Prof. Barry O’Sullivan, School of Computer Science & IT and the Inisight Centre for Data Analytics, University College Cork
Robert Troy TD, Minister of State for Trade Promotion, Digital and Company Regulation
Robert Troy TD is the Minister of State with responsibility for Trade Promotion, Digital, & Company Regulation at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. He was appointed to this role in July 2020.
He is the Fianna Fáil TD for Longford/Westmeath, elected to Dáil Éireann on his first attempt in the February 2011 general election and has been re-elected in both the 2016 & 2020 general elections.
Before entering the Dáil he served for seven years as an elected member of Westmeath County Council.
He has been a Frontbench party Spokesperson since his election to Dáil Éireann. His various briefs have covered Arts & Heritage, Children & Youth Affairs, Transport, Tourism & Sport and most recently Business, Enterprise & Innovation. He has served on the Oireachtas Committee on Business, Enterprise and Innovation. He was also a member of the Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport. For the past three years he has also been a member of the Council of Europe and during this time has spoken in this forum on a range of social issues.
Prof. Martin Curley, Director, Digital Transformation and Open Innovation, Health Service Executive (HSE)
Martin is helping enable the digital transformation of Ireland’s health service. He was formerly Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the HSE. Prior to joining the HSE, Martin was Senior Vice President and group head for Global Digital Practice at Mastercard. Previously, Martin was vice president at Intel Corporation and Director/GM of Intel Labs Europe, Intel’s network of more than 50 research labs, which he helped grow across the European region. He also served as a senior principal engineer at Intel Labs Europe leading Intel’s research and innovation engagement with the European Commission and the broader European Union research ecosystem. Prior to this, Martin was Global Director of IT Innovation and Director of IT Strategy and Technology at Intel. Earlier in his Intel career, he held a number of senior positions for Intel in the United States and Europe. He also worked in research and management positions at GE in Ireland and Philips in the Netherlands.
Martin has a bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering and a master’s degree in business studies, both from University College Dublin, Ireland. He received his Ph.D. in information systems from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Curley is the author of eight books on technology management for value, innovation and entrepreneurship. He is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, fellow of the Institution of Engineers of Ireland, the British Computer Society and the Irish Computer Society. Martin is co-founder of the Innovation Value Institute at Maynooth University, a unique industry-academia collaboration driving research and development of advanced IT and Digital maturity frameworks. He was previously a visiting scholar at MIT Sloan Centre for Information Systems Research and a visiting research fellow at the CERN Open Lab in Geneva. He was the inaugural winner of the Engineers Ireland Innovation engineer of the year in 2006 and was jointly awarded European Chief Technology Officer of the year for 2015-2016.
Dr. Ruth Freeman, Director of Science for Society, Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)
Dr Abigail Ruth Freeman was appointed Director of Strategy and Communications in 2013, and following department restructure in 2018, became Director of Science for Society. Prior to her current appointment Ruth has held a series of positions at Science Foundation Ireland, including Director of Innovation, Communications & Education and Director of Programmes, Enterprise and International Affairs, with responsibility for overseeing all Science Foundation Ireland research funding programmes and management of funded awards, as well as the Foundation’s activities in conjunction with industry and international partners. Ruth joined Science Foundation Ireland as a Scientific Programme Manager in November 2006. Prior to joining the Foundation, Ruth worked as a researcher at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). She holds PhD and Bachelor degrees in Genetics from TCD, where she was awarded a Trinity scholarship, the Eli Lilly Chemistry Prize and the Roberts prize for Biology. Ruth’s PhD research, on population genetics in hybrid zones, was funded by a prestigious studentship from the Wellcome Trust and was carried out at TCD and ILRI, Nairobi.
Hubert Etienne, Philosopher, Professor & Lecturer specialised in AI Ethics, Facebook AI and Ecole Normale Supérieure
Hubert Etienne is a French philosopher conducting research in AI ethics and computational social sciences at Facebook AI Research and Ecole Normale Supérieure. He is an associate professor in AI ethics at Aivancity, a lecturer in data economics at HEC Paris, a lecturer in AI ethics at Sciences Po, at ESCP Europe and at Ecole Polytechnique.
Prof. Dr. Steve Flinter, Vice President Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Mastercard Labs R&D
Steve is an IT professional with more than 25 years’ experience in industry, government and academia. Steve is currently responsible for leading Mastercard Labs’ R&D initiatives in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Quantum Computing. In this role, Steve’s team is responsible for supporting Mastercard product groups as they look to introduce AI & ML technologies to their products and services. Steve’s team is also responsible for driving Mastercard Lab’s research efforts into the application of Quantum Computing to Mastercard and the banking and payments industry.
Steve has been with Mastercard for seven years. Steve’s initial role with Mastercard was with the global Mastercard Start Path team – Mastercard’s start-up engagement and fintech program. In this role, he supported fintech start-up companies, connecting them to Mastercard and its global network of customers, accelerating their internal innovation activities.
Prior to joining Mastercard, Steve spent eight years with Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), the Irish Government agency charged with investing in academic research projects. At SFI he managed an investment portfolio of approximately €120m in software, computer science and artificial intelligence projects and research centres. Prior to that, Steve spent ten years in various senior software development roles in a variety of industry verticals.
Steve holds a BSc in Computer Applications from Dublin City University and a PhD in Computer Science, specializing in Artificial Intelligence from Trinity College Dublin.
Emma Strömfelt, Chief Digital Officer, AniCura Group
Emma Strömfelt is the Chief Digital Officer for the AniCura group, a pan-European veterinary company with more than 350 animal hospitals across 13 different countries. She also serves on the board of start-ups within Fintech and Legaltech. Before joining AniCura, Emma was active as a start-up entrepreneur and CEO within digitally native companies within travel and telecom, and also served as the Head of Innovation for a major Nordic bank.
Emma holds a MSc in International Business administration and has lived in eight different countries.
Graham Baitson, Global Lead of Innovation, McKesson
Graham is a pragmatic and creative leader with 13+ years’ experience in developing innovative, dynamic, and scalable commercial solutions across a range of technologies and verticals. As Global Lead of Innovation for the Fortune 8 company McKesson, Graham is a future-thinker whose focus is on the strategic use of emerging technologies within healthcare. Possessing in-depth experience of driving change, problem solving, and product creation, he has a passion for working with diverse teams to formulate effective future strategies that drive new growth opportunities, build and expand innovation capabilities, and enable a high performing culture of successful innovation practices.
Fintan O’Malley, Director Research, Development & Innovation, Fidelity Investments
Fintan oversees all R&D incentive programs at an Ireland and European level for Fidelity Ireland. His role encompasses the development of new services and products funded by , or initiated through R&D including the contractual management and protection of IP associated with same. With research collaboration forming a key objective of Fidelity Ireland, part of Fintan’s role is to build stronger relationships with research institutions and develop a framework for engagement to encourage new business opportunities across Fidelity’s many business groups globally.
Fintan joined Fidelity Investments in 2007 as a Software Development Manager within its Market Data division and moved into the RDI program role in 2015. Fidelity have a number of academic collaboration projects under way with more in the pipeline, all helping to accelerate the drive towards digital transformation and the application of AI across the enterprise.
Prior to Fidelity, Fintan held a number of technology management positions with Nortel Networks. Fintan holds a B.Sc. in Information Technology and an M.Sc. in Internet Engineering, both from DCU”.
Zachary Hanif, Senior Director of Machine Learning, Capital One
Zachary Hanif is a Senior Director at Capital One, focusing on solving problems using machine learning, big data, and innovative technologies within challenging real-time domains. Currently focused on leading teams to develop transformative platforms, data, and analytic capabilities for Capital One’s Card business, Zachary is passionate about modern analytics and the infrastructure and platforms that support and democratize them. Prior to Capital One, he worked to develop analytics and capabilities to secure and protect enterprises and consumers, focusing on Cyber Security, Fraud and Anti-Money Laundering.
Dr Maria Helen Murphy , Assistant Professor in Law , Maynooth University Department of Law
Dr Maria Helen Murphy is an Assistant Professor in Law at Maynooth University. Her research focuses on the intersections between technology, the law, and human rights. In addition to publishing in a variety of national and international journals, Maria has authored the book, Surveillance and the Law: Language, Power and Privacy (2019) and co-authored the book, Information and Communications Technology Law in Ireland (2017). Maria is a Team Member of the Center for AI and Digital Policy and a member of the Executive Board of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.
Simon Rost, Marketing Executive, Digital Health & Artificial Intelligence Portfolio, GE Healthcare
Simon Philip is leading the Marketing function for GE Healthcare’s Digital Health and AI Portfolio in Europe, Middle East and Africa. He established himself as an expert in Marketing, Strategy and Sales working for GE Healthcare, for the boutique management consulting firm Daemon Quest, now part of Deloitte, and for the German Savings Bank.
Working for GE Healthcare he held various leadership positions in Marketing and Sales. He successfully focused on building and commercializing solutions bringing together the entire GE Healthcare portfolio including medical devices, healthcare IT, consulting and services.
Before his time in GE Healthcare, Simon Philip worked and consulted for Blue Chip companies, SMEs and Private Equity Funds, providing them with reliable and objective advice.
His education includes an MBA from IE Business School – NYU Leonard Stern School of Business, a Master degree in Marketing & Communication from ESCP Europe and a Bachelor degree in International Business and Management from the University of Applied Science Osnabrueck.
He lives with his family in Cologne in Germany.
Clare Conran, (Interim) Head of Design & Innovation, ADAPT Centre
In addition to her role as Senior Project Manager, Clare is also is also acting as Head of Design & Innovation in ADAPT As Senior Project Manager Clare is responsible for driving industry partnered projects though the full SDLC using an agile development framework. On a day-to-day basis Clare and her team of project managers are responsible for shepherding spokes industry partnered projects from definition, requirements gathering, implementation to delivery while also providing regular oversight reports to partners and internal stakeholders. Clare has over 15 years of ICT experience with diverse skills from both project management and software development roles affording her a holistic understanding of the software development process. Since JUNE 2019 Clare has also been acting as Head of Design & Innovation in ADAPT. This additional role entails leading the Design and Innovation Lab (DLAB), a diverse team of research engineers, post-doctoral researchers, project managers, design and architecture experts to plan and execute targeted projects with ADAPT’s industry partners. The DLAB bridges the gap between research lab prototypes and the need for industrial proof-of-concept systems. We develop fit-for-purpose solutions to allow industrial evaluation and use-case validation of advanced technologies from core Platform Research. The DLAB have established a consistently successful track record of delivery exemplified by industry partners returning for multiple rounds of research projects. At any one time there are multiple streams of concurrent applied research projects underway within the DLAB varying in duration, scale and complexity.
Kevin Quinlan, Lead Data Scientist, ESB Networks
Kevin Quinlan joined ESB, Ireland’s largest utility, as a data scientist in 2015. Like so many others, once he finished Michael Lewis’ Moneyball he was hooked – convinced that a world that could bring reason to the chaos of sport needed to be explored.
Kevin graduated from Business Information Systems in UCC and pursued a Higher Diploma and Post Graduate Diploma in Data Analytics from NCI.
He joined ESB’s nascent data analytics department, seeing the team grow from imploring the business for opportunities to becoming a pillar of the ESB Brighter Future strategy.
Kevin has delivered diverse AI/ML and analytics solutions to support multiple businesses from energy trading to HR operations to the rollout of 2.4m smart meters across Ireland, the latter awarded Best Use of RPA & Robotics at 2019 AI Ireland Awards. ESB can trace its roots back to the foundation of the Irish state, becoming an exemplar of traditional Irish organisation embracing analytics with 4 projects shortlisted for Analytics Institute awards in 2020.
Kevin hopes to be part of this growth and the merging of two key innovation trends: AI/ML and Greentech, and the prospect of that union making a massive contribution at home and abroad.
Dr. Begüm Genç, Post-Doctoral Researcher, Confirm Centre, CSIT, UCC and Cork City Ambassador, Women in AI
Dr. Begüm Genç is a Post-doctoral researcher working as part of CONFIRM Centre hosted by the School of Computer Science and Information Technology at University College Cork. She also serves as the Cork Ambassador as well as the Events Lead for Women In AI. She completed her BS in Computer Engineering in Izmir University of Economics, ranking first in the department. She is also holding an MSc in Computer Engineering from Bilkent University. The vast amount of her research experience thus far is on automated reasoning, discrete optimization, constraint satisfaction problems, and AI ethics. She has an enthusiasm for contributing to shaping the future of AI whilst holding concerns on its trustworthiness. She is an active member of many non-profit communities, speaker at various events addressing AI and gender gap, board member for innovation fund reviews, and reviewer to top conferences in her field.
Enrico Santus, Senior Data Scientist, Bayer Pharmaceuticals
Enrico Santus (www.esantus.com) is a senior data scientist at Bayer. After his PhD at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Enrico joined the group of Regina Barzilay at CSAIL, MIT. His academic career includes affiliations with the King’s College of London, the University of Pisa, the University of Stuttgart, the Nara Institute of Technology and Harvard. His work touches topics such as NLP in Oncology, Cardiology and Palliative Care. Enrico has also worked on Epidemiology, Fake News Detection, Sentiment Analysis and Lexical Semantics. As of today, Enrico has published over 50 papers, with over 700 citations. He collaborated to the creation of The Prayer (artist: Diemut Strebe), a mouth-shaped robot that pronounces original prayers, generated with Artificial Intelligence, exposed at the Centre Pompidou, in Paris. He was also involved in the creation of Safe Paths, the MIT tracing app. CEO of RenaiXance and advisor of several startups, Enrico was also invited to speak at the White House about how to utilize natural language processing for optimizing document management, and he is first author of a fact sheet about Artificial Intelligence for the American Congress: https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/technology-factsheet-artificial-intelligence
Mark Jordan, Chief Technologist, Skillnet Ireland
Mark Jordan, Chief Technologist, Skillnet IrelandMark is the Chief Technologist at Skillnet Ireland, and has held a number of senior leadership roles in the Financial Services and FinTech industry. Having worked in the UK, US, Switzerland & Ireland, he is an experienced and innovative leader possessing expertise in technology deployment, operational management, system transformation and regulatory compliance.
Throughout his career, Mark has managed and delivered many global strategic transformation programs around system redesign, operational workflow improvements, outsourcing, offshoring and process re-engineering. He also specialises in identifying and developing partnerships and successful commercial engagements with governments, industry bodies and subject matter expert companies.
Mark has an ICMA from the Henley Business School at the University of Reading. He also holds diploma designations from the Securities Institute, Chartered Insurance Institute and The Boston Institute of Finance.
At Skillnet Ireland, Mark is leading the technology skills strategy and agenda. He is engaged with the European Commission, higher education, government departments and industry sectors in Ireland, and is focussed on readying business for the impact technology will have on the future world of work.
Ryan Gallagher, Innovation Program Leader, IBM Innovation Exchange
Ryan is the Innovation Program leader for The IBM Innovation Exchange, an applied innovation team with a commercial focus operating out of Dublin, Ireland. Ryan has a technical background, having joined IBM in 2012 as a Software Engineer and later specialising in the Performance, Reliability, and Scalability of Cloud Solutions in his role as Cloud Performance Architect and Team Leader. In 2019 Ryan transitioned into Technical Program Management to pursue his passion for delivering impactful innovative AI solutions through meaningful research and development. He leads a team of highly skills and experienced Data Scientists, Network Engineers, and Software Developers, and manages a diverse program of over 10 projects across several domains including, but not limited to, Cloud/IoT (Internet of Things), 5G, Security, Health, and Logistic Supply Chains. All his projects are technically focused in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, 5G Technologies, Cloud & Edge Computing, Natural Language Processing, Analytics as a Service, and Federated Learning. In his current role Ryan is responsible for innovation, strategy development, talent development and client relationship management across an ecosystem of over 250 partners.
Ryan holds a B.Sc. degree in Computing & Information Technology, a Postgraduate Diploma in
Management of Technology, and a M.Sc. degree in Technology and Innovation Management. Ryan’s interest in AI and Business Strategy led him to research the role of AI in Support of Strategy Development in Global Technology Organisations. He later translated his research findings into a conference paper and presented his work to the Irish Academy of Management.
Michael Power is Global MES Manager at Glanbia Plc
Michael has more than 20 years’ experience across both Automation and IT. Prior to Joining Glanbia, Michael worked in industries from broadcasting to hydroelectric power generation, to optical lens manufacture. In Glanbia, he has held the position of Group Networks and Communications manager changing focus in more recent years to heading up the Global MES function within Glanbia’s Manufacturing Centre of Excellence. Michael has qualifications in Electrical Engineering from the Dublin Institute of technology and a BSc in Computer Applications from Dublin City University.
Dr. Gavin Shorten, IBM Ireland Lab Innovation Program Leader
Gavin has worked in IBM since 2013. Before joining IBM he worked as a Release Engineer providing cloud and telecommunication services in an Irish start-up. He has a BEng in Electronic Engineering and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering and Analytics from Trinity College Dublin. Gavin is also currently pursuing an MBA with Edinburgh Business School.
Alessandra Sala, Director of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, Shutterstock
A Research and Scientific Leader in Artificial Intelligence, Alessandra is the Director of AI and Data Science at Shutterstock. Alessandra has over 10 years’ experience in research and innovation gained whilst working in academic and commercial environments. Alessandra is passionate about advanced analytics, machine learning, and computational models with the focus of transferring innovation from research to products.
As Ambassador of Women in AI Ireland (a non-profit do-tank working towards gender-inclusive AI that benefits global society) Alessandra has fostered the largest AI community of women and minorities in Ireland providing means for growing knowledge and expertise thanks to the strong support of the government, academia and private enterprises.
In her previous appointment Alessandra was Head of Analytics Research at Nokia Bell Labs where she was leading research teams in several locations and developing a successful strategy for the Data Analytics division while driving changes across different activities like her contributions to the Nokia AI Ethics Advisory Board.