Our speakers

Prof. Dr. Max Welling is a research chair in Machine Learning at the University of Amsterdam and a VP Technologies at Qualcomm. He has a secondary appointment as a senior fellow at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). Max Welling has served as associate editor in chief of IEEE TPAMI from 2011-2015. He serves on the board of the NIPS foundation since 2015 and has been program chair and general chair of NIPS in 2013 and 2014 respectively. He was also program chair of AISTATS in 2009 and ECCV in 2016 and general chair of MIDL 2018. He is recipient of the ECCV Koenderink Prize in 2010. Welling is co-founder and board member of the Innovation Center for AI (ICAI) and the European Lab for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS). He directs the Amsterdam Machine Learning Lab (AMLAB), and co-directs the Qualcomm-UvA deep learning lab (QUVA) and the Bosch-UvA Deep Learning lab (DELTA). He has over 300 scientific publications in machine learning, computer vision, statistics and physics and an h-index of 68.

Mildred Z. Solomon, EdD is the President of The Hastings Center, the nation’s founding bioethics research institute, focused on examining the social and ethical implications of health and health care, science, and emerging biomedical technologies. She is also Professor (part-time) of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, where she runs a Fellowship in Bioethics and has trained over 200 scientists, physicians and other kinds of professionals from across the United States and around the world. Dr. Solomon’s own research covers a broad spectrum of topics — including, for example, the ethics of end-of-life care, organ transplantation, medical professionalism, and responsible conduct of research. She recently completed a two-year term on the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Technology, Values and Policy. She has served on committees of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, on the US Secretary of Health and Human Services’ Advisory Committee on Organ Transplantation, and is currently a member of the Global Health Advisory Committee of the Open Society Foundations’ Public Health and Human Rights Programs. Dr. Solomon has over 70 academic publications in peer-reviewed journals and is also frequently cited in the mainstream media, including the Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, New York Review of Books, The Daily Beast, Forbes, Science News, The Scientist and other outlets. A frequent public speaker, she has presented at Aspen Health, the New York Academy of Sciences, academic medical centers, and numerous public venues. Before leading The Hastings Center, she was Senior Director for Implementation Science at the Association of American Medical Colleges and before that, Vice President of Education Development Center, an independent research institute in Boston, MA. Dr. Solomon holds a B.A from Smith College and a doctorate in educational research methods from Harvard University.

Ann Aerts has been Head of the Novartis Foundation since January 2013. During this time, she has been leading an organization committed to catalyzing innovations that transform the health of low-income populations. Since 2019, the Novartis Foundation sharpened its focus to concentrate on how digital technology, data science and artificial intelligence can reimagine health and care around the world.

Ann holds a Degree in Medicine and a Masters in Public Health from the University of Leuven, Belgium, as well as a Degree in Tropical Medicine from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium.

Passionate about improving health outcomes through data science and digital technology, Ann applies her relentless commitment to overcoming global health inequities to pioneer solutions that can advance health and care globally. Ann chairs the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development Working Group on Digital Health, is a member of the Governing Council of the UN Technology Bank for Least Developed Countries and the International Advisory Board of the Commonwealth Centre for Digital Health. In 2017-2018 Ann served as a member of the US National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine Committee on Improving the Quality of Health Care Globally and currently sits on the US National Academies of Medicine Commission on Healthy Longevity. Ann has authored numerous publications on digital health, infectious and noncommunicable diseases, and multisector partnerships that address global health challenges.

Dr. Peter Lee is Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Healthcare. He leads an organization that works on technologies for better and more efficient healthcare, with a special focus on artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Dr. Lee has extensive experience in managing the process of going from basic research to commercial impact. Past illustrative examples include the deep neural networks for simultaneous language translation in Skype, next-generation IoT technologies, and innovative silicon and post-silicon computer architectures for Microsoft’s cloud. He also has a history of advancing more “out of the box” technical efforts, such as experimental under-sea datacenters, augmented-reality experiences for HoloLens and VR devices, digital storage in DNA, and social chatbots such as XiaoIce and Tay. Previously, as an Office Director at DARPA, he led efforts that created operational capabilities in advanced machine learning, crowdsourcing, and big-data analytics, such as the DARPA Network Challenge and Nexus 7. He was formerly the Head of Carnegie Mellon University’s computer science department. As a thought leader, he has spoken and written widely on technology trends and policies, spanning the fields of computing technology, healthcare, and innovation ecosystem. He is a member of the Boards of Directors of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence and the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine. He served on President’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity. He has led studies for the National Academies on the impact of federal research investments on economic growth and testified before the US House Science and Technology Committee and the US Senate Commerce Committee.

Dr. Shahram Ebadollahi is the Global Head of Data Science and AI at Novartis. In this capacity, he is responsible for defining and shaping the strategy for applications of data science across the pharmaceutical pipeline, from early discovery to manufacturing. He also oversees globally the execution of the strategy and operations of the data science and AI efforts and teams across Novartis.

Before joining Novartis in September of 2018, Dr. Ebadollahi spent 14 years with IBM and had a series of senior executive roles. He was the technical founder of IBM Watson Health, IBM’s first ever business focused on applications of technology and AI to the domain of healthcare and life sciences. In that role, he oversaw innovations, development, and served as the Chief Science Officer of IBM in the area of healthcare. Prior to starting IBM Watson Health, he had started the health informatics research and computational health, with the aim of innovating and applying data-driven and knowledge-driven advanced analytics to the broad domain of healthcare and life sciences. As the Vice President of Health Informatics Research, he oversaw a global team of scientists and innovators in this domain.
One of the latest innovations he started and oversaw before his departure from IBM was applications of blockchain technology to healthcare, which resulted in collaborations with the FDA, CDC and more recently the formation of the Health Utility Network between IBM and a number of health insurance companies and banks.

Dr. Ebadollahi has a PhD and MBA from Columbia University and is a member of a number of scientific and business advisory boards at the intersection of technology innovation, data science and novel business models with focus in the domain of healthcare and life sciences. He has published and overseen graduate level research in the area of analytics for healthcare and has conducted research with funding from national institutions such as NIH. He is a frequent speaker and panelist at events at the intersection of technology innovation and healthcare.

Gary Marcus, scientist, bestselling author, and entrepreneur, was CEO and Founder of the machine-learning startup Geometric Intelligence, recently acquired by Uber, and is known for his provocative and bold claims in artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and cognitive science. Trained by Steven Pinker, he received his PhD at MIT at age 23. His professional research, published in leading journals such as Science, Nature, Cognition, and Artificial Intelligence, has focused on the foundations of cognition in humans, animals and machines, spanning fields from developmental psychology to neuroscience to genetics to artificial intelligence. A special interest has been on the challenge of endowing machines with common sense.

He is also well-known for his writing for the general public, including frequent essays and op-eds for The New Yorker and The New York Times. His books include The Algebraic Mind, The Birth of the Mind, Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind, The New York Times Bestseller, Guitar Zero and The Future of the Brain: Essays By The World’s Leading Neuroscientists.

In a 2012 essay for The New Yorker, he was perhaps the first person to publicly criticize deep learning, drawing on arguments he developed in his 2001 technical book The Algebraic Mind. More recently, in a 2018 arXiv article, Deep Learning: A Critical Appraisal, he asked whether deep learning might be “approaching a wall.” The challenges he laid out there were covered everywhere from The
New York Times to Wired to The Financial Times and Wall Street Journal.

In another provocative 2012 essay, Moral Machines, Marcus was the first to adapt “trolley problems” to driverless cars, anticipating much recent research on the ethics of AI. His next book, REBOOT: Getting to AI We Can Trust, to be published by Pantheon in Fall 2019, co-authored with Ernie Davis, calls for a fundamental rethinking of current approaches to artificial intelligence.

Tim Whittlestone is a surgeon and Medical Director in the NHS and currently the Chief Medical Officer of the NHS Nightingale Hospital, Bristol, UK. He has led a collaboration with University of West of England and North Bristol NHS Trust to exploit both AI and Robotic opportunities in Acute Medical Hospitals. He is passionate about data driven decision making in healthcare policy and hospital operational planning.

Elissa was appointed Executive Director of the CIFAR Pan-Canadian AI Strategy in January 2018 and Associate VP Research in March 2019.  Elissa completed her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of British Columbia in 2006.  Following a post-doc at Lund University, in Sweden, she decided to pursue a career in research strategy, policy and leadership.  From 2008 – 2015 she held senior leadership positions at University of Toronto’s Office of the Vice-President, Research and Innovation, advancing major institutional strategic research priorities, including establishing and leading the SOSCIP research consortium.  At CIFAR, she is working with Canada’s three national AI Institutes in Edmonton (Amii), Montreal (Mila), and Toronto (Vector Institute) and researchers across the country to advance Canada’s leadership in AI research and Innovation.  She is a member of the federal government’s AI Advisory Council and the OECD Network of Experts on AI.

Srinivasan (Srini) Venkatramanan is a research scientist at the Network Systems Science and Advanced Computing division. Prior to joining University of Virginia in 2018, Venkatramanan did his postdoctoral research at the Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory, Biocomplexity Institute of Virginia Tech (2015-2017), where he also worked as a Computational Health Data Scientist (2017-2018). He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science in 2014 for his dissertation titled “Influence Dynamics on Social Networks”. Venkatramanan’s research areas include stochastic modeling, diffusion dynamics, optimal control and network science. At the Biocomplexity Institute, he is responsible for developing, analyzing and optimizing computational models for complex systems arising in the domains of epidemiology and food security.

Christine Von Raesfeld is a leader in bringing a critically needed patient perspective to cutting edge medical innovations. Committed to providing patients with chronic and rare diseases with the support they need, Christine works with patient advocacy organizations, industry representatives, and individual patients and their loved ones. Living with many rare and chronic diseases, she believes that in order to foster understanding and empowerment, patients must be treated as people first. As a patient involved in Stanford’s Humanwide program, she speaks on the benefits and advantages of precision medicine, with a special interest in pharmacogenomics.

Christine’s drive to make lives better for patients has been nationally recognized. In 2019, she spoke on stage at the Startup Health Festival as an invited guest of Sanguine Biosciences. In 2018, Christine served on the Team of Patient Advisors for PatientsLikeMe. She was also recognized as a Wego Health 2018 Top 10 Healthcare Collaborators Patient Leader as well as named one of Silicon Valley Business Journal’s 100 Women of Influence for 2019.

Christine’s conference speaking engagements, consulting efforts, and ability to share her personal experiences have allowed her to bring a much needed change to the healthcare industry while bridging the gap between biopharmaceutical and patient stakeholders.

Dr. Lungren is the Associate Director of the Stanford Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Imaging and an Assistant Professor Clinician Scientist at Stanford University Medical Center. His leading research interest is in the field of machine learning and deep learning in medical imaging and clinical informatics. He holds an MPH which focuses on his primary interest in biostatistical modeling in epidemiology and health policy in the national healthcare landscape and has extensive applied experience in both statistical as well as machine learning applications for solving important medical imaging challenges.

Elena Bonfiglioli leads the Health and Life Sciences Industry business for Microsoft in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and is part of the World Wide Commercial Business Team. She is responsible for driving strategy and business development, partnerships, and positioning for the region across public health, social services, providers, and pharma. Elena is an advocate for the transformation of healthcare systems with Cloud and AI.

Chris Wigley is the CEO of Genomics England, which exists to push insights from cutting edge genomics data analytics into routine medical care. As the national steward of 25 petabytes of human genome data from 100,000 volunteers, and a unique partnership with the NHS, Genomics England’s goal is to improve patient outcomes while lowering the cost of healthcare provision. Chris was previously COO at QuantumBlack, a bespoke Machine Learning and AI technology company, and a Partner at McKinsey working on technology strategy topics. He is a trustee of the New Entrepreneurs Foundation, and on the Advisory Board of deep-tech VC Entrepreneur First. He previously worked for the UK Foreign Office, establishing and leading analytical work at the Counter Terrorism Policy Department to counter chemical, biological and nuclear terror threats. Chris lives in London with his wife Tara and their three children.

Fernanda is an Ophthalmologist working at two private practices where she is running several studies integrating healthcare and clinical practice to AI. She is also working as a Medical Consultant for Deep Cube’s Glaucoma Algorithm. Fernanda is part of the Surgical Retina Fellowship at HUPE where she also supervises Ophthalmology Medical Residents and is recently running news studies about eye diagnostics with artificial intelligence. 

Chris Holmes is Programme Director for Health and Medical Sciences at The Alan Turing Institute. His appointment is made jointly with Health Data Research UK.

He is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Oxford with a joint appointment between the Department of Statistics and the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine through the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics and the Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Innovation and Discovery. 

Before joining Oxford, Chris was based at Imperial College, London, and also worked in industry conducting research in scientific computing. He holds a Programme Leader’s award in Statistical Genomics from the Medical Research Council UK. In 2016, WIRED UK magazine named him one of the ‘Innovators of the year in AI’.

Chris has a broad interest in the theory, methods and applications of statistics and statistical modelling. He is particularly interested in pattern recognition and nonlinear, nonparametric statistical machine learning methods applied to the genomic sciences and genetic epidemiology.

Dr. Moore leads Microsoft’s Health efforts globally and is responsible for product strategy, product development, and research including AI and machine learning technology for healthcare and life sciences. He is also Microsoft’s senior executive leading dedicated research and development collaborations with Microsoft’s strategic alliance partners in this domain with the goal of enabling a more open, interoperable, and AI-infused foundation for healthcare delivery that aspires to enable access to healthcare for all globally.

Greg is an engineer (MIT PhD), practicing neuroradiologist, clinical informaticist, neuroscientist, and innovator experienced in assembling and inspiring highly talented teams to positively transform healthcare for the benefit of humankind. Prior to joining Microsoft, Greg was Vice President Google Inc, Google Cloud Healthcare & Life Sciences and founder of the healthcare vertical for Google Cloud. Prior to his leadership appointment at Google, he was Chief Emerging Technology and Informatics Officer at Geisinger Health System where he also was Director of the Institute for Advanced Application and served as Interim Chair of System Radiology. His prior appointments include Los Alamos National Laboratory (University of California), Wayne State University School of Medicine, Children’s Hospital of Michigan and Penn State University Hershey Medical Center where he was a tenured Professor in the College of Medicine. Greg currently serves on the board Hillrom Inc, and is an Adjunct Clinical Professor of Radiology at Stanford University School of Medicine. 

Moore is board certified in Diagnostic Radiology, Neuroradiology and Clinical Informatics and holds degrees from North Park College-Chicago (BS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (SM-Nuclear Engineering and PhD-Radiological Sciences), and Wayne State University School of Medicine (MD-Doctor of Medicine) and completed residency in Diagnostic Radiology and a fellowship in Neuroradiology, both at Penn State University Hershey Medical Center.

Dr. Darko Matovski is the CEO of causaLens. The company is leading Causal AI research, a way for machines to understand cause & effect, and serves some of the most sophisticated organisations. Darko has also worked for cutting edge hedge funds and research institutions. For example, the National Physical Laboratory in London (where Alan Turing worked) and Man Group in London. Darko has a PhD in Machine Learning and an MBA.

Chris is a data scientist and developer at TPP and holds a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Manchester. Chris leads TPP’s work in the use of EHR data to support analytics, research, and surveillance. He has previously been recognised by the Health Service Journal (HSJ) as one of the top 50 innovators in UK healthcare.

In recent years, Chris led the TPP team which contributed to the development of the national Electronic Frailty Index (eFI). He is involved in a number of national research programmes, including in cancer survivorship and antimicrobial resistance. He works closely with the UK Biobank team, helping to combine EHR data with genomic information to support their vital research.

Chris also has a strong interest in clinical terminologies and open standards for interoperability. He has spoken on many digital health topics at large conferences, including at both SNOMED CT Expos and at Health Datapalooza in the US. He is an active researcher and has co-authored a number of academic papers in prominent journals, such as Science.

As part of TPP’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Chris has been a key member of the OpenSAFELY collaborative and has helped build a large, secure platform for national Covid-19 research. He is also leading TPP’s support of the PRINCIPLE trial at the University of Oxford, aiming to discover whether selected treatments can improve Covid-19 outcomes.

Dr. Michael Blaivas is a board-certified emergency medicine physician, a recognized pioneer in emergency medicine, and has been involved with point-of-care ultrasound since 1993. Also receiving his MBA from Georgia Tech University, Dr. Blaivas brings a unique innovation and technology-led perspective to his role at EchoNous. He is currently an Affiliate Professor of Medicine, University of South Carolina School of Medicine, having published nearly 200 peer-reviewed articles on point-of-care ultrasound and is the editor of five medical textbooks. Dr. Blaivas is also a founding member of both WINFOCUS (The World Interactive Network Focused On Critical UltraSound) and SUSME (Society of Ultrasound in Medical Education). 

Milo is a Business Development Manager at Infermedica, which is an AI-driven health company that improves the process of medical diagnosis. Infermedica’s goal is to increase healthcare accessibility, minimize the rate of misdiagnosis and streamline costs of providing quality care. Milo is a young professional passionate about technology, digital health, clinical decision support, and startups. In his work, he is helping Infermedica to deliver tailored AI medical solutions to partners all over the world.

Andrew Schroeder leads humanitarian research and analysis at Direct Relief, a medical response NGO based in California, focused on connecting the world’s most vulnerable communities with access to essential medicines and medical supplies. He is also the co-founder of WeRobotics, an NGO building partnerships in nearly 30 countries to support localized robotics and AI applications. During the COVID-19 pandemic he co-founded the Covid-19 Mobility Data Network along with Harvard School of Public Health to improve the use of large-scale data on human mobility for infectious disease epidemiology and public health response.

Mariam Shokralla is a digital health strategist. She is a pharmacist by training and completed her double masters in the UK, France and the Netherlands. Her current expertise is in digital health governance and tech entrepreneurship. She joined WHO/ digital health department in HQ to leverage ethically grounded and equitable digital innovation. She is passionate about Health systems strengthening using mHealth solutions, Healthcare information strategy, digital health literacy, ethical and data governance issues. Previously, she has been working to support the digital health ecosystem in Egypt and MENA region. Prior, she has been working in medical device and software regulations in Egypt and the USA.

Dr. Alejandro Ortega Ancel’s PhD research involved the study of superhydrophobic surfaces and their application to aerial aquatic robots. Alejandro is also an aerospace engineer with previous experience in the industry, as well as in the start-up scene. At causaLens, he is working in the commercial team as a Data Scientist, expanding the client base and exciting new candidates to join. Alejandro holds a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Southampton, UK; and a PhD degree in aeronautics from Imperial College London, UK.

Sujeeth Bharadwaj, PhD leads research and development of machine learning algorithms targeted towards specialized hardware within the Cloud AI Systems & Technologies group at Microsoft. He is especially passionate about healthcare, and strongly believes that accelerated model development can enhance the standard of care. His prior work has been published in journals such as Nature Medicine; featured in New York Times, TechCrunch, Google I/O; and presented at conferences such as RSNA, NeurIPS, ICASSP, ACL. Previously at Google Brain, he developed state-of-the-art models across various applications, including cancer prediction from CT scans, multi-modal user authentication 10x more secure than fingerprint, and AI experiences in Google Home. Sujeeth holds a PhD in machine learning from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign with a Distinguished Fellowship.

Guy is the CEO and Founder of Tape Ark, the world’s leading specialist in tape-to-cloud migration. Guy’s enjoyed a 20-year career founding companies in the tape and data management space as well as a successful career in the international oil and gas industry. Prior to entering the oil and gas data management industry Guy was a combat medic and spent five years working at one of Australia’s premier cardiac units in Sydney with renowned transplant surgeons and clinicians.

Guy has built a reputation across a wide range of industries for overcoming the issues and complexities of liberating legacy data assets to the cloud, advising on the commercial considerations one should review, commentating on the risk of doing nothing and moving too slow, and how new discoveries can be found from legacy data using AI & ML technologies that add significant value to the utility of data. 

Guy has a degree in Physics, an MBA in Technology Management and maintains memberships with the ASEG, PESA & the AICD and regularly is a guest speaker and writer for various global industry conferences and publications. He resides in Perth Australia, has been married for 30 years and has five kids.

Alessandro Monterosso is the co-founder and CEO of PatchAi Srl. He is the ideator of PatchAi®, a cutting-edge digital platform for conversational and empathetic patient data collection that went live in the market within a year of its inception.

Alessandro started his career as a Clinical Research Nurse at the University of Padua and specialized in clinical research at University of Trieste. Later, he graduated in Masters of International Healthcare, Economics and Policy at SDA Bocconi School of Management. 

With PatchAi – the first virtual assistant for patients enrolled in clinical research –  his focus is to improve people’s quality of life and support pharmaceutical companies offer safer, affordable and personalized drugs.

Alessandro considers innovation in the Pharma& MDs Industries to be the intersection of science, technology, business process and – in a broader sense – a state-of-mind, a way of thinking, an attitude and a commitment. Recently he was listed among the Italian Forbes’ under 30 leaders of the future in healthcare (2020 edition).

Former Managing Director Europe Qualcomm Life. Laurent has 25 years of experience in the development, launch and operation of end-to-end services for enterprises among which 10 years in digital health, RPM and connected therapies for the pharma, medtech and large integrators, service providers and HCPs in Europe and in the US.

Peter Speyer is Head of Products, data42 at Novartis, responsible for implementing data and analytic products in a transformational program that leverages data from across R&D for machine learning and AI. Before data42, Peter led teams to develop platforms to collect, manage and analyze data as Head of Digital, Medical and Real World Evidence Solutions. Before Novartis, Peter was Chief Data & Technology Officer at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in Seattle. He was responsible for data and IT for high-profile analytic projects like the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study, including obtaining and managing data from 190 countries, running high performance computing infrastructure, and creating IHME’s global public data catalog Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx) and innovative interactive data visualizations.

Prior to joining IHME, Peter worked in strategy and product management in the media industry, including Corbis and Bertelsmann. He holds an MBA from Temple University in Philadelphia, USA, and a Master in Business and Engineering from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany.

Rani has built and invested in ventures for 25 years. He is an active deep tech investor (with close to 30 investments) and is co-founder and President of the Stanford Angels of the UK.

Recently, Rani helped found and manage a Berlin-based VC fund. He previously co-founded or co-built four startups in Silicon Valley, London and elsewhere, in addition to an emerging markets VC fund. He also launched products globally and directed innovation acceleration at Microsoft, launched cutting-edge tech platforms at Capital One, and led venture formation at ideas42, a leading behavioural sciences entity.

Rani holds an MBA from Stanford and degrees in three engineering fields.

Dr. Petros Farah joined Vickers in 2019 and is based in London. His technical expertise is in AI and nanotechnology.

Before joining Vickers, Petros worked in AI and strategy consulting in London. While at Monitor Deloitte he helped some of the UK’s largest retailers use AI to inform their strategic decisions and developed customised AI models for them. Prior to that he worked at a boutique London strategy firm helping multi-national Oil & Gas companies take complex decisions by leveraging decision and data science.

Petros received his PhD from the University of Cambridge in the field of NanoPhotonics (Physics), investigating the ultrafast properties of plasmonics and metamaterials. In parallel to his academic work, he was involved in tech transfer projects at the university through the i-teams program.

Managing, selling and delivering in the forefront of digital research, development and sales since 2001. Experience covers Chairman, Account Director, CFO, SVP and Corporate Affairs Director positions. Co-founder in three companies. Serving customer organizations which are the leading industrial companies in the world.

Toby Cosgrove, MD, is former CEO and president of Cleveland Clinic. Serving from 2004 through 2017, he led the $8 billion organization to new heights of achievement and efficiency, seeing it ranked the #2 hospital in America (U.S. News). He currently serves as Executive Advisor, working with Cleveland Clinic leadership on strategies for national and international growth.

Dr. Cosgrove graduated from Williams College and the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He trained at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brook General Hospital in London. In 1967, he was a surgeon in the U.S. Air Force, earning a Bronze Star.

Dr. Cosgrove joined Cleveland Clinic in 1975, and chaired the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular surgery from 1989 to 2004. He performed over 22,000 operations and earned an international reputation in valve repair He holds 30 patents for medical innovations. As CEO from 2004 to 2017, he reorganized services, improved outcomes and patient experience, and strengthened the organization’s finances.

He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. In 2016, he was a Fortune Businessperson of the Year (No. 14). Three successive presidents of the United States have consulted him on healthcare issues.

Dr. Peter Lee is Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Healthcare. He leads an organization that works on technologies for better and more efficient healthcare, with a special focus on artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Dr. Lee has extensive experience in managing the process of going from basic research to commercial impact. Past illustrative examples include the deep neural networks for simultaneous language translation in Skype, next-generation IoT technologies, and innovative silicon and post-silicon computer architectures for Microsoft’s cloud. He also has a history of advancing more “out of the box” technical efforts, such as experimental under-sea datacenters, augmented-reality experiences for HoloLens and VR devices, digital storage in DNA, and social chatbots such as XiaoIce and Tay. Previously, as an Office Director at DARPA, he led efforts that created operational capabilities in advanced machine learning, crowdsourcing, and big-data analytics, such as the DARPA Network Challenge and Nexus 7. He was formerly the Head of Carnegie Mellon University’s computer science department. As a thought leader, he has spoken and written widely on technology trends and policies, spanning the fields of computing technology, healthcare, and innovation ecosystem. He is a member of the Boards of Directors of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence and the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine. He served on President’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity. He has led studies for the National Academies on the impact of federal research investments on economic growth and testified before the US House Science and Technology Committee and the US Senate Commerce Committee.

Bernardo Mariano Junior is the Director of the Digital Health Department and the Chief Information Officer of WHO. He is responsible for setting and maintaining the vision and direction of WHO’s strategy of health in the digital age. As CIO, he ensures that the digital transformation of WHO enhances the organization’s collective performance and efficiency to deliver the ‘Health for all’ global development agenda.

Prior to joining WHO, Mr. Mariano held senior managerial positions in the International Organization for Migration as Senior Regional Adviser for Sub-Saharan Africa in the office of the Director-General, Chief Information Officer/Director, Information & Communications Technology, and Regional Director for East and Southern Africa.

Gary Marcus, scientist, bestselling author, and entrepreneur, was CEO and Founder of the machine-learning startup Geometric Intelligence, recently acquired by Uber, and is known for his provocative and bold claims in artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and cognitive science. Trained by Steven Pinker, he received his PhD at MIT at age 23. His professional research, published in leading journals such as Science, Nature, Cognition, and Artificial Intelligence, has focused on the foundations of cognition in humans, animals and machines, spanning fields from developmental psychology to neuroscience to genetics to artificial intelligence. A special interest has been on the challenge of endowing machines with common sense.

He is also well-known for his writing for the general public, including frequent essays and op-eds for The New Yorker and The New York Times. His books include The Algebraic Mind, The Birth of the Mind, Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind, The New York Times Bestseller, Guitar Zero and The Future of the Brain: Essays By The World’s Leading Neuroscientists.

In a 2012 essay for The New Yorker, he was perhaps the first person to publicly criticize deep learning, drawing on arguments he developed in his 2001 technical book The Algebraic Mind. More recently, in a 2018 arXiv article, Deep Learning: A Critical Appraisal, he asked whether deep learning might be “approaching a wall.” The challenges he laid out there were covered everywhere from The
New York Times to Wired to The Financial Times and Wall Street Journal.

In another provocative 2012 essay, Moral Machines, Marcus was the first to adapt “trolley problems” to driverless cars, anticipating much recent research on the ethics of AI. His next book, REBOOT: Getting to AI We Can Trust, to be published by Pantheon in Fall 2019, co-authored with Ernie Davis, calls for a fundamental rethinking of current approaches to artificial intelligence.

Trained as a nutritionist, Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Porto University; Master’s in Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Formerly: worked at national level on developing and implementing health promotion policies with the Ministry of Health in Portugal and the Institute of Preventive Medicine of the University of Lisbon; worked with the World Health Organization Headquarters on global guidelines and policy development for noncommunicable diseases.

Currently, Head of System Initiative on Shaping the Future of Health and Healthcare and Member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum. The System Initiative on Shaping the Future of Health and Healthcare provides a dynamic platform for leading businesses, governments, civil society organizations and world-class experts to shape the global health agenda; co-design and accelerate the implementation of collaborative approaches that transform the health ecosystem – across prevention, diagnosis, treatment, cure and maintenance of health; and ultimately enables populations to live healthier lives and have access to the care they need when they need it.

Bertrand Bodson has been Chief Digital Officer of Novartis since January 1, 2018. He is a member of the Executive Committee of Novartis.

From 2013 to 2017, Mr. Bodson served as Chief Digital and Marketing Officer of Sainsbury’s Argos, where he led Argos’ successful transformation from a traditional catalogue business to the third-largest online retailer in the United Kingdom.

Prior to that, he was Executive Vice President of the global digital business at EMI Music from 2010 to 2013. He co-founded Bragster.com, a social networking and content sharing website, and has also held senior roles at Amazon.

Mr. Bodson earned a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School in the United States, where he was a Baker Scholar, and a master’s degree in commercial engineering from the Solvay Business School (Belgium)/McGill University (Canada). He is a member of the Board of Directors of Electrocomponents PLC.

Kimberly Powell is vice president of healthcare at NVIDIA, where she leads the company’s efforts to build healthcare computing platforms that address grand challenges like early detection, diagnoses and personalized treatment.

Partnering with healthcare researchers, startups and industry leaders, her mission is to accelerate the adoption of advanced computing technologies like GPU computing and artificial intelligence.

Powell joined NVIDIA in 2008 as the global business development manager for healthcare. She also served as senior director of AI business development. Prior to joining NVIDIA, she was a product manager for diagnostic imaging at Planar Systems and a hardware engineer at DOME Imaging Systems doing FPGA design.

Powell has a Bachelor of Science from Northeastern University in electrical engineering with a concentration in computer engineering.

Bakul Patel is Associate Director for Digital Health, at the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  Mr. Patel leads regulatory policy and scientific efforts at the Center in areas related to emerging and converging areas of medical devices, wireless and information technology. This includes responsibilities for mobile health, health information technology, cyber security, medical device interoperability, and medical device software. 
 

Mr. Patel is the FDA liaison between the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC). Since its inception in 2013, Bakul chairs the International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF) “software as a medical device” working group, a global harmonization effort.

Before joining FDA, Mr. Patel held key leadership positions working in the telecommunications industry, semiconductor capital equipment industry, wireless industry and information technology industry. His experience includes Lean Six Sigma, creating long and short-term strategy, influencing organizational change, modernizing government systems, and delivering high technology products and services in fastpaced, technology-intensive organizations.
 

Mr. Patel earned an MS in Electronic Systems Engineering from the University of Regina, Canada, and an MBA in International Business from The Johns Hopkins University.

He was named top-20 Portuguese world changer and he is a leading expert in the real-world application of Advanced Analytics & Machine Learning to Hospital problems, transforming sparse patient’s BigData into actionable clinical insights. His team built one of the most outstanding Hospital Big Data platforms currently working in EU hospitals. This platform behaves like a “Data Robot” that captures and analyses 560 billion patient data points\minute, coming from 30 different systems, to predict and signal at-risk patients for clinical deterioration up to 7 days in advance. This work has received some of the highest in the industry, amongst which the 1st prize in the HIMSS Europe Digital Healthcare 2016 Award (Barcelona), the 1st prize in the “2014 Microsoft Worldwide Health Innovation Award (MSHUG)” (Orlando, USA) and the 2014 “Big Data & Analytics Solution of the Year” prize by IT Europa (London, UK).

Head of IBM Watson Health for Europe, Middle East & Africa. As the Managing Director, Mark holds full responsibility for the Sales & Go to Market strategy & team, for Watson Health software products and solutions to their customers. This includes the full portfolio of Life Sciences, Oncology, Genomics, Imaging, Government, Value-Based Care & Population Health Management solutions.

Mark has a clinical background and has worked in the NHS as well as many senior leadership positions in global, European and start-up healthcare companies throughout his career, with over 25 years of experience in the healthcare segment, Mark brings a wealth of experience and perspective and he is passionate about health and social care for everyone.

Ann Aerts has been Head of the Novartis Foundation since January 2013, an organization committed to having a transformational impact on the health of low-income populations. Ann holds a Degree in Medicine and a Masters in Public Health from the University of Leuven, Belgium, and a Degree in Tropical Medicine from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium. In 2014, Ann was nominated by PharmaVOICE as one of the 100 Most Inspiring People in the life science industry. Ann has authored numerous publications and is a member of the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, the Governing Council of the UN Technology Bank for Least Developed Countries and the International Advisory Board of the Commonwealth Centre for Digital Health.

Weihong Huang received the B.Eng. degree in automation and M.Eng. degree in pattern recognition and smart control from Southeast University China in 1995 and 1998 respectively and the Ph.D. degree in computer science from Nanjing University China in 2001. From 2001 to 2002, he was a Post-doctoral Research Fellow with the CNRS University Lyon 1 France. From 2002 to 2005, he was a lecturer with the Department of Computer Science, University of Hull, United Kingdom. From 2005 to 2014, he was a senior lecturer with School of Computer and Information Systems, Kingston University London, United Kingdom. Since 2016, he was appointed as a professor and the Depute Director of the Mobile Health Ministry of Education – China Mobile Joint Laboratory, Xiangya Hospital Central South University, China. His research interests include mobile health, artificial intelligence in healthcare, cognitive computing for healthcare, semantic multimedia computing and knowledge graph applications. Prof. Huang is a committee member of China Hospital Information Management Association, standing committee member of the Medical and Health Big Data Evaluation and Assurance board of the Chinese Health Information and Big Data Association, chairman of specialized committee of information management of Hunan Health Management Association.

Roland Rott is the global General Manager of Women´s Health Ultrasound at GE Healthcare, the market leader of Ultrasound for Obstetrics/Gynecology worldwide. The Voluson product line for Women´s Health has been pioneering Ultrasound and AI technology and is touching more than 250 million lives globally every year.

Roland leads the global product organization, consisting of clinical and product management, research & development, installed base customer service, quality management and is responsible for innovation and manufacturing sites in Austria, Germany and Korea.

Before joining GE in 2011, Roland was Managing Director EMEA and Executive board member of Exact Software – a midcap public company headquartered in the Netherlands – leading 4 R&D teams and subsidiaries in 20 countries spanning over Europe/Middle/East, Africa & Asia. In his early career, Roland had an entrepreneurial start, founded two software companies in Austria and successfully sold those to strategic investors.

Roland has a software engineering background, studied International business administration and took executive education courses on strategy and Innovation in Stanford University and the London Business school. He is based in Vienna, Austria and lives there with his wife, two teenage kids and a toddler.

Ramya Palacholla is a Physician and one of the Lead Scientists at Partners Healthcare Pivot Labs. She is also a faculty member of the Harvard Medical School. Currently, Dr. Palacholla works with a multidisciplinary team that develops and executes digital health strategy and research projects in collaboration with top pharmaceutical, research and medical technology companies. She is passionate about her research focused on validation of innovative health technology solutions for improving patient lives. Dr. Palacholla has published her work in several health care journals and presented her research on innovative technologies on international platforms such as the World Economic Forum (also presented at the G8 Summit), served as a reviewer for health technology journals, and spoken at national conferences as a thought leader in the field of health care research and innovation. Her cutting edge research in this area is recognized for its high caliber, and she continues to advance this field to new frontiers. Dr. Palacholla’s idea on an “Innovative Tumor Response Forecasting Model in Breast Cancer Patients” was awarded the first position in the Harvard Ideation Challenge among hundreds of submissions received from across the country. Furthermore, the idea was also selected as one of the top six finalists for the Boston Scientific and Google Connected Patient Challenge, 2018, which is unquestionably a renowned platform that showcases healthcare innovations across the globe. She was also a co-author of one of the first books to be written on proven treatment methods for the management of Military Sexual Trauma and PTSD in war veterans. Following these successes, Dr. Palacholla’s research is well-known in the healthcare innovation space and has given her opportunities to present her research work at national healthcare conferences and summits.

Dr. Oliver Morgan is the Director of the Health Emergency Information and Risk Assessment Department in the WHO Health Emergencies Program. From 2007 through 2016, Dr. Morgan worked for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during which time he held critical leadership positions in the Ebola response between November 2014 and February 2016 (CDC Atlanta Ebola Response Incident Manger and CDC Country Director in Sierra Leone).From March 2010 to October 2014, Dr. Morgan was the CDC Country Director in the Dominican Republic. Dr. Morgan was an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer at CDC from 2007 to 2009 with the International Emerging Infections Program, during which time he conducted projects in Thailand, Bangladesh, Kenya, Uganda, and Guatemala. Before joining CDC, Dr. Morgan worked for the UK Health Protection Agency, leading epidemiological investigations of outbreaks (enteric, vaccine preventable, hospital acquired, zoonotic, respiratory, and sexually acquired infections), chemical and radiation exposure incidents, terrorist bombings in London, natural disasters, and humanitarian civil conflicts. Dr. Morgan has also worked as a consultant to WHO/PAHO in several countries. Dr. Morgan’s academic achievements include a doctorate in epidemiology from Imperial College London and extensive publication in peer reviewed journals and reference books.

Dr Natalie Banner is the Lead for Understanding Patient Data (UPD), an initiative hosted at the Wellcome Trust to support better conversations about how patient data is used for care and research. UPD works with patients, charities and health professionals to champion responsible uses of data, feeding into policy development, creating accessible resources and horizon scanning for emerging issues that may affect public confidence in the use of health data. This includes exploring emerging data-driven technologies and how to create the right ethical and governance frameworks for these in healthcare and research. Natalie formerly led Wellcome’s policy work on GDPR and data protection, seeking to ensure UK legislation and regulation creates a supportive, trustworthy environment for health research using patient and health-related data. She was recently named in BioBeat’s “50 Movers and Shakers in BioBusiness” for 2018.

Dr. Dagher is an M.D./Ph.D. who studied Electrical Engineering and Medicine. He is a Neurologist and Professor at McGill University in Montreal (clinician and scientist). His research aims to understand brain reward systems and their role in neurological and psychiatric illness.

He uses brain imaging, notably functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), to map brain activity in response to drugs or natural rewards like food and music. He is particularly interested in figuring out what in the brain makes individuals vulnerable to mental illness. He splits his professional life between clinical neurology and research and teaching. He sees people with Parkinson’s Disease in his clinic once a week. Dr. Dagher teaches medical students and Ph.D. students in neuroscience.

Stephanie is an NHS Clinical Entrepreneur and Senior Research Fellow at UCL and UCLH where she was awarded a Doctorate in Clinical Research in Oncology. Research Interests include Integrated Data Models for Cancer Monitoring, Survivorship and Longevity. A Clinician-Scientist with over 10 years experience, Stephanie has served on council on a National Cancer Society (BGCS) and is the Healthcare Ambassador of the global organisation Women in AI (WAI). She is a Scientific Advisor to WILD.AI and the Havas Lynx Faculty and on the Advisory Committee of the Social Impact Community, the Conduit, London.

Elena Bonfiglioli, Managing Director Health and Life Sciences, Microsoft EMEA
Elena Bonfiglioli leads the Health and Life Sciences Industry business for Microsoft in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and is part of the World Wide Commercial Business Team. She is responsible for driving strategy and business development, partnerships, and positioning for the region across public health, social services, providers, and pharma. Elena is an advocate for the transformation of healthcare systems with Cloud and AI.

Salvatore Scalzo has been working for more than seven years in the European Commission. Since November 2013, he is Policy and Legal Officer in the Unit dealing with legislation on medical devices (currently unit D4 of the Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs). After having dealt with the negotiations of the proposed new Regulations on medical devices which were adopted in spring 2017, he is currently working on the legal interpretation and implementation of those Regulations and coordinating, among other tasks, the activities of the European Commission Expert Groups on medical device identification and traceability and medical software. 

Dr Indra Joshi is the Director of AI at NHSX and runs the NHS AI Lab – a £250m programme to accelerate the safe adoption of ethical and effective AI-driven technologies to the front line of health and care. 

Indra has a unique portfolio with experience stretching across digital health, data and AI strategy and delivery; whilst remaining true to her professional training as an emergency medic.   

She is a Founding Member of One HealthTech – a network which campaigns for the need and importance of better inclusion of all backgrounds, skillsets and disciplines in health technology. Alongside she is an associate editor for BMJ Leader, a member of the WHO digital health expert group, a consultant on digital health, and most importantly a mum to two wonderful little munchkins.

Steve Guise has been Global Head of Informatics for Roche Pharmaceuticals since October 2016. During these nearly two years, Steve has built and led a new informatics organization focused on business partnering and driving technology innovation to address business challenges — to ultimately benefit patients.

Steve joined Roche in 2008 as Basel Site Head, Pharma Research Informatics. In 2010, he became Global Head of Scientific Information Systems and Principal Architect, Pharma Research and Early Development (pRED) Informatics. Steve was Head of Pharma Informatics for Asia Pacific based in Shanghai and Singapore for three years. He then took on the role of Head of Diagnostics Information Solutions Software Center of Excellence before being appointed Global Head of Informatics.

Steve is passionate about finding new ways to more effectively bring medical innovation to our patients, particularly where the application of technology can bring about a step change.

Prior to joining Roche, Steve held various IT and management positions at Astra Zeneca in the UK. He has a Master’s degree in Chemistry from The University of St Andrews (UK).

Dr. Alessandro Curioni is an IBM Fellow, Vice President of IBM Europe and director of the IBM Research Lab in Zurich, Switzerland. He was also recently appointed as the Watson IoT Research Relationship Executive.

Dr. Curioni is an internationally recognized leader in the area of high-performance computing and computational science, where his innovative thinking and seminal contributions have helped solve some of the most complex scientific and technological problems in healthcare, aerospace, consumer goods and electronics. He was a member of the winning team recognized with the prestigious Gordon Bell Prize in 2013 and 2015.

Dr. Curioni received his undergraduate degree in Theoretical Chemistry and his PhD from Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy. He started at IBM Research – Zurich as a PhD student in 1993 before officially joining as a research staff member in 1998. His most recent position was Head of the Cognitive Computing and Computational Sciences department.