Event Speakers
Global Experts
Speaker Lineup
Beyond IoT provides a unique opportunity to network with multi-nationals, SME’s, entrepreneurs and academics. Attendees are coming to hear from technology experts on what to expect from the next wave of tech innovation and investment. By affiliating with this event you will be exposed to over 600 delegates along with top technology innovators and investors from Silicon Valley & Europe.
Richard Linger
Industry Director and Technology Gateway Manager | Nimbus Technology Gateway
Richard Linger is currently the Industry Director and Technology Gateway Manager in Nimbus – Munster Technological University. Here we develop new embedded computing technologies for Industry. Our 70+ technology team delivers over 70 projects on average a year and have a turnover of €4.5m. We focus on IoT / Cyber Physical Systems / AI / Extended Reality / Hardware / Software / UI&UX technology applications across all domains. Richard is also a serial entrepreneur and mentor.
Andrew Bickley
EMEA Director for IoT and Engineering Services
A Graduate of Plymouth University, England having studied Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Over 25 years’ experience in the Semiconductor and Wireless Communications market supporting consumer, industrial medical and mobile customers. Has held regional and global positions in both Semiconductor Manufacturers and Distributors including placements in Silicon Valley, North America and Sweden and Finland.
Andrew Macadam
MD | Microsoft for Startups Europe
Andrew is the Managing Director for Microsoft Startups Europe, covering 17 countries, where he engages to identify, support and develop start-ups and scale-ups who have the potential to be incredible partners with Microsoft. Andrew focuses on developing businesses by helping them evolve, develop new revenue, and engage with the Microsoft customers to close new business. Andrew has worked in leadership roles in Sales, Digital Marketing, Strategy and Customer Success across Organisational Change, Mobile Telecoms and Cloud for multinational organisations.
Microsoft for Start-ups is a comprehensive program that delivers the technology, go-to-market and community benefits needed to catalyse start-up success. The program helps B2B start-ups from more than 140 countries sell through their game-changing solutions to Microsoft’s enterprise customers. Committed to listening to the needs of diverse start-up communities around the world, Microsoft for Start-ups offers include a wide range of technical and commercial supports to enable start-ups to scale and grow.
Brandon Donnelly
CEO | Stracos Umbrella of Companies
Brandon is a brilliant individual whom consistently achieves outstanding results with proven methods and with an insatiable desire to deliver truly great solutions. While working with him, I had the opportunity to assist him in his guaranteed success and saw him taking a company at the time unbeknownst to Microsoft, to closing multiple long lasting, high impact collaborations making SteriTrack, now one of the most relevant partners in the Microsoft Partner Network. He is an asset to any company and someone that companies would be astonished to have on their team.
Colin Mac Hale
EMEA Territory Director – Distribution, Partners & Programs | INTEL CORPORATION
Colin is the EMEA Territory Director – Distribution, Partners & Programs. He is responsible for Intel product sales through Distribution and Partners, as well as Partner programs in the region.
Colin has significant experience in various leadership roles in Intel, of selling and making technology markets across all of EMEA. He is an expert in building and leading multi-national, culturally attuned sales teams deployed across EMEA. He and his teams have sold cutting edge solutions to customers in a myriad of industry verticals. He has experience of selling into the Health, Life Sciences, Education, Government, Enterprise, Telco, Financial Services and SME verticals. He has teamed with ISVs, OEMs, SIs, and ODMs to provide industry wide eco-system solutions to customers. He also completed an assignment as Chief of Staff to the EMEA Corporate Vice President. He is a trained and experienced spokesperson and influencer to and for the industry to the media, government and industry bodies.
Colin has experience in HQ, EMEA, UK & Irish Computer industry.
He is based in Ireland, married with three daughters. He enjoys road cycling.
Dr Sally Eaves
Emergent Technology CTO | Global Strategy Advisor – Blockchain AI FinTech | Social Impact | Keynote Speaker and Author
Sally combines a depth of experience as a Chief Technology Officer, Practising Professor of Blockchain, Founder and Global Strategic Advisor, specialising in the application of emergent technologies for both business and societal benefit. She works globally with bleeding edge disruptors to apply her expertise in blockchain, artificial intelligence, digital transformation, smart cities and emergent technology convergence to affect lasting and purpose driven change. Sally strongly believes in technology as an enabler for social good and has founded Aspirational Futures to help guide, empower and support our next generation of interdisciplinary talent.
Prof John Barrett
Head of Centre | Nimbus Research Centre
Professor John Barrett is Centre Director of the Nimbus Research Centre. Moving from his previous position of Assistant Director of the National Microelectronics Research Centre (now Tyndall National Institute) at University College Cork, he joined Cork Institute of Technology in 1999 as a lecturer and researcher in Electronic Engineering. He was seconded to the Nimbus Research Centre in 2009 as Head of Academic Studies and a member of the Centre’s Executive. He was designated as a Professor by CIT in 2016. He has been involved in national, EU and industry research for over 35 years with an extensive funding, publication, invited speaker and postgraduate supervision record. He is currently also Assistant Director of the SFI Centre for Research Training in Advanced Networks for Sustainable Societies.
Dave Troy
CEO | 410Labs
Dave Troy is a serial entrepreneur and community activist in Baltimore, Maryland. He is currently CEO and product architect at 410 Labs, maker of the popular e-mail management tools Mailstrom.co and Chuck. He has been acknowledged by the founding team at Twitter as the first developer to utilize the Twitter API, with his project “Twittervision,” which was featured in the 2008 MoMA exhibition “Design and the Elastic Mind,” curated by Paola Antonelli. His current projects use social network data to map cities. He is also organizer of TEDxMidAtlantic in Washington, DC and is passionate about data, cities, and entrepreneurship. He lives in Baltimore with his wife and two children.
Dr Donna O’ Shea
Chair of Cybersecurity | Munster Technological University
Donna O’Shea is an experienced and professional academic with extensive expertise in student supervision and research. Passionate about ensuring the best student outcomes and maximising the impact of research in papers, journals and competitions. Group lead of Ríomh – Intelligent Secure Systems group, with a research focus in the application of AI to help solve some of most pressing cybersecurity challenges that we face as a society today including malware threats, critical infrastructure protection and hybrid threats. Co-lead in establishing Ireland’s National Cybersecurity Cluster, called CyberIreland, which is funded by the IDA with the key objective of establishing Ireland as a centre of excellence in cybersecurity. Extensive experience in industry engagement with real world practical experience in designing and developing complex systems.
Marie Fraser
Program Director | IBM Security
Andrea Manning
Andrea Manning is an experienced and recognised cybersecurity and GDPR expert and speaker. Driven by her love of data, Andrea’s super power is her combination of a strategic marketing mindset coupled with an extensive technical background. As founder of Data Influence, and her new startup, CyberPie, her goals include helping micro enterprises and startups protect their businesses and their customers through a simple, human-centric approach to cybersecurity and storytelling. She champions a simple approach to cybersecurity and one that resonates with small businesses. In addition to these roles, Andrea has been recognised by ITAG, the Local Enterprise Office and Cyber Women Ireland for her extraordinary commitment to GDPR and cybersecurity in today’s online environment. Andrea is also a mentor of the Online Cyber Security Conversion Programme and a committed, vocal advocate for diversity and inclusion.
Jacky Fox
Managing Director | Accenture Ireland security lead | Vice Chair Cyber Ireland | SC EMEA top 50 woman of influence | WEF cyber contributor
Jacky leads Accenture’s security business in Ireland and has 20+ years’ experience in technology and cyber security consulting. She holds an MSc in Digital investigations and Forensic computing, a GCFA and a GICSP. She has worked across multiple industry sectors and specialises in helping organisations to understand and treat their cyber risk. Jacky has had the experience of investigating many large and small scale national and international breaches. She is also Vice-chair on the board of CyberIreland and is an adjunct lecturer for UCD on their MSc in forensics and security.
In 2018, she was awarded ‘Security Champion of the Year’ in Ireland for her contribution to the Irish security industry and her mentorship and encouragement of women in security”
Tadhg Kelly
Game and XR Consultant, formerly Magic Leap
Tadhg Kelly is a highly experienced consultant in augmented reality, virtual reality and video games. Originally from Dublin but long-since emigrated, Tadhg worked in the games industry in the UK for over a decade as designer, producer, startup founder and columnist for TechCrunch before departing to the US in 2013. He now lives in and works in Seattle, where he has established himself as an expert in VR/AR production and management of external developers. Tadhg is currently consulting, and you can find him at tadhgk@gmail.com or @tiedtiger on Twitter.
Prof Sanjay Sarma
Vice President for Open Learning MIT Open Learning
Sanjay Sarma is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He is also the Vice President for Open Learning. He co-founded the Auto-ID Center at MIT and developed many of the key technologies behind the EPC suite of RFID standards now used worldwide. He was the founder and CTO of OATSystems, which was acquired by Checkpoint Systems (NYSE: CKP) in 2008. He serves on the boards of GS1US, Hochschild Mining and edX. Dr. Sarma received his Bachelors from the Indian Institute of Technology, his Masters from Carnegie Mellon University and his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. Sarma also worked at Schlumberger Oilfield Services in Aberdeen, UK, and at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories in Berkeley, California. He has authored over 150 papers in sensing, IoT, RFID, manufacturing and other fields. He is author of the recently published book, “Grasp: The Science Transforming How we Learn.”
Lauren Knausenberger
Deputy Chief Information Officer | United States Air Force
Ms. Lauren Knausenberger serves as the Deputy Chief Information Officer (DCIO) for the Department of the Air Force. As the DCIO, Ms. Knausenberger leads two directorates and supports 20,000 cyber operations and support personnel across the globe. She provides oversight of the Department of the Air Force’s Information Technology portfolio including the IT investment strategy from networks to cloud computing, Enterprise policies, information resources management, IT innovation initiatives, and information assurance. Her organization enables the integration of Air & Space Force warfighting and mission support capabilities by networking and securing air, space, and terrestrial assets.
Capt. Michael Kanaan
Director of Operations | Air Force & MIT Artificial Intelligence Accelerator & Author of “T-Minus AI”
Captain Michael Kanaan was the former co-chair of artificial intelligence for the U.S. Air Force and currently the Director of Operations for the Air Force / MIT Artificial Intelligence Accelerator. He was named to the Forbes “30 Under 30” list and received the US Government’s 68th Arthur S. Flemming Award (an honor shared by past recipients Neil Armstrong, Robert Gates, and Elizabeth Dole). Kanaan is a graduate of the US Air Force Academy and previously led a National Intelligence Campaign for Operation Inherent Resolve in Syria and Iraq.
Milton Pedraza
Chairman and Chief Revenue Officer | DataLucent
Milton Pedraza is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Luxury Institute, and Chairman and Chief Revenue Officer of DataLucent.
Today, Luxury Institute is the world’s most trusted research, training, and elite business solutions partner for luxury and premium goods and services brands. Over the last 17 years, we have served over 1,100 luxury and premium goods and services brands.
Milton advises and coaches luxury CEOs and advises and serves on the boards of top-tier luxury and premium brands, as well as luxury and premium startups. He is a member of the Advisory Board at the Ultra High Net Worth Institute. He is a frequent speaker at corporate events worldwide. He is known for his practical, innovative and humanistic insights and recommendations on luxury and high performance. Milton is the most quoted global luxury industry expert in leading media and publications. He is a recognized investor and authority on the Personal Data Economy, Privacy and Personalization, Customer Relationship Management and Artificial Intelligence technologies. Prior to founding the Luxury Institute, his successful career at Fortune 100 companies included executive roles at Altria, PepsiCo, Colgate, Citigroup and Wyndham Worldwide.
Milton is a frequent guest speaker at Columbia University and has presented at Harvard. He has been recognized as a top Latin Entrepreneur by Stanford Business School.
Milton was born in Colombia, raised in the United States, and has lived in several countries. He has conducted business in over 100 countries and speaks several languages.
Nicholas Chaillan
The Chief Software Officer works with the Program Executive Officers (PEOs) and is responsible for analyzing current software and cloud migration plans to avoid vendor lock-ins while allowing for rapid prototyping and a streamlined process for deployment. To keep up with the pace of technology, Mr. Chaillan evaluates and authorizes new commercially available off-the-shelf software and cloud-related technologies to help with their adoption across various AF programs based on their mission needs.
Dr Susan Rea
Group Lead | Nimbus Research Centre | MTU
Dr. Susan Rea is the Research Group Lead at the Nimbus Centre in Munster Technological University and leads research programs in of IoT & CPS, specifically embedded infrastructure management using distributed ledger technology and trustworthiness for large scale next generation networks. Susan is the vice chair of the IEEE UK & Ireland Blockchain Group and is part of the Athena SWAN program at MTU, in which she actively promotes and supports female representation and leadership within the STEMM sector. Susan is co-lead on the EU H2020 DENiM project focusing on digital transformation for energy sustainability in manufacturing and principal investigator on the SEAI funded DigiBlocks projects investigating the application of distributed ledger technology for cybersecure IoT ecosystems, applied to energy communities.
Dr Bernd-Ludwig Wenning
Research Fellow | Nimbus Research Centre | MTU
Dr Bernd-Ludwig Wenning is a Research Fellow in MTU’s Nimbus Centre, with a background in Communication Networks. He holds Dipl.-Ing. and Dr.-Ing. degrees in electrical engineering and information technology from University of Bremen, Germany. From 2002 to 2012, he was a researcher at University of Bremen. He moved to Ireland in 2012 to join the research team at the Nimbus Centre. His research interests are mobile and wireless communication, V2X communication and Quality of Service. Throughout his research career, he has worked on various national and EU funded projects in Germany and Ireland. He has authored or co-authored more than 50 publications.
Dr Liam Lewis
CAPPA
Dr Liam Lewis graduated with a PhD from UCC in 2007 and has been involved in the academic environment for over 20 years. After an initial 1 year post doc in the Tyndall National Institute he moved to take up a position as a researcher in the newly formed Centre for Advanced Photonics and Process analysis in Cork Institute of Technology. Following from successful promotions to senior researcher and research fellow He now leads the centre as Centre Head. As Centre Head he is responsible for overseeing and developing most of the research and development and a selection of teaching activity that is carried out by the group. This involves managing a team of 25 while also being involved in the research activities of the PhD students. The centre receives income of approx €2M annually from ongoing projects. and has been involved in over €10M worth of project activity over the last 5-6 years. The centre focuses primarily on applied and industry led research and has projects in a diverse range of scientific themes, such as Food, Pharma and Medical Device. The centre also assists Industry in accessing national and international funding.
Prof Jean-Paul Linnartz
Signify and TU Eindhoven
Jean-Paul Linnartz is a Research Fellow with Signify Research and a part-time Professor with the TU/e, addressing intelligent lighting systems and optical wireless communication. He was a Senior Director with the Philips Research, Eindhoven, where he headed Security, Connectivity, and IC Design Research Groups. He initiated research on Coded Light, to allow the embedding of identifiers in light sources, which is now being used in many office and retail facilities. His inventions led to over 75 granted patents and have been a basis for three ventures. His papers have been cited more than 12 000 times. From 1992 to 1994, he was an Assistant Professor with the University of California at Berkeley, where he worked on autonomous highways systems and on the wireless multimedia Infopad project. In 1994, he was an Associate Professor with TU Delft. From 1988 to 1991, he was an Assistant Professor with the TU Delft. He is a Fellow of the IEEE for his leadership in Security with Noisy Data
Jackie Kehoe
Research Fellow | Nimbus Research Centre | MTU
In a career of over 20 years Jackie has worked in at levels of the software development lifecycle including Software Development manager, Project Manager, Systems Analyst, Scrum Master, developer. Examples of the diverse sectors in which she has worked in her career include transportation, lottery systems, telecommunications, financial, online gambling and digital transformation for Industry 4.0. Jackie has experience of developing both Software as a Service (SAS) and product software systems.
Jackie’s main research area of interest is supporting organisations in their Digital Transformation journey. This includes both technology transformation alongside supporting employees in adopting these new practices through upskilling and mentoring.
Jackie has a BSc (Hons) in Applied Mathematics from the University of Limerick.
Dr Alan McGibney
Group Lead | Nimbus Research Centre | MTU
Alan leads applied research programmes and core activities relating to the Internet of Things and User Interaction at the Nimbus Centre, MTU. His core research expertise is in the areas of software engineering and decentralised architectures, wireless sensor networks, the design, deployment and management of end-to-end IoT solutions. Alan’s current research focus is on the convergence of digital technologies such as IoT, Blockchain and Machine Learning to support digital transformation in industrial sectors such as Smart Manufacturing, Smart Cities, and Energy Management. He leads EU funding acquisition and is the coordinator of the EU H2020 DENiM project which is a collaborative project focused on the use of digital technologies to support energy efficient and sustainable manufacturing.
Dr Michael Karner
Lead Researcher | VIRTUAL VEHICLE Research
Dr. Michael Karner is lead researcher for Embedded Systems at VIRTUAL VEHICLE in Graz, Austria. He received a master’s (Information and Computer Engineering) and doctoral degree (Electrical Engineering) from Graz University of Technology, with distinction. He was the coordinator for the recently finished ECSEL project SCOTT (focussing on cost-efficient solutions of wireless, end-to-end secure, trustworthy connectivity and interoperability in the Internet of Things), with a budget of €40M and involving nearly 60 partners from 11 European countries and Brazil). Currently, he is coordinator of the ECSEL InSecTT (Intelligent Secure Trustable Things) project dealing with bringing the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence together, with a budget of over 40M€ and involving nearly more than 50 partners from 11 European countries and Turkey. He has more than ten years industrial and scientific research experience in the field of wireless systems, communication networks and protocols, safety, security, intelligent systems, automotive electrics/electronics and software, cooperative safety systems as well as co-simulation. Furthermore, he is active as a reviewer and technical program committee member in several conferences and journals.
Dr Haithem Afli
NLP/ML Lecturer, SFI Funded Investigator, Team Leader, PI | MTU
Dr Haithem Afli is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lecturer at Munster Technological University (MTU ) Cork and has over 12 years of R&D experience in the Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning research and applications space in industry and academia. He is one of the Funded Investigators in the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) funded ADAPT Centre for Digital Content Technology, where his primary focus is on ML and Natural Language Processing (NLP). He is leading the Machine Learning research group ADAPT@MTU, lectures in the area and has been giving invited talks in Ireland and abroad on the applications of the ML and NLP. His research interests are primarily in the areas of Machine Translation, Sentiment Analysis, Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning. He joined CIT in 2018 from Dublin City University (DCU) where he was a member of the ADAPT Machine Translation (MT) team. There he was responsible for managing the ADAPT Social Media and User-Generated Content research group. Dr Afli is involved in several national, European (H2020) and International projects focussed respectively on the application of ML and NLP in Digital Health, 5G technology, AgriTech and security. He also has close working relationships and joint projects with a range of companies in the AI and NLP and its applications space both in Ireland and Europe.
Prof Joseph Walsh
Head of the School of STEM & Director of IMaR Research Centre and the AgriTech Centre of Excellence (ACE) | MTU
Professor Joseph Walsh is Head of the School of STEM and Director of the Intelligent Mechatronics and RFID (IMaR) Research Centre and the AgriTech Centre of Excellence (ACE) at Munster Technological University – Kerry Campus, Co Kerry, Ireland. His research experience encompasses the field of intelligent mechatronics and sensors, dairy technology, robotics and automation, autonomous systems, bio‐instrumentation and STEM education and is well published in these areas. Professor Walsh has over 20 years research and development experience in both industry and academia and has (co-)authored over 100 scientific articles and has received over €10 million in research funding over the past 5 years. He is a Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Funded Investigator and is actively involved in the SFI collaborative research centres, LERO the Irish Software Research and the CONFIRM Centre for Smart Manufacturing. He has also been active in many EU funded research projects and coordinated the FP7 Rotabot project on next generation milking parlours. Professor Walsh graduated with a Ph.D in Electronic Engineering from the University of Limerick and an M.Sc (Eng) in Bio‐engineering jointly from Trinity Collage Dublin (TCD), University College Dublin (UCD) and the University of Limerick (UL). He was elected Fellow of the Institute of Physics (FinstP) and is a corporate member of the Institution of Engineers of Ireland (MIEI) and has been awarded the titles of Chartered Engineer and Chartered Physicist. He is currently leading a number of industrial targeted projects with companies such as Dairymaster, McHales, Abbey Machinery, Bons Secours Hospital Group, Liebherr and Kostal.
Prof William J Brown
Professor & Research Fellow | School of Communication and the Arts | Regent University
William J. Brown is Professor and Research Fellow in the School of Communication and the Arts at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Environmental Science from Purdue University, a Masters’ Degree in Communication Management from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Communication, also from the University of Southern California. His academic research interests include international media, development, and the use of entertainment for social change. Dr. Brown has published extensively in academic journals and books in the field of communication during the past 30 years and has served as a Fulbright Senior Specialist in the Netherlands and Norway. Dr. Brown serves on the Board of Directors of Friends for Africa Development, a non-profit organization that has funded and completed numerous development and sustainability projects in East Africa during the past 20 years. He also is a partner of Brown, Fraser & Associates, an international media research and consulting company that has conducted more than 250 media studies in North America, Central and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Dr. Brown especially enjoys giving workshops and seminars to media professionals on how to use entertainment media as a catalyst for social change, drawing on more than 30 years of international research and teaching experience.
Cathriona Foley
Assistant Lecturer in the Biological Science Department | MTU
Cathriona Foley is an Assistant Lecture in the Biological Science Department at the Munster Technological University in Cork. Her research experience ranges from Immunology, Cancer, Bioinformatics to Agri-Bioscience and Technology. Her current research interests involve the use of computational immunology to uncover the role of the immune system in health, disease and the application of immunotherapy to treat disease. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from University College Cork and undertook a PhD in Immunology, funded by the Teagasc Walsh Fellowship Scheme, between Trinity College Dublin and Teagasc, Grange. Her research continued as a Research Officer on an EU FP7 funded project focused on Agri-Bioscience and Technology in Teagasc, Moorepark and as a Postdoctoral researcher focused on Cancer Immunology between Trinity College Dublin and Harvard Institute of Medicine.
Wen Chen
Chairman | ICSATA
Wen Chen is the Chairman of Ireland China Science and Technology Association. Wen came to Ireland in 2001, he has over 18 years’ experience working in telecom industry across retail, customer service, technical support, marketing, business development, account management and pubic relationship. Wen is devoted to promote the overall collaboration between Ireland/Europe and China/Asia.
Alessandro Fazio
Head of Competence Centre on Technology Transfer, European Commission, Joint Research Centre
Alessandro Fazio started his career in investment banking with Deutsche Bank and then Merrill Lynch. Between 2004 and 2011 Alessandro spent a number of years working in the early stage investment sector and was exposed to a wide variety of technologies and industry. Alessandro has keen interest in the technology transfer and in how to support the growth and expansion of innovation ecosystems using a holistic approach covering capacity building, financing and infrastructure investment. Alessandro joined the European Commission in 2011 and currently acts as head of the Joint Research Centre’s Competence Centre on Technology Transfer.
Hong Jiqing
Head of Science & Technology, Education and Culture Section | Chinese Embassy to Ireland
Mr. Jiqing Hong is the Head of Science & Technology, Education and Culture Section of the Chinese Embassy to Ireland. Before he went to Ireland, Mr. Hong served in the Science and Technology Department of Zhejiang Provincial Government (STDZJ) as the Deputy Director-General and also as the Director of Zhejiang Provincial Intellectual Property Bureau. From 2000 to 2003, he was the First Secretary of the Chinese Embassy to Denmark. Mr. Hong received BSc at Fudan University and MPA at the University of Liverpool.
Joseph Chan
Under Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury The Government of Hong Kong SAR
Mr Chan was appointed the Under Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury on 16 August 2017. Mr Chan has many years of senior executive experience in the banking industry. He was a Managing Director in the Global Markets Division of Credit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank, and was a Managing Director in Financial Markets of Standard Chartered Bank. Prior to joining the Government, Mr Chan held multiple roles in a number of public and professional bodies. Mr Chan was also a member of the Central & Western District Council.
Ding Haibin
Party Secretary | Ningbo Association of Science And Technology
Mr. Ding Haibin is the key leader of Ningbo Association of Science And Technology
Prof Alan Barrell
Chairman | Cambridge Learning Gateway Ltd
Alan has worked in Health Care and Medical Research, as Chairman and Chief Executive of large multi-national companies and smaller technology start-ups. He teaches in Universities in UK, Europe, North America and Asia with Professorships in European and Chinese Universities. He has raised and managed a Venture Capital Fund, is a Business Angel Investor and Trustee of charities including Chairmanship of the Cambridge Rare Diseases Network. He has been honoured with The Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion in the UK and with membership as Knight First Class of the Order of the White Rose of Finland for services to Education. His current work is focussed on the commercialisation of research, technology start-ups and the development of UK-China Trade and international relationships more generally. Alan promotes the vision of “A World Without Borders”. His career experience has prepared him well to be Chairman of Cambridge Learning Gateway.
Stanley Li
Founder and Chairman | DXY
Stanley Li founded DXY, a digital healthcare company, in 2000. The company operates an online bioscience website for professionals in medical, pharmaceutical, and bioscience sector.
Mr. Li was named one of the Top 10 “Golden Phoenix” Hangzhou Merchants in 2018. He also holds a wide range of positions in various organizations, including Vice Chairman of the Zhejiang Council for Health Services Promotion, and Deputy Commissioner of the Zhejiang Province Health Industry Association. He is also a Council Member of the General Association of Zhejiang Entrepreneurs as well as a Council Member of the Zhejiang Association of Private Healthcare.
Mr. Li was a Guest Professor at the Second Military Medical University from 2014-2017. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Clinical Medicine and a Master’s degree in Immuno-Oncology from Harbin Medical University.
Xing Sun
Head of AXA Next Business Innovation Centre, Asia
Xing is the Head of AXA Next Innovation Centre Asia, a hub dedicated to connect AXA to the Asia tech ecosystems and scale innovative business models through partnerships with InsurTech, HealthTech and FinTech players at global scale. Prior joining AXA Next Innovation Centre Asia, she has 13-year accumulative experience in insurance, investment and start-ups across Australia and UK. She helped insurers and banks with capital management, asset liability management and risk management in the early years of career and gravitated towards advising on building internal data analytic capability and defining digital customer journey. Xing co-created a UK-based digital health platform to match fertility patients with the desirable clinics and treatments.
Tim Crowe
Founder & CEO | WrxFlo
Tim is CEO and Co-founder of WrxFlo, an Industry 4.0 solutions company enabling businesses to achieve greater levels of efficiency through Lean Industry 4.0 by providing data analytics, software and IoT hardware solutions to global clients. Tim previously worked at Dell having managed the global engineering team and continuous improvement program. He also designed, built and managed many of Dell’s manufacturing sites in Europe and Asia. Tim built WrxFlo as an Industry 4.0 software application that he wish he had when he ran global factories.
Shay O’ Sullivan
Founder & CEO | EC Center
Shay is a Graduate of UCC and has been working in IT, Internet & E-Commerce for over 30 years. He began working with leading Silicon Valley companies such as Tandem computers, Compaq and HP before founding the first B2C DOT COM in Spain. Shay later launched the EC Center Business Model, where EC Centers give specialist SEO support to B2C and B2B customers using the EC Engine, a proprietary E-Commerce platform. EC Center China opened its first office 2019 and has expanded with 4 offices since
Gary Hill
Arrow
Gary Hill is Country Manager (Ireland) for Arrow Electronics, Global Components Division. He has been with Arrow for 21years. During this time, he has managed large global customers and supply chain engagements for Arrow across EMEA, Americas and Asia. Recently, Gary has taken on a new role as County Manager in Ireland and is focussed on developing Arrow’s enterprise engagement with a growing customer base. The vibrant IoT sector in Ireland is a key focus, which links well to implementing Arrow’s programs for supporting hi potential start-ups.
Gary is an Engineering Graduate of Dundalk Institute of Technology (DKIT) and holds a Master Of Business Administration Degree (MBA) from Ulster University. He lives near Dublin.
Danny Jennings
Arrow
Danny is currently responsible for the development of Arrow IOT Engineering Services projects for the UK, Ireland, Benelux, Central & Eastern Europe region. This includes projects and innovations from early and later stage start ups, as well as spin outs from enterprises and corporations. Tenure of over 2 years with Arrow, prior to this Danny set up and managed EMEA IOT Practices for Tech Data and Avnet Technology Solutions, further back developed and exited 2 key start ups and previously longer term director roles with American Express and BT.
Danny has brought to market a wide range of start ups using the full capability of Arrow IOT Engineering resources, all the way from ideation, design, connectivity, rapid prototyping, connectivity, cloud, manufacturing and supply chain.
Chris Murphy
Staff applications engineer with the European Centralized Applications Center
Chris Murphy is a staff applications engineer with the European Centralized Applications Center, based in Dublin, Ireland. He has worked for Analog Devices since 2012, providing design support on industrial applications such as motor control and condition-based monitoring. He holds a MEng in Electronics by research and a BEng in Computer Engineering.
Ryan Willams
Investor & Director | Connected Health and Connected Talent
Ryan Williams is an investor and Director in multiple businesses across the UK, Ireland and Central and Eastern Europe. His two main ventures Connected Health and Connected Talent deliver innovative and disruptive services in the traditional and ‘tired’ sectors of both homecare and recruitment. Working alongside a team of other local Directors and Investors Ryan has helped Connected Health to become the fastest growing Tech Enabled Homecare Company in the UK and Ireland growing from just 45 staff 7 years ago to a business now employing some 740 staff across the regions with a turnover in excess of £18 million. Ryan is a business mentor and Angel Investor investing in anywhere between 2 and 5 new businesses per year. Ryan established the North West’s first privately funded business incubator ‘The AMP’ and has recently secured a further site within the former Ebrington Barracks in the Waterside in Derry. Ryan is a Co-Founder of Your Derry and the LAB Fund platforms that celebrate and fund community positivity and the burgeoning entrepreneurial ecosystem in the City. Ryan is a failing Triathlete/Ironman and a keen Open Water Swimmer.
Feargal Duignan
CEO | PacSana
As an Entrepreneur Feargal’s goal is to bring together teams that can build and disrupt, enabling better outcomes for people, business, and society. Feargal has spent most of his career leading technology teams to bring complex solutions to life that deliver major returns for their customers and users. He has led sales teams for major technology vendors, consulting, and application development businesses. He has worked in the public sector, fintech and other heavily regulated markets such as pharma and healthcare.
Feargal’s early experience in Start-up’s is with a SaaS business based in California in 1996. He has worked as founder and as a Director of successful technology start-ups where he honed his skills in Sales, Marketing and Customer Acquisition. He has managed virtual teams delivering multi-million-dollar projects. He has managed Sales teams delivering over $100m in annual revenue. He has experience of customer advocacy and lobbying in the Public Sector in Europe and Ireland.
He is currently CEO of PacSana. PacSana provides critical insight and understanding of our users movement and health status. PacSana uses a combination of sensors and expert systems to monitor critical user data and predict possible health events. We share this data with users and their carers through our smartphone app or tablet.
Kelvin Keane
Startup and Partner Manager | Microsoft for Startups Western Europe
Kelvin Keane works as part of the Microsoft for Startups Western Europe team as a Startup and Partner Manager. As part of his role, Kelvin is driving both startup and partner engagement in the Microsoft for Startups program and Microsoft’s overall startup strategy in Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Kelvin is focussed on taking startups to the next level by engaging them in an ecosystem of Microsoft teams, Microsoft partners and Microsoft customers allowing them to scale rapidly.
Paul Tobin
Senior Sales Specialist in the EMEA IoT Team | Microsoft
Paul Tobin joined Microsoft in 2007, starting in the UK OEM business, before helping launch and scale Microsoft’s China Technology eco-system, more recently Paul held Senior Sales management roles focussed on Business Development and is currently a Senior Sales Specialist in the EMEA IoT Team. Paul is focussed on bringing best in class security to IoT edge devices with Azure Sphere, in order to drive positive business outcomes for customers and partners through Azure services.
Jordan Scott
Founder, CEO & Chief Editor | Cobble
Jordan Scott is a decision-making entrepreneur and content creator. She is the founder, CEO and Chief Editor of Cobble , an app designed to help people make better, faster decisions together. Jordan graduated from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study in 2015. She began her career as a news associate at CBS This Morning before launching her startup.
To date, she has raised $3 million in seed funding, with thousands of users who have swiped over 200k times on dates and experiences and is quickly expanding Cobble’s offerings and to new cities adapting to culture. Jordan has been profiled in Forbes , FOX 5 Good Day New York , and more.
In 2017, Jordan created idk tonight , a website and newsletter that provides NYC couples with curated date night plans to help couples answer the timeless question: “What do you want to do tonight?” After winning NYU x New York Jets No Huddle Challenge and Entrepreneur Magazine’s LIVE 5-minute pitch competition, Jordan launched Cobble , the first app that supports couples in “life after the swipe.”
Glenn Gow
CEO Coach | Expert in AI for Boards
Glenn is a former CEO and has been a board member of four companies. He is currently a board member and CEO coach. He recently served as an Operating Partner at Clear Ventures – a VC firm whose partners have produced 34 exits yielding $52 billion from 8 IPOs and 24 acquisitions. As a board observer for Clear Ventures portfolio companies, he was responsible for helping CEOs accelerate growth.
When he is not coaching CEOs, his specialty is working as a board member to help guide companies through technology disruptions, especially AI. He has advised numerous leading tech companies including Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and many more, on strategy.
Glenn is a sought-after speaker on the topic of technology-enabled growth (especially on AI) and has spoken at the National Association of Corporate Directors, MIT/Stanford Venture Lab, Harvard Business School, Northern California Venture Capital Association, etc.
Sarah Hayes
UX researcher/ designer | Nimbus Research Centre
Sarah Hayes is a UX researcher/ designer in the Nimbus Research Centre, MTU. This role entails empathising with and understanding user processes and pain points through research (interviews, workshops) and design (wireframing, paper prototyping) to ensure products and services are meeting user needs. She is also a final year PhD student in Computer Science. Her research is situated in the field of HCI (Human-Computer Interaction), and centres around exploring new ways of representing data physically.
Dr Fiona Edwards Murphy
Co-Apis Founder & CEO | ApisProtect
Dr Fiona Edwards Murphy, CEO and Co Founder of ApisProtect is among the most widely published authors on Internet of Things and honey bees. ApisProtect, uses sensor technology to reduce honey bee losses and improve the health of honey bees. ApisProtect is uniquely placed to disrupt a global, well-established industry with robust technology developed by Fiona Edwards Murphy, following her award-winning PhD research at University College Cork, Ireland. Dr Fiona Edwards Murphy was listed by Siliconrepublic.com as one of 100 rising science and technology stars to watch in 2020 and by ThinkBusiness.ie in its list of “24 disruptors and trailblazers changing Irish business”. Now monitoring the health of over twenty million honey bees in hives across Europe and North America, ApisProtect brings the power of advanced sensors and machine learning technology into the hive to deliver a 24/7 early warning system so beekeepers can give at-risk hives immediate attention and improve bee health.
Derek O’ Herlihy
–
Derek O’Herlihy is a Food Scientist, having graduated from CIT in 1991 and was awarded a Master of Science from the Open University in 2003.
Derek’s career spans more than 30 years’ experience in the food manufacturing, spirits and the beverage industry. He has skills in operations management, quality management and the management of development projects. Derek is a 20-year veteran of PepsiCo based in Cork, Ireland with an additional 10 years of providing training services to multi-national companies based in Ireland and the UK.
Anne Lawlor
–
Anne is an award-winning entrepreneur, currently the co-founder and CEO of Journey Protector. Prior to founding Journey Protector, Anne has worked extensively in the automotive and technology industries, in management and technical roles. Anne is passionate about the triple bottom line: people, planet, and profit. She believes that it is vital to strive to leave the earth in a better place than you entered it. To this end, she is a staunch proponent of women in STEM and has mentored university students in entrepreneurship. Anne has also been a judge for the AI Awards Ireland on numerous occasions.
Ross Comerford
Entrepreneur | Founder FastModel Sports | Co-Founder PredictView | Co-Founder Tihn | Investor | Student of Life
Ross has more than 15 years of entrepreneurship, market vision, sales, product, and business development executive leadership. He founded FastModel Sports in 2004 with only a thousand dollars to his name. Ross’s vision innovated the sport of basketball in the United States by fundamentally changing how coaches and players prepared for games. Today, his influence continues to spread within basketball around the globe. Ross is a tenacious salesman who has organically grown FastModel Sports throughout his tenure.
Christian O’ Leary
Senior Researcher | Nimbus Research Centre
Christian O’Leary is a senior researcher in Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the Nimbus Research Centre with interests in Machine Learning, Optimisation and Multi-Agent Systems. Working within Nimbus’ software team, he has worked on applications involving Computer Vision, Forecasting, Anomaly Detection, Chatbots, Sentiment Analysis and Schedule Optimisation. He has been a Principal Investigator managing some of Nimbus’ Cyber-Security projects and also has experience as a full stack developer working with a range of domains including smart microcontrollers, cloud deployments (AWS, GCP, Azure), desktop applications and web applications.
He has completed a MSc in Artificial Intelligence from CIT (2020) with a thesis on using Capsule Networks for Day-Ahead Electricity Price Forecasting. He also completed a BSc in Computer Science at UCC (2017) with a project on Multi-Agent Communication in a Search Situation. He has previously worked in Johnson Controls (formerly Tyco) as a Software Engineer.
His research interests include: AI, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Reinforcement Learning, Metaheuristics, Decision Analytics, Image Processing, Time Series Modelling, NLP, Multi-Agent Systems, Software Architecture and Design
Mike Parkes
CEO & Founder | Bios
I work on social innovation at the intersection of environment, sustainability, food and human behaviour. I integrates learning from various dimensions to provide the best organizational, contextual and personal outcomes. Working across the corporate, social services and environmental sectors, I lead, manage and consult to programmes of work seeking to impact global environmental and organisational challenges through serving people and planet.
Currently I am leading a start-up, Bios. We are working to reduce energy in urban buildings whilst at the same time growing clean conscious food. Our team is working across engineering, financial modelling and food cultivation to bring this initiative through from prototype to full implementation across multiple sites. We are currently fund raising. Our aim is to provide a solution for green house gas emission reduction and food production amidst the backdrop of the many challenges facing the urbanization of food.
James Garrett
General Council and Chief Compliance Officer | ApiJect Systems Corp
James Garrett is a strategic business leader who currently serves as the General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at ApiJect Systems, Corp., a medical technology company that is working to develop surge capacity for supplying vaccines and medicines in individual doses for injection. Prior to joining ApiJect, Mr. Garrett held various senior executive positions at NuVasive, Inc., a global medical device company. As senior vice president, government and regulations strategy, he was responsible for designing and executing non-market strategies to assess opportunities and threats that may impact business results. His prior role at NuVasive was leader of business and quality systems, responsible for global risk and integrity, regulatory affairs, quality affairs, information technology, and environmental health and safety. He also served as the organization’s chief risk and compliance officer, and associate general counsel. Mr. Garrett is a life-long learner and inventor with a passion for the outdoors and the ocean. He is a founding member of G3Marine, a family-owned business dedicated to developing innovative and sustainable products in the marine and water sports industries.
Jack Garrett
Managing Director | G3 Marine
Jack Garrett is a young entrepreneur and inventor who currently serves as the Managing Director of G3 Marine, a family-owned business dedicated to developing innovative and conservation minded products in the marine and water-sports industries. After graduating (with departmental honors) from the University of California at Los Angeles with a degree in Marine Biology, Jack worked on the Great Barrier Reef as a SCUBA Divemaster before returning home to work on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic as an Emergency Medical Technician. An avid traveler, Jack has traveled to nearly 30 countries and has studied in Italy, Ireland and Tahiti, where he performed research on fish and see urchin herbivory along with the impacts of dredging on coral reefs. Jack is a named inventor and utility patent holder, and is currently developing an app, along with a cloud based platform, to gamify fishing while also encouraging marine conservation. In doing so, Jack has developed skills in building business model canvases, creating pitch decks, designing workable UI interfaces, and learning how basic CAD functions work in order to develop and 3D print relevant hardware so that he can rapidly prototype ideas.
Louis Lehot
Partner at Foley & Lardner LLP
Louis Lehot is a partner and business lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP, based in the firm’s Silicon Valley, San Francisco and Los Angeles offices, where he is a member of the Private Equity & Venture Capital, M&A and Transactions Practices and the Technology, Health Care, and Energy Industry Teams. Louis focuses his practice on advising entrepreneurs and their management teams, investors and financial advisors at all stages of growth, from the garage to global. Louis especially enjoys being able to help his clients achieve hyper-growth, go public and to successfully obtain optimal liquidity events. Prior to joining Foley, Louis was the founder of a Silicon Valley boutique law firm called L2 Counsel.
Brian Cahill
Research Fellow | Nimbus Research Centre | MTU
Brian is a research fellow working with the Nimbus Technology Gateway since 2013.
His key focus areas within the Gateway are research & business development and project management.
Brian has been involved in the electronics and software development industries since the mid-90’s.
Brian has worked for companies such as Acer and Motorola. Since 2006, Brian has worked with Ireland’s 3rd level sector contributing to teaching and learning, community and industry engagement and ICT & IoT research.
For Beyond IoT 4.0 Brian will be showcasing current INTERREG NPA funded ChatPal research on the Research Stage and will be heavily involved in the “How to – Research, Innovation and Start-up funding” workshops.
Dr Conor Lynch
Senior Researcher | Nimbus Research Centre
Dr Conor Lynch is a senior research engineer at the Nimbus research centre with interests including system modelling, machine learning, data analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to optimally integrate and allocate renewable energy resources. He completed two level 8 honorary Bachelor of Engineering degrees in Structural Engineering and Sustainable Energy Technology at the Cork Institute of Technology in 2006 and 2011 respectively. In 2013, Conor was awarded the Irish Research Council for Science Engineering and Technology (IRCSET) Enterprise Partnership PhD Scholarship. Partnering with United Technologies Research Centre (UTRC), he concluded his PhD degree in model predictive control, focusing on Kalman Filtering optimisation techniques to optimally schedule the renewable energy contribution within a micro-grid in the Process, Energy and Transportation Department at Cork Institute of Technology in 2016. During his PhD, he completed a term with the Applied Control Technology Consortium (ACTC) under the guidance of Prof Mike Grimble through the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland. In that time, he studied System Modelling, identification and Parameter Estimation Methods for the Predictive Control for Linear and Nonlinear Systems.
He now leads the AI, Machine Learning and Data Analytics team within Nimbus with expertise in the aforementioned applied to forecasting, predictive maintenance, anomaly detection, sentiment analysis, natural language processing (NLP), pattern recognition and data classification.
Randy Waters
CTO | FastModel Technologies
Randy Waters brings over 30 years of entrepreneurship, technical innovation, software engineering, product, and operations executive leadership. Most recently, he served as the CTO for FastModel Technologies, a sports technology company based in Chicago, where he led the software development and deployment for all desktop and SaaS web and mobile products. Prior to FastModel, Randy served as COO and VP of Engineering for technology companies RampRate, Radware, and Comverse. As an entrepreneur, Randy founded AppTrigger, a telecommunications technology company that was acquired by MetaSwitch in 2010, where he raised over $32 million of VC funding for the company. Prior to AppTrigger, Randy served as GM of US Operations and VP of Marketing and Product Management for Versatel, based in Ottawa, where he helped the company raise over $5M for its Series B VC funding. Randy also served as Chief of Switching Technology at startup Taqua Systems (acquired by Tekelec), where he led the software development of its next generation Class 5 softswitch and was involved in raising capital. Randy directed development of large-scale switching and network systems at Alcatel, IEX (acquired by Tekelec), and at Bell Laboratories. Randy has Masters and Bachelors of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Oklahoma and holds two technology patents.
Grainne O’ Keefe
CEO | Ludgate
Kicking off her career in Goldman Sachs in NYC Grainne moved into the innovation space at Head of innovation at Spearline. She recently joined Ludgate in Skibbereen as CEO. Our goal is sustainable job creation in a rural location boosting the local economy. We are excited to be creating work opportunities for those who choose to live and work in West Cork.
Liam Cronin
CEO | RDI Hub
Founders and Senior Executive 30 years expertise creating and leading projects and enterprises to success, as CEO RDI Hub, Microsoft Ireland / Western Europe numerous roles and Associate Director Commercialisation ADAPT Research Centre. Mentored high potential Enterprise Ireland (EI) start-up’s.
Patrick Walsh
Founder and CEO | Dogpatch Labs
Patrick Walsh is the founder and CEO of Dogpatch Labs, one of Ireland’s leading startup hubs, which houses a mix of startups, international tech companies, social enterprises and corporate off-site innovation hubs. Dogpatch has been home to many of Ireland’s fastest-growing tech companies, including Intercom, which has gone on to raise over $100 million in venture financing. The hub is part of an exclusive global network of 40 international startup hubs backed by Google and also has partnerships with other corporates, including Unilever.
Mary Rodgers
CEO | Galway City Innovation District
A classic Irish-American, Mary was born in Limerick and emigrated to the US for 13 years before returning to Galway in 2007. Over the years she has cultivated a professional network and is now a recognised influencer in international business circles. Mary’s professional experience in the US and Ireland has provided her with the discipline of a corporate environment and the flexibility and vision of a start-up. She has a proven ability to see the bigger picture and the discipline to follow through on every detail. Mary has delivered a tangible and sustainable advantage for my clients and colleagues alike. She is passionate about driving sales, eager to connect people and always looking to pay it forward.
Register now
Register now to get access to the two main stage events!
Book your workshops now. Limited places available.