ecole Centrale Paris track) with a degree in Mathematics applied to Biology. Ahmed had the opportunity to work on several machine learning project ranging from disease detection to sleep improvement. He is currently interning as a Data Scientist at Natixis, working on connected-car data.

Hamza Sayah

Student, French Grande École “École Centrale Paris”

Hamza SAYAH, future graduate engineer from CentraleSupélec (Ecole Centrale Paris track) and EPFL in statistics and data management, is currently working in the energy sector at Plüm Energie as a data scientist, passionate about mathematics and artificial intelligence.

Gerald Ristow

Senior Research Manager, Software AG

Gerald H. Ristow studied Physics at the University of Hannover, Germany, (Diploma 1988, Ph.D. 1991) and at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, (M.Sc. 1987). After various PostDoc positions, he joined the second largest German software vendor, Software AG, in 2001. There he worked as a consultant and many years in product development. Currently, he is part of the research team where he leads the Software AG activities in two international projects.

Maha Elkheir

EU Public Affairs Intern, Huawei

Currently interning @Huawei Technologies as a EU Public Affairs, Maha is a focused international relations graduate with a political science degree specializing in resolution of conflict and geo-economics. She gained her relevant professional experience during two internships with multinational business.