As vice president of technology, Michael Phillippi leads engineering teams in their work to create innovative, secure, and stable fleet management services for Lytx customers. Under his leadership, Lytx has enhanced its technology with updated, accurate machine vision, continuous connectivity, an API and mobile-enabled architecture, and more. Michael brings more than 30 years of experience to his role at Lytx. Before joining the team, he served in software engineering roles across industries and geographies at organizations including Mitchell International, Cambridge Technology Partners, Sabre Holdings, and HP Enterprise Services. He supports the engineering community through organizations including Django Girls, Agile San Diego, Evo/Nexus, Girls Who Code, and The League of Amazing Programmers. Michael also provides board leadership for UC San Diego’s Corporate Affiliate Program and National University. Michael holds a B.S. in quantitative economics and decision sciences from University of California, San Diego.

Founder and CEO of Metawave, Maha is a senior leader with more than 20 years’ experience in both public and entrepreneurial start-up companies in the RF, wireless, optics and networking industries. She has a demonstrated track record of: developing an idea from concept to product, delivering industry leading technologies, building teams and companies. Strong technology background combined with leadership, business and marketing skills. Previously, Maha served as co-founder and CTO of Rayspan, where she commercialized the first Metamaterial antennas and RF front-end subsystems for the cell-phone and WLAN industries. She has also pioneered the first broadcast HDTV system over satellite, mm- wave/Free-Space Optical systems for last mile connectivity, and led various DARPA projects in wireless MIMO and Optical devices.

Paul Banks is founder and CEO of TetraVue, working to commercialize advanced 3D imaging technologies for industrial applications. He has a deep belief that high-resolution 3D video and imagery will play an important role to break down the barrier between the physical world and the digital world. Paul Banks received a Ph. D. in Applied Physics from the University of California, Davis, and has worked for twenty years in developing practical applications of laser and optical technology. This includes work at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in ultrafast lasers and their applications to industrial materials processing. Following LLNL, he was co-founder of a new Photonics Division at General Atomics and led the laser R&D group in efforts from ultrafast to directed energy and airborne laser systems.

Nambi Seshadri is currently a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego. He is also a Distinguished Professor at Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, India. He also serves as a board member and advisor to several startups. Previously Seshadri served as Chief Technology Officer at Broadcom for Mobile and Wireless Business. He was responsible for many of the wireless initiatives including 2G, 3G, and 4G cellular communications, mobile multimedia, mobile wireless connectivity and GPS. Prior to joining Broadcom Corporation, Seshadri was a Member of the Technical Staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories and Head of Communications Research at AT&T Shannon Labs. He is a recipient of the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal in 2018. He was elected fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) in 2000, and was elected to the membership of the National Academy of Engineering (USA) in 2012 and as a foreign member of the Indian National Academy of Engineering in 2013. He holds approximately 200 patents. Seshadri received a B.E. degree in electronics and communications from Regional Engineering College (now NITT), in Tiruchirappalli, India, in 1982, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in 1984 and 1986, respectively.

Jeremiah leads automotive engineering at Qualcomm including teams focused on chipset solutions for telematics, connectivity, infotainment, and ADAS/autonomy; C-V2X field trials; autonomy systems R&D; and concept car platforms showcasing next-generation technologies. Prior to Qualcomm, Jeremiah was a Fellow at Texas Instruments leading SoC and systems architecture for DaVinci media processors optimized for applications such as automotive infotainment, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), security cameras, security DVRs, telepresence, and set-top boxes. Jeremiah holds a bachelor’s and a master’s in electrical engineering from Missouri University of Science & Technology. He holds more than 20 patents in the field of media processing architectures.

Muhammad is currently the Chief Financial Officer at The Honest Company. Prior to The Honest Company, Muhammad was a Vice President in the Technology, Media & Telecom Investment Banking Division at Goldman, Sachs & Co. where he covered a broad array of mid cap to large cap clients in the consumer technology and media sectors, including companies such as Facebook, Disney, Apple, eBay, PayPal, Netflix, DreamWorks and MGM. Previously, Muhammad founded his own company and also worked at Accenture and Deutsche Bank. He holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management and a BSc in Economics cum laude from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Peter Marx holds the position of Adjunct Professor at USC and responsible for driving the development of new technologies. He previously held the position of Vice President at Mattel handling digital and online products and services. He was the CTO for Vivendi-Universal Games (Blizzard, Sierra Online, Universal) and was the Vice President, Emerging Technologies for Universal Studios where he focused on digital delivery of filmed content. He was the Senior Research Engineer for Electronic Arts where he developed technology and produced games for worldwide audiences. Marx has been an engineer for 3M, Apple, and the UCLA Dept of Medicine, all in the areas of computer video, computer vision, 3D/4D graphics, morphometric analysis, tomography, and computational photography. He has been an author on reports for the President’s Council of Advisers in Science and Technology (PCAST) and a number of papers in biomedical research.

Dr. Atul is a Pulmonary Intensivist with expertise in the field of Sleep Medicine and Critical Care and devoting much of his time on research. He has been named to numerous local and national “Best Doctors” lists based on his clinical performance and reputation. In addition, he has been top ranked globally on Expert Scape and other publication rankings for the field of obstructive sleep apnea as well as artificial respiration and ranked in the top 20 for ARDS. He has been active clinically attending ICUs at all major Harvard teaching hospitals, and since moving to UC San Diego provide patient care, both inpatient and outpatient at Thornton, Jacobs and Hillcrest ICUs. Previously he has served as the President of the American Thoracic Society, the world’s leading respiratory organization. Atul did his MD from University of Alberta and fellowship at Harvard Medical School

Jason is President and CEO of Cleantech San Diego, a nonprofit member organization that positions the greater San Diego region as a global leader in the cleantech and smart cities economy. Cleantech San Diego’s membership includes more than 100 local businesses, universities, governments, and nonprofits committed to advancing sustainable solutions for the benefit of the economy and the environment. As President and CEO, Jason manages the overall organization and leads several initiatives critical to the mission of the organization, including Smart Cities San Diego, advocacy efforts, and economic development programs. Before joining Cleantech San Diego in 2010, Jason was Vice President of Business Development for the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation (EDC). Prior to joining EDC in 2006, Jason lived in Austin, Texas, where he worked in the State Capitol as Legislative Director for Texas State Senator Frank Madla. Jason holds a degree in Corporate Communications from the University of Texas in Austin and is a 2008 graduate of LEAD San Diego. In 2014, Jason was named one of SD METRO’s “40 Under 40.” He is a member of the City of San Diego’s Sustainable Energy Advisory Board, the County of San Diego’s Comprehensive Renewable Energy Plan Technical Advisory Committee, and the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority Advisory Board. Jason is also a board member of Connect / SD Venture Group, the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation, and Equality California, the nation’s largest statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender civil rights organization.

Alex brings a unique perspective at the intersection of machine learning, big data, and the IoT. As an undergraduate, he authored 5 peer-reviewed publications (current citation count of 122), performed DARPA-funded research in neural networks, as well as research in memory and computational diagnostics. Next he jumped into the private sector, applying analytics on some of the world’s largest data warehouses at Teradata, the pioneer in big data. In 2006 Alex co-founded Mtelligence (Mtell) to harness the deluge of sensor data in the industrial IoT, with a mission of creating a world that doesn’t break down. Mtell’s machine learning platform is used to monitor global fleets of offshore drilling rigs, railroad engines, and process equipment, in effect creating a distributed immune system to protect equipment and personnel. Alex is lead inventor on 3 issued patents in sensor networks and deep learning. Mtell was acquired in 2016 by AspenTech (NASDAQ: AZPN), the global leader in process optimization software. In the two years following the acquisition of Mtell, AspenTech more than doubled its market cap, adding $4 billion of shareholder value. In June 2018, Barron’s highlighted AspenTech as one of the top three AI investments outside of FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google). Alex received degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science with a concentration in neuroscience. His new book Augmented Mind (released Oct 2018) explores how the combination of AI with human intelligence — called Intelligence Augmentation — has revolutionary potential.

Saad is currently a GM at Clutter, a tech-enabled logistics company that is backed by Sequoia Capital and SoftBank. Prior to that, he was Head of Sales at Gusto, a HR tech company that has raised over $500M in capital, where he joined as employee #8 and helped build their go-to-market strategy. Before Gusto, Saad ran sales and strategy for dinCloud, a cloud service provider that was acquired by Premier BPO.  Saad started his career in finance. He was an analyst at Jefferies & Co. before joining Goldman Sachs where he was an associate. After spending 5 years in investment banking, Saad transitioned to venture capital at Norwest Venture Partners ($7B in assets under management) where he invested in consumer internet and financial technology companies.   Saad lives with his wife and daughter in Los Angeles. He graduated cum laude from the University of Southern California with a B.Sc. in Finance.

Dr. Patrick Liu is Manager of Deep Learning at Xpeng Motors. His team focuses on radar perception and camera perception in autonomous driving. Before joining Xpeng Motors, he served as a Research Manager at 12 Sigma Technologies, a medical AI startup focusing on developing computer-aided diagnosis software with computer vision and deep learning. Prior to 12 Sigma, he held senior engineering roles at both Carl Zeiss and PerkinElmer, developing high-performance X-ray detectors and image analysis algorithms for industrial and medical applications. Dr. Liu earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Peking University.

Daniel is Founder and CEO of The Silent Intelligence, a boutique strategy & management consulting company, focused on IOT & digital transformation. Prior to starting The Silent Intelligence, Daniel worked as Director of Business Development at Qualcomm Inc. Daniel has extensive background in new business incubation and technology commercialization. Throughout his career at Qualcomm, Daniel led commercialization and market launch of multiple businesses, many originated as R&D concepts. He did his first Smart City project in 2009 with MIT SenseableCity Lab, TrashTrack, which later received a NSF data visualization award. In 2011, Daniel co-founded and co-chaired Machine-to-Machine Special Interest Group at CommNexus (currently EvoNexus) San Diego. After leaving Qualcomm in 2013, Daniel co-authored “The Silent Intelligence: the Internet of Things”, one of the first books about an upcoming technology revolution, which the following year became a top 10 book on technology and investing on Amazon. Over the years Daniel advised dozens of startups, including Lumedyne Technologies, which was acquired by Google in 2014. In 2016 Daniel raised funds and organized the first San Diego Smart City hackathon, focused on the Climate Action Plan and bringing together the City of San Diego, UC San Diego, FabLab, CleanTech along with multiple corporate partners, including Qualcomm, Teradata, Itron, SDG&E and many others. The hackathon was one of the first ones to utilize real city data in transportation, energy, water, parking – over 500 data sets. The event attracted hundreds of young engineers and entrepreneurs and was widely covered by press. Inspired by the success of the hackathon and having passion for smart city solutions, together with a group of investors Daniel co-founded SCALE San Diego (Smart Cities Accelerator, Labs + Environment) Prior to joining Qualcomm and moving to San Diego in 2004, Daniel was Director of Strategic Marketing & Business Development at Motorola Germany. Daniel holds an MBA degree from the University of South Carolina/Vienna University of Economics, as well as a Master’s degree from the Moscow State Lomonosov University.

Sanjiv Nanda is an independent R&D advisor and consultant. He has over twenty-five years of R&D leadership and management experience, the last eight as VP Engineering and head of Systems Engineering at Qualcomm Corporate Research and Development. He initiated, incubated and led R&D programs at Qualcomm, most recently in autonomous driving, and prior to that in machine learning and context awareness. He actively participated in the wireless and cellular revolution since 1990. While at Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, he helped write the first North American and Global wireless data standards. At Qualcomm, he participated in WiFi standardization and cellular-WiFi interworking. He initiated the R&D program on small cells. Sanjiv has over 200 granted patents and is a Fellow of the IEEE.

Mr. Bruemmer is Founder and CEO of Adaptive Motion Group which provides Smart Mobility solutions based on accurate positioning and autonomous vehicles. Previously, Mr. Bruemmer co-founded 5D Robotics - a company that has grown steadily, supplying innovative solutions for a variety of automotive, industrial and military applications. Mr. Bruemmer has led large scale robotics programs for the Army and Navy, the Department of Energy, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. He has patented robotic technologies for landmine detection, urban search and rescue, decontamination of radioactive environments, air and ground teaming, facility security and a variety of autonomous mapping solutions. Mr. Bruemmer has authored over 60 publications and has been awarded 20 patents in robotics and positioning. He recently won the South by Southwest Pitch competition and is a recipient of the R& D 100 Award and the Stoel Reeves Innovation award. Mr. Bruemmer led robotics research at the Idaho National Lab for a diverse, multi-million dollar R&D portfolio. Between 1999 and 2000, Mr. Bruemmer served as a consultant to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where he worked to coordinate development of autonomous robotics technologies across several offices and programs.

Agustin Lebron started out his career as a design engineer at Maxim Integrated Products. He then became a trader and quant researcher at Jane Street Capital, one of the largest market-making firms in the world. Over the years he traded many kinds of securities and derivatives and has created, developed and implemented several successful trading strategies including some of the first deep learning-based strategies. A recognized expert on decision-making, his new book The Laws Of Trading teaches decision-making skills that are useful in all walks of life. He currently runs the consulting firm Essilen Research, where he is dedicated to helping clients integrate modern decision-making approaches in their business.

Neal Bloom is Founder, Fresh Brewed Tech & Fresh Squeezed Tech; Chairman, Startup San Diego; angel investor, and Managing Partner, Rising Tide Partners. Through his grassroots effort in multiple organizations, Neal Bloom has helped build an entrepreneur-focused community that helps entrepreneurs and companies grow and succeed in San Diego. Bloom co-founded local nonprofit Startup San Diego and has helped grow San Diego Startup Week, which over the last seven years, has helped inspire thousands of local San Diegans in building confidence in taking the leap to become an entrepreneur. He is an investor and serves as a mentor to countless young entrepreneurs and is actively engaged in growing and promoting San Diego's thriving tech ecosystem. Bloom is dedicated to the success of the region and because of his tireless tech evangelism, some people have even given him the nickname, "Mr. San Diego." Bloom also co-founded San Diego software company Portfolium (acquired in 2019) to help new college grads promote themselves; launched Hired.com to attract tech talent to the San Diego region; and also created a venture capital podcast (Tacos & Tech), and a newsletter and tech blog (Fresh Brewed Tech) to continue to bring venture capital and businesses to San Diego, elevating the community as a top 10 tech and startup hub. From his success in helping to build the San Diego tech ecosystem, Bloom has also been helping other startup communities around the world adopt aspects of the ecosystem ‘playbook ‘- the elements of how to grow a startup community via capital, talent, mentorship, etc. Previously an aerospace engineer, Bloom helped launch over 80 astronauts during the Space Shuttle program.

Cleve has been fortunate enough to be named One of The Top 50 Non-Technical Founders in the Tech Industry and to be Co-Founder and CEO of the #2 Company in Forbes Americas Most Promising Companies list. He is a 5 time VC/PE backed software CEO that has managed companies from pre-revenue to over $1 Billion, he has been hired multiple times by VC/PE firms to start/ turnaround or sell their portfolio companies where he has amassed 4 acquisitions and 2 IPO's. His average return to investors has been 21x. He helped start, build and managed the largest company in the SaaS/Cloud Cyber security software market from pre-revenue to a $1.0B IPO, the largest in San Diego county history at the time. He has 20+ years of senior management, operations, sales and marketing experience in AI, Security software, Mobile, SaaS/Cloud and Big Data. He has built successful sales channels of over 1100 resellers and distributors in 82 countries and has raised over $80M from tier one VC’s for multiple companies. He helped start security titan Websense and grew them from pre-revenue to a $1 Billion IPO in less than 3 years that subsequently sold to Raytheon for $2 billion. He has been honored to serve as a software industry expert and keynote speaker at numerous conferences and organizations including the Harvard Alumni Assoc. and multiple Cyber Security and Investor Conferences. He has been quoted in top business publications including The Wall Street Journal and Forbes.

Shyam Sundar’s career spans from Smart Mobile Devices to Smart Mobility. He started his career at Qualcomm where he led the launch of several Android smartphones and tablets on Snapdragon processors. He bootstrapped and led Qualcomm’s first foray into Automotive Infotainment and build Qualcomm’s leadership in Android Automotive. He also led early-stage Autonomous Driving programs at NVIDIA. Shyam currently heads Technology Product Management at Faraday Future, an EV startup based in Los Angeles. His areas of influence include Connected Infotainment, Autonomous Driving and Vehicle ECU Software. Shyam holds an M.S. in Computer Science from Wayne State University, Detroit and an M.B.A. from UCLA Anderson. When he is not working on technology, Shyam loves travelling to exotic locales and photographing them.

Barbara Bry is President Pro Tempore of the San Diego City Council and represents District 1 on the San Diego City Council. She also serves as Chair of the Council’s Committee of Budget and Government Efficiency. Previously a high-tech entrepreneur, journalist, and community leader, Barbara worked her way through college and grad school, earning a Master’s Degree from Harvard Business School. Barbara has been honored as Small Business Journalist of the Year for San Diego and Imperial Counties by the Small Business Administration. For her diverse leadership in our community, she has been recognized as a Local Hero by KPBS, has been inducted into the San Diego Women’s Hall of Fame, and was recognized by CONNECT with its Distinguished Contribution award for technology innovation. Barbara is married to entrepreneur and small business columnist Neil Senturia. Their blended family includes 4 grown children, all married to people they adore, and so far, they are blessed with 3 grandchildren, all of whom live in San Diego.

Scott Fox is CEO of the Orange County Startup Council, and a serial Internet entrepreneur, bestselling author, and angel investor. He has founded, worked for, invested in, or coached hundreds of startup ventures since raising his first VC round during the first dotcom boom. An advocate for early stage entrepreneurs, Scott has also written 3 popular books to help first time entrepreneurs get started, including the classics Internet Riches (2006) and Click Millionaires (2011). Today he runs the OC Startup Council, a community service association promoting tech startup company success in Orange County. Learn about the OCSC’s free monthly Master Minds OC Startup Accelerator workshop series for local founders at https://MasterMindsOC.org, and join the OC Startup Council at https://OCStartupCouncil.org.

Dr. Mumtaz is a cardiothoracic and vascular surgeon at CVTS medical Group in San Diego, CA. She performs cardiac surgeries including bypass surgeries, Transcatheter Valve replacements, Thoracic surgery for lung cancer and other lung disorders including robotic surgery. Dr. Mumtaz graduated from Aga Khan University Medical School in Karachi, Pakistan. She did her surgical residency in Omaha, Nebraska and Cardiothoracic Surgery subspecialty training at University of California San Diego. She further did super-fellowship in minimally invasive thoracic Surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center prior to returning to San Diego. She is a diplomat of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery, being the 254th female surgeon to be certified by the board since 1961.

Lukas is the Founder of Tourmaline Labs™. As the CTO, he engineers behavior-based workforce automation solutions that enable telematics service providers to offer next-gen analytics for mobile applications. Lukas designed the Tourmaline Labs™ platform. It combines workforce automation with valuable geo-positioning, behavior analysis, and telematics insights. Prior to founding Tourmaline Labs™, Lukas served at Qualcomm's Research and Development Center as Senior System Engineer developing contextual intelligence technologies and systems designed to enhance and coordinate user outcomes. In 2010 Lukas obtained a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Technical University of Munich. Since then he has published over 35 peer-reviewed research articles, holds 16 US patents and he actively participates in a number of industry-related committees.

Dr. Kevin Chen is the SVP of Data Science and the Chief Scientist of the North America DataLabs at Experian, responsible for leading the R&D effort. He has over 20 years of industry experience driving the innovation in AI/machine learning and big data in the financial technology areas. Since joining Experian DataLabs in 2014, he has led the team to develop various machine learning solutions in fraud detection, entity resolution and management, conversational AI, machine learning platform, and decentralized secure computation, contributing to over $250M revenue to the business units. As a thought leader, he has also been awarded with four Si Ramo prizes, the highest technology award at Experian, consecutively to recognize his innovation in machine learning and data science. In his previous role as an SVP of Analytics at Opera Solutions, he was the Head of R&D in Unstructured Data Analytics overseeing the innovation in natural language processing technology in entity recognition, event sequence detection, text summarization, sentiment analysis, as well as alpha-generating trading strategy and systems. He was also the Head of a transaction-level portfolio/risk management platform enabling fund management companies to enhance return and reduce risk with big data analytics. During his tenure as a Principal Scientist at SAS Institute, he co-invented and developed SAS’ flagship analytical solution, Raptor, a machine learning based real-time plastic card fraud detection system, which is widely used by top US and international banks across the globe. He has also worked on a variety of credit risk scoring, predictive modeling, and margin lending risk solutions for major card issuers and brokerage firms when he was at FICO and HNC Software. Dr. Chen holds a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering with concentration in Computer Engineering. He has various patents on technology related to advanced nonlinear modeling, behavioral profiling, mobile location and authentication, deep learning for fraud detection, entity resolution, and secure computation.

Steve Statler is the author of Beacon Technologies, the presenter of the Mister Beacon podcast and a Senior VP at Wiliot where he is responsible for consulting, marketing and business development. Wiliot is a fabless semiconductor company connecting people and products with battery-free Bluetooth tags powered by harvesting energy from radio waves. Prior to Wiliot his consulting company specialized in Bluetooth beacon technology, training and advising manufacturers, venue owners, VCs, as well as makers of beacon software and hardware. Previously he was the Senior Director for Strategy and Solutions Management at Qualcomm’s Retail Solutions Division, helping to incubate Gimbal, one of the leading Bluetooth beacons in the market.

Byung K. Yi was InterDigital’s Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer. As CTO of InterDigital, Dr. Yi was responsible for directing the development of advanced wireless and network technologies, and the advanced researches related to Robotics, advanced cyber security systems for the IoT systems, and the platform for advanced wireless communications. Dr. Yi retired in May 2018. Dr. Yi joined InterDigital in April 2014 from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), where he had served as assistant division chief, in charge of engineering, of polish division since 2012. Prior to his appointment at the FCC, Dr. Yi was at LG Electronics from 2000 to 2012,whereas Senior Executive Vice President he headed the company’s North American R&D center. A former member of InterDigital’s Technology Advisory Council, Dr. Yi contributes more than 40 years of advanced wireless development experience, satellite system designs, and aerospace communication and computer designs. Dr. Yi also contributes a strong history of industry leadership. He had served on the board of directors of the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and has served on the board of directors or steering committees of a number of professional organizations, including the Center for Wireless Communications, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 Technical Specification Group, EvoNexus in San Diego, and a number of others. He was awarded the prestigious CDG (CDMA Development Group) Industry Leadership award, recognized by the National Engineer Week (NEW) Foundation for the “Outstanding Engineer”, and inducted into the Hall of Fame by the School of Engineering and Applied Science of George Washington University. Dr. Yi received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Yonsei University (Korea), his master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan, and his doctoral degree in electrical engineering from the George Washington University.

Tamer Kadous is currently the wireless lead of XCOM, a company with the charter of building end to end technologies for 5G applications. Good part of Tamer’s career has been working on wireless communication systems design and implementation spanning areas of physical, MAC, upper layers, and RF Systems. He has held the role of Design Architect, Systems Lead and Project Lead for a variety of projects focusing on wireless innovations in WAN and connectivity areas including UMB (ultra-mobile broadband), WLAN, EV-DO, LTE, LTE-U, and MulteFire. He served as the Chair of MulteFire Alliance Radio Working Group from 2016-2018 and was the technical lead for 5G shared spectrum and MulteFire (MF) Technologies in Qualcomm Research. Tamer’s primary focus has been on end-to-end delivery of technology from design principals to performance evaluation, prototyping, standardization, and both base-station and terminal chipsets commercialization. Tamer received his Ph.D. in wireless communications from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2001.

Briana Weisinger, is UC San Diego’s first Startup Advocate. In this role, she has focused on growing the entrepreneurial ecosystem at UC San Diego, increasing transparency to make ecosystem more accessible internally and externally, democratizing access to resources and launching and leading initiatives that scale across the 60,000+ person campus. This includes high profile initiatives such as the Ignite – a university-led community conference for entrepreneurs and investors – that she founded in 2016. Ignite immediately became the largest university-based entrepreneurial conference California that 1500+ investors and entrepreneurs from around the world each year. Weisinger has brought $2M+ in funding and resources to UC San Diego to support the university’s entrepreneurs. Outside the University, Weisinger’s work focuses on empowering female entrepreneurs first as a founding board member of Hera Labs and then as Interim Executive Director when the organization expanded its mission and transformed into Stella Labs. Through these roles she has supported the launch and scale of 300+ female-founded businesses and helped raised $1.19M+ in funding.

Greg McCord is the Director of IT and Product Security at CalAmp responsible for global information security and compliance. McCord joined in 2018 and brings over 18 years of information security experience in securing systems and platforms in IoT, financial services, tactical military communications, and mission-critical military operations systems and datacenters. Before joining CalAmp, McCord headed the information security program for the Retirement Solutions Division at Pacific Life. Prior to that, he managed the information security program for Special Operation Command Europe out of Stuttgart, Germany. McCord began his career within the United States Air Force holding several roles in tactical communications in support of U.S. defense. He holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration for Executives from the University of California, Irvine, a Master’s Degree in Information Security and Assurance from Western Governors University, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Applied Computer Science

For more than two decades, Kashif’s passion has been helping individuals find the passion within in order to excel in their professional and personal lives. No matter where his clients are on their journey to success, he helps them achieve growth and excellence in their lives so they can achieve their potential. In his current role as the CEO at Adroit, Kashif uses scientific tools to achieve breakthroughs and cultivate leadership within employees his clients have for them to lead the organization in the right direction. With extensive study of human nature and diversified human behaviors combined with life experiences, he transforms mindsets into a “Think Like An Owner” philosophy allowing individuals to take the first step towards liberating themselves into taking action, controlling chaos, and challenging the status quo. Once fulfilled with their new mindset, these leaders propel their organizations into thriving successful companies. Kashif’s core expertise include workforce optimization, leadership development, organizational turnaround, business strategic planning and strategic advisory.

Francesco Grilli is vice president of product management at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. where he has been responsible for the roadmap planning of baseband modem technology since July 2011, and position-location technology since May 2018. From June 2008 through June 2011, Grilli was part of the Strategic IP Department at Qualcomm where he led a team of engineers and attorneys responsible for intellectual property vetting, development, and maintenance in the area of signaling protocols used in cellular networks (MAC layer and above). From July 1999 through June 2008 Grilli represented Qualcomm at 3GPP TSG RAN WG2 meetings and participated to the development of the Radio Resource Control protocol specifications for both the UMTS and the LTE standards. During this period, he also led the internal R&D efforts focused on the upper layers of the LTE system, a research effort that produced innovations that are now part of the LTE standard. He served as 3GPP TSG RAN WG2 vice chairman and he attended most of the RAN plenary meetings. From November 1998, when he joined Qualcomm, through July 1999, Grilli contributed to the development of IS-801 — the first position-location standard for cellular systems.

David is the CTO and Co-Founder of Netradyne, an embedded edge computing CV and AI company. Before co-founding Netradyne, David worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) on Galileo and Cassini deep space missions. He was later a Principal Engineer in Qualcomm Research, where he was awarded over 100 US patents covering a wide range of technologies, and started and led several R&D efforts, including the Qualcomm Zeroth Deep Learning Team. David has a BSEE from New Mexico State University, and an MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford.

Azhar is what many would describe as part rebel-entrepreneur turned philantropreneur, part accidental-existentialist who relentlessly ponders the human condition and its spiritual boundaries. He founded his first software company after completing his BS in Computer Science from the University of Oklahoma and has since lived the American dream. He has founded companies, and then helped others found companies. He has raised capital and then helped others raise capital. Since retiring at 45 from Etilize (another company he founded), Azhar remains involved in early-stage venture investing and mentoring young Pakistani CEOs. His mission for promoting Pakistani entrepreneurs and empowering prosperity within his motherland remains central to his life’s mission. Azhar serves on multiple boards dedicated to this mission including The Citizens Foundation (running over a 1500 schools for underprivileged students), President of Akhuwat USA (interest free micro finance that has served over 3.4m loans without any interest or collateral), and many others. Moreover, his investments are also aligned with his mission, such as the Joognoo Foundation whose entire proceeds support education, health and economic opportunities for underprivileged talent in Pakistan. His latest adventure is umano.org, a non-profit founded to provide Mankind Manifesto 2.0 based on the simple principal – Humanity above all…

Dr. Jilei Hou is a Senior Director at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. (QTI) and currently the Head of Qualcomm AI Research Program at Corporate R&D, a division of QTI. Jilei obtained his Ph.D. from University of California, San Diego and joined Qualcomm in 2003. He made substantial contributions in technology innovation, standardization, and product commercialization across wireless 3G/4G/5G standards. In 2011, he moved to Beijing and became the Head of Qualcomm Research China. In this role, he developed the China R&D team into a local research powerhouse, which initiated 5G research and ground robotics programs that benefit Qualcomm business interests in the Greater China region. In 2017, he moved back to San Diego and currently leads the AI Research Program at Corporate R&D. He is responsible for building the machine learning research infrastructure, driving technical innovations for next-gen hardware and software platforms, and leading forward looking research to benefit technology verticals. He is an IEEE Senior Member and participated in several Frontiers of Engineering (FOE) Symposia organized by US and/or China National Academies of Engineering.

Dr. SK Sharma is a senior AI and digital strategy executive with over a decade of leadership and investment deal experience at various VC, strategy consulting, and intellectual property firms, with a track record of conceptualizing and implementing major initiatives at Fortune 500 and PE portfolio companies. As the Chief Analytics Officer at Ingrooves Music Group (recently acquired by Universal Music Group, a $33B company owned by Vivendi), SK leads a global team of AI engineers, data scientists, and corporate strategists to develop innovative products and services around music engagement, audience growth, and marketing technology. SK was formerly Chief Technology and subsequently Chief Investment Officer at Patent Licensing International, a Zurich based VC fund acquired by LIVIA Group in Munich. In his past roles as a Vice President and Partner at the Mitchell Madison Group and OC&C Strategy, SK led successful engagements for Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 CEOs in corporate strategy, M&A, and digital transformation, in addition to spinning off a customer and marketing analytics practice that was acquired by ITV. SK is the co-author of 15+ peer-reviewed scientific publications, book chapters, and patents, and earned a Ph.D. in Theoretical Chemical Physics and Computational Physical Chemistry from Caltech at the age of 23. He currently resides in Del Mar, CA.

George Hotz (geohot) is an American engineer and hacker primarily known for unlocking the iPhone, allowing the phone to be used with other wireless carriers. He is also noted for his technical efforts for reverse engineering the PlayStation 3 video game console. Currently he is the CEO of comma.ai that is developing self-driving technologies using off the shelf components at low cost. The company also has one of the largest driving data sets using crowd sourcing

Naveed brings over 25 years of experience in entrepreneurship, technical engineering and general management to his role at CEO of SiFive. Naveed has founded and co-founded nine companies including Open Silicon and Brite Semiconductor, a leading solution provider in China / APAC. He also served as founder and general manager of Intel Microelectronics Services, where he pioneered Open methodology for EDA. Naveed received his Ph.D from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Considered one of the preeminent transportation planning experts in the nation, Hasan Ikhrata is the Executive Director of the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG). He leads a staff of about 350 professionals who develop public policy initiatives for elected officials on numerous issues encompassing population growth, transportation, environmental management, economic development, municipal finance, binational coordination, and public safety. Mr. Ikhrata has over 30 years of public and private sector transportation planning experience in the region Mr. Ikhrata has received several awards and honors from various organizations and agencies including the American Society of Public Administration, Southern California Leadership Council, Orange County Transportation Authority, Orange County Business Council, League of California Cities, City of Los Angeles, State of California Certificate of Recognition, Association of the San Bernardino County Special Districts, the Building Industry Association, regional chapters of the Women’s Transportation Seminar and numerous others. Mr. Ikhrata holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Civil and Industrial Engineering from Zaporozhye University in the former Soviet Union; a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering from UCLA, and a PhD Candidacy in Urban Planning and Transportation from the University of Southern California. Prior to joining SANDAG in 2018, Mr. Ikhrata worked for Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD). Mr. Ikhrata is an adjunct professor in the business school at California State University, Northridge.

Martin Cooper, while at Motorola, conceived of the portable cellular phone and led the team that created the first phone in 1973. He has contributed to the technology in the wireless communications industry for over 60 years as an inventor, entrepreneur and executive. During this time, he contributed significantly to many important advancements in wireless communications, from the first car phones and radio pagers to the latest cellular generations. He is known as the “Father of the (Handheld) Cellular Phone”, During his 29 year tenure with Motorola, Cooper was a division manager and served as Corporate Director of R&D. Subsequently he started several businesses including Cellular Business Systems which he led to dominate the U.S. cellular billing industry in the 1980s as well as ArrayComm, which became a world leader in smart antenna technology. His wife, Arlene Harris and Cooper co-founded GreatCall, Inc., maker of the Jitterbug phone and service. Today, Cooper is Chairman and Co-Founder of Dyna LLC, an entrepreneurial incubator. An advisor and on the board of Wrethink, his wife’s latest startup, he has served on the boards of Directors of several public and private companies. Cooper serves on advisory committees of the U.S. Government. He has been granted eleven patents and is widely published in the communications field. Cooper holds a B.S. and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology on whose board of Trustees he serves. He has received honorary doctorate degrees from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Strathclyde University in Scotland, Hasselt University in Belgium and Inha University in South Korea. The Wharton Business School gave him its Business Transformation Award. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, a Marconi Prize recipient, a Prince of Asturias Laureate and has received many other awards including induction into the Wireless and Consumer Electronics Halls of Fame. Time Magazine, in 2007 named him one of the top 100 inventors in history.

Arlene Harris has decades of experience as an innovator, entrepreneur, board member, and investor in a number of successful companies in wireless related businesses. Most recently, through her incubator Dyna, Harris has fired up Wrethink, a new broadband solution for families launching later this year, and Wrethinking, the Foundation, to support privacy through the Me2B Alliance and help fund female technology founders. In her previous work, she founded GreatCall and launched its Jitterbug offering in 2006 in partnership with Samsung to create a simple and personalized cell phone experience. With almost a million customers, GreatCall was sold to a private equity company in 2017 and is now the foundation of retailer Best Buy’s consumer health offering. In 1994, Harris founded SOS Wireless Communication that became GreatCall in 2006. In 1986, she started Subscriber Computing (now Verisign) and invented the first management systems to support prepaid cellular service and the first niche cellular offering founding Cellular Pay Phone, Inc. In 1983, Harris helped found billing and CRM market leader Cellular Business Systems, Inc. (now Netcracker). Before CBSI, Harris helped lead her family’s Los Angeles-based wireless business, ICS (now USA Mobility). In addition to providing early mobile telephone service and becoming the world’s largest paging system, ICS was developer of LifePage, the world’s first health related application of wireless technology for consumers. Harris holds several issued patents. She received the PCIA Foundation’s distinguished Chairman's award, is a Fellow in the Radio Club of America, has served on several committees of the FCC, EIA/TIA, and PCIA and became the first female inductee into the Wireless Hall of Fame. She is one of few women in the Consumer Technology Hall of Fame and has been honored with Stevie, Athena, and Girl Scouts awards. She is on the advisory boards of Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute of Design and Stuart Business School and the University of California San Diego’s Engineering School. In 2019, she earned a UC San Diego Gordon Engineering Leadership Award. Harris lives with her husband and business partner, renowned wireless pioneer Marty Cooper, in Del Mar, Ca.

Vivian Sun leads business development, marketing, partner development, and government affairs for TuSimple, one the world’s most advanced self-driving truck company. Based in San Diego, she is a member of the executive leadership team driving customer acquisition and strategic partnerships. Vivian manages TuSimple’s relationships with OEMs, Tier ones and suppliers including Peterbilt, Navistar and Cummins. Vivian has leading roles in industry associations. She is a committee member in Communications and Image Policy Committee and the Environmental and Energy Policy Committee at American Trucking Association. As employee #9 at TuSimple, she has been a key driver of the company’s growth since its founding in 2015. TuSimple’s goal is to deliver the first and safest driverless truck to market. A fast-growth startup, the company has scaled from 80 to 400 employees worldwide in 36 months. TuSimple is currently validating its system in Arizona, earning revenue while hauling goods everyday for large companies. The company’s mission is to increase safety, decrease transportation costs, and reduce carbon emissions. Vivian holds a Master of Public Administration from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science in Business Management from the University of Surrey.

Bilal is attracted to startups that solve real, practical problems with technically ambitious solutions. They are often the first of their kind. They might address challenges around physical security by inventing advanced sensors, improve air traffic management for drones, transform manufacturing and automate our world, or build connected devices that reshape consumers’ lives. Bilal leads Lux’s investments in SailDrone, autonomous ocean data collection; AirMap, airspace traffic management; Aria Insights, commercial drones; Desktop Metal, metal 3D printing; Nozomi Networks, industrial cyber security; Evolv, physical security screening; NoonHome, intelligent lighting; Orbital Insight, AI for satellite imagery; HappiestBaby, connected nursery for babies; Veo Robotics, collaborative industrial robotics; Hangar Technology, global aerial data capture; Lightform, Projection AR; Deep Sentinel, home security; StrangeWorks, quantum computing; New Knowledge, fake news detection; Applied Intuition, simulation for autonomous vehicles; Zededa, an edge virtualization company; Higharc, a company democratizing custom home design; and Fiddler, which is making AI explainable. Prior to joining Lux, Bilal was an investor at General Catalyst Partners. Before he became an investor, Bilal was an entrepreneur. He cofounded GEO2 Technologies, an advanced materials company that also spun out Bio2 Technologies, company that makes bone-graft materials, among other things. Earlier in his career, Bilal was a strategy consultant with The Boston Consulting Group and a visiting scientist at PNNL/DOE Labs. Bilal served as an advisor to the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan and the founding team of the School of Science and Engineering at LUMS University. He co-founded several initiatives to promote university entrepreneurship, including RoughDraft.vc, StartLabs.org, and University Research and Entrepreneurship Symposium. Bilal currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Lemelson Foundation for invention and entrepreneurship. He frequently speaks at universities and conferences on technology, entrepreneurship and startup ecosystems. He earned a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (under Prof. Mario Molina, Nobel laureate, 1995), and his technical work has been published in peer-reviewed journals. He holds 30+ patents and patent applications.

Michael Beaudoin currently invests in private equities, including providing venture capital to rapidly growing early stage companies, on behalf of Mark IV Capital located in Newport Beach, CA. Prior to joining Mark IV Capital, Michael created and operated AT&T’s Aspire Accelerator. This accelerator was focused on enhancing education by supporting and mentoring the most promising and innovated startups in ed-tech. The mission of the Aspire Accelerator was to support innovations that have potential to help every student achieve a bright, successful future- exponentially and as scale. Michael began his career in investment and commercial banking at Merrill Lynch and later went on to serve as a Vice President at both JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank where he led teams focused on asset management. Michael graduated with an MBA from Pepperdine University’s Gradazio School of Business in 2011. His degree included certificates in “Social, Ethical, & Environmental Responsibility” and “Dispute Resolution” from the Pepperdine University School of Law.

Dr. Nemati is currently an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics and the director of Predictive Health Analytics at the UC San Diego Health. He has published in several areas of research, including advanced signal processing and machine learning techniques, computational neuroscience/brain-machine interface, predictive monitoring in intensive care, and nonlinear and nonstationary multidimensional time-series analysis, resulting in over 60 peer-reviewed publications. His early career award focused on the early prediction of sepsis using advanced machine learning and streaming analytics techniques. Dr. Nemati obtained his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2013. While at MIT, he held a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) position at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, with a focus on physiological control systems and critical care informatics. Upon completion of his Ph.D. degree, Dr. Nemati joined the Harvard Intelligent Probabilistic Systems group as a James S. McDonnell Foundation (JSMF) postdoctoral fellow in complex systems, where he focused on the application of deep learning and reinforcement learning techniques for prediction of adverse clinical events and optimization of treatment protocols in critically ill patients.

Bobby Ghoshal was appointed as chief technology officer (CTO) for ResMed in April 2018. He previously served as chief operating officer for Brightree, a ResMed-owned provider of cloud-based software-as-a-service for out-of-hospital care: delivering improved clinical and business performance for homecare customers. Prior to that Bobby led the information technology function for the US, Canada, and Latin America commercial teams, driving adoption of digital platforms and data analytics across the enterprise. Bobby has more than 25 years’ experience in technology across multiple industries including finance, semiconductors and healthcare, working for companies including Freescale Semiconductor, Motorola, Compuware and Wipro Infotech. Bobby has helped build and lead high-performance teams in information technology, semiconductor innovation, digital and business strategy, information security, advanced analytics, operations and customer care. Bobby holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Arizona State University and a bachelor’s degree in electronics engineering and telecommunications from the National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Calicut, India.

Abhishek leads the venture investments for HPE Pathfinder across the HPE Portfolio (including Aruba). Abhishek joined Pathfinder from GE Ventures where he was a Managing Director of software investing. His areas of focus at GE Ventures included IoT, cybersecurity, cloud+ edge computing and data analytics. Prior to GE Ventures, he was a part of Cisco’s Corporate Development and Ventures Investments team, leading venture investments and acquisition efforts for the $12B+ Services and Solutions portfolio. He also held multiple leadership positions in venture investing, M&A, strategy and sales at Agilent, Sony, and SAP. He has served on numerous boards while at GE Ventures and Cisco including IoTium, Portworx, ThetaRay, Alchemist, The Hive, Equalum, Morphisec, Xage, Verodin, Flashpoint and eSentire. Abhishek received his MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics from the Delhi College of Engineering, India. Abhishek is a certified scuba diver who has taken multiple dives with great white sharks.

Jauher is an award-winning tech entrepreneur, inventor, and engineer with nearly 35 years of experience. He is the chairman and CEO of Netvinci Corporation, AI and Human-Machine Learning company, where he oversees all product design, engineering, and funding for human-machine learning technologies. He is also the founder of Palmchip Corporation, a company that invented CoreFrame, the first System-on-Chip (SoC) architecture, which enables billions of wireless and storage devices today. He has been named twice as the ‘Top 20 visionary CEOs in the world’ by the EE Times and was awarded the 2010 Terman Award for best Cloud Computing/Software as a Service product by the TechAmerica Foundation. He holds several technology patents having to do with CyberSecurity, SoC and on-chip interconnect technology. A leading expert in the area of SoC technologies, Jauher has participated in many panels and has written and presented a number of articles ranging from CyberSecurity, System-on-Chip (SoC), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies. In 1996, Jauher left Quantum Corporation to start Palmchip. Before that, he led a team to develop the world’s first SSD system-on-chip controller at Quantum. He also worked at Unisys, Amdahl, and Samsung. Jauher is an experienced CEO in running several global companies like Netvinci, Moobila Corporation and Palmchip Pakistan (Pvt). Jauher is an EIR at EvoNexus. At EvoNexus he is involved in new startup selection, mentoring and guiding startup entrepreneurs. He is always looking to invest in new startups.

Albert Vazquez enjoys creating value with Startups, Venture Capital, Private Equity and Corporates to leverage his broad business and technology background in investment and operating roles. Through B612 Capital Albert Vazquez has build a frontier tech portfolio of investments which among them at Axalume Photonics, he is a board member. Albert is as well associated to Sway Ventures focused in series A and Series B venture capital investments and its sister company focused in seed investments and venture building, Nex Cubed. Albert has lived in Barcelona (Spain), Paris (France), Dallas (Texas). He currently resides in San Diego (California), though you can find him often in Bay Area and Los Angeles. Albert earned his Engineering MsC in Barcelona Tech, the Advanced Management Program by IESE and various Executive Programs at Harvard Business School, Berkeley Haas and Chicago Booth on Private Equity, Venture Capital and Big Data.

YY is a Qualcomm Chair Professor in Mobile Computing at University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) since 2009. Prior to UC San Diego, she was a tenured professor in Computer Science at University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. She also serves in Advisory Council of Princeton University's Keller Entrepreneurship Center. She is an ACM Fellow (2013), IEEE Fellow (2015), and the winner of ACM Mark Weiser award (2015). She obtained her MS and Ph.D from Princeton University. Her area of expertise includes computer reliability, data center management, and mobile systems. She has published more than 100 papers at top venues. She also served as the program chair in top conferences and served in the Research Advisory Committee for IEEE Computer Society (2018-2019). In parallel to her academic career, she has also co-founded three companies, with the first two successfully acquired by public companies such as VMWare, providing good returns for investors and teams. The product, Log Insight, built by her second startup, still remains as one of the most popular big data products from VMWare. Since 2014, she has been busy with her third startup, Whova. It has gained substantial customer traction worldwide and has helped more than 13,000 conferences/events in 93 countries.

Divya Sudhakar is a Principal on the Investment Team at In-Q-Tel (IQT), the strategic investor for the U.S. Intelligence Community. At In-Q-Tel, Divya has led numerous investments in enterprise infrastructure. Prior to joining IQT in 2018, Divya was an Investment Manager in the Software and Security group at Intel Capital. She also held roles in Intel’s Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence Groups. Before attending business school, Divya was a Senior Investment Associate at Oaktree Capital and an Investment Banking Analyst at Credit Suisse.

Dr. Sara C. Mednick is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Irvine where she heads the Sleep and Cognition (SaC) lab. After obtaining her PhD in Psychology at Harvard University, and a postdoc at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and UC San Diego, she started her own sleep research lab. Her innovative graduate work introduced napping as a formidable component of our daily sleep need, demonstrating the same magnitude of benefit from napping as from a full night of sleep across a range of cognitive domains. Her research culminated in the book, Take a Nap! Change your life., which puts forth the scientific basis for napping to improve productivity, cognition, mood, and health. Dr. Mednick’s science has been continuously federally funded with approximately 5 million dollars in grants from the National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Defense Office of Naval Research, DARPA. In addition, Dr. Mednick has won numerous scientific awards including the Office Naval Research Young Investigator Award in 2015. Her research findings have been published in such leading scientific journals as Nature Neuroscience and The Proceedings from the National Academy of Science, Journal of Neuroscience, and Psychological Science. Along with teaching and public speaking, Dr. Mednick has been involved with several media projects, including being featured on three episodes of Brain Games, creating an online course to help people sleep better, giving a TEDx talk entitled Give it up for the Down State, and others. She has been interviewed by every major magazine and newspaper, including New York Times, New Yorker, more... as well as been featured on Good Morning America, O, others… She resides in San Diego, CA.

Atif Piracha is Director of Corporate Strategy and Planning at Qualcomm, where he leads company-wide strategic planning, portfolio analysis and growth initiatives. He focuses on the areas of 5G, AI and cybersecurity with an emphasis on mobile, automotive and IoT segments. He has participated in the launch of multiple products, as well as execution of acquisitions, investments and joint ventures.

Amir M. Rahmani is the founder of Health SciTech Group (healthscitech.org) at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), and the co-founder of Internet-of-Things for Healthcare Group (IoT4Health) at the University of Turku (UTU), Finland. He is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Nursing (joint appointment) at the UCI and is also a life-time adjunct professor (Docent) in the Department of Future Technologies of University of Turku, Turku, Finland. His research is in Internet-of-Things (IoT), e-health, wearable sensor design, bio-signal processing, health informatics, and big health data analytics. He is especially excited about novel sensing, computation/analytics, communication, and networking paradigms applied to healthcare/medical and wellbeing applications. He has been leading nationally/internationally funded projects on Smart Pain Assessment, Preventing Preterm-Birth, Family-centered Maternity Care, Stress Management in Adolescents, Remote Elderly and Family Caregivers Monitoring, and all using IoT and AI technologies. He has received numerous research excellence awards (e.g., 2x from Nokia Foundation) and best paper awards (e.g., from MobiHealth, ANT, HealthyIoT, and DFT).

Mohammad founded Deepen AI in 2017 to solve critical bottlenecks preventing faster adoption of autonomy and robotics products. He was a Product Strategy Manager for Google Apps (Gmail, Google Calendar, Drive, Admin Console, Docs, Sheets, Slides ...) now part of Google Cloud Platform. Before Google, he worked as a Software engineer at Havok (acquired by Intel), Emergent Game Technology (acquired by Gamebase), and Sonics (acquired by Facebook).

Azmat Ali is Head of Innovation and Incubation at HP Inc. Prior to this role he was Head of Product and Segment Marketing at HP Inc. He thrives in finding growth in existing and/or emerging markets through a powerful innovation methodology. This methodology has demonstrated how a team is able to take an idea, develop a concept around this idea and then rapidly iterate to determine the viability of success. This has helped organizations of all sizes create multi-million-dollar categories across several consumer and commercial markets. His career spans over 25 years in leadership roles driving change and growth. He has created growth in emerging categories as the world transitioned from analogue to digital; taken existing categories and driven growth as the world transitioned to mobile; and is currently focused on creating new categories as services-led business-models become the norm. Azmat’s roles have included product strategy, marketing strategy, brand development and management of innovation in key leadership positions for fortune 500 companies in addition to lending his expertise to growing startups. Azmat graduated from Kingston University London, with a BEng in Electronic Systems Engineering, moving on to complete his MBA at Imperial College, University of London

Rajeev Madhavan is a founder and General Partner of Clear, where he focuses on early stage technology investments. Rajeev’s operational specialties are recruiting, software-oriented technology, product definition, sales acceleration, and scaling. He has been a venture investor in over 35 companies. Prior to founding Clear in 2014, Rajeev founded three successful startups. The most recent, Magma Design Automation, became the 4th largest Electronic Design Automation company in the world under his leadership. Rajeev served as Magma’s Chairman and CEO from when he co-founded the company in 1997 through its acquisition by Synopsys in February 2012 for $580 million. Magma was listed on Nasdaq in 2001 and was ranked as the 2nd fastest growing Technology Company in 2005 by Forbes. Magma provided core infrastructure software to mobile pioneers such as Apple, Qualcomm, and Samsung, which was used to design the core processors at the heart of the smartphone era. Prior to founding Magma, Rajeev co-founded and served as President and CEO of Ambit Design Systems, which was acquired by Cadence in 1998 for $280 million. Rajeev also co-founded and served as Director of Engineering of LogicVision, Inc (IPO under LGVN, then acquired by Mentor). Rajeev is a recipient of the Red Herring Top Innovator award, the lifetime achievement award at NITK, India and various other awards. Rajeev earned a bachelor’s degree in electronics and communication from KREC, Surathkal, India, and an M.S.E.E from Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada.

Carlos oversees the adoption and implementation GSMA’s technical strategic programmes ensuring that a consistent, interoperable and standardised set of specifications are deployed by mobile operators. During his career, he has been responsible for product development, testing, operations and strategy with mobile operators and vendors. He studied Engineering and Applied Mathematics at West Virginia State University.

Mr. Sanjeet Pandit is the Global Head for Smart Cities practice at Qualcomm, Inc USA and responsible for Carrier and Ecosystem relationships in this domain. His expertise in the telecom industry spans over 20 plus years. He specializes in the areas of Smart City design, creation of Smart verticals, digital transformation and go to market strategies creating an experience that would benefit public private domains and citizen engagements. Sanjeet has worked and created relationships with the Smart city ecosystem partners, resulting in multiple Smart City projects Globally. He joined Qualcomm in late 1995 and moved to Ericsson in 1999 following the sale of the infrastructure division of Qualcomm, moving back to Qualcomm in 2007. He has held various senior positions at Qualcomm and was responsible for APAC and India business development prior to leading the Smart city vertical.

Andy is a leader in the Southern Californian innovation ecosystem and has started, led or invested in more than two dozen tech start-ups. In addition to leading the Alliance as Executive Director, he serves on the City Council for the City of Pasadena and he is a founder of Innovate Pasadena (www.innovatepasadena.org), which is dedicated to advancing the Eastside of Los Angeles as a vibrant innovation center for deep tech. Previously, as founder of Momentum Ventures, an early stage tech accelerator and venture fund, he personally led more than a half dozen SoCal tech start-ups and invested in almost a dozen others. He previously held senior executive roles (President, SVP Product, CIO, COO) at Overture Services/Yahoo!, RiverOne, Bowne & Co and RR Donnelley & Sons. He has extensive board experience in not-for-profit and community organizations such as Pacific Oaks College, Pasadena Heritage and STEAMCODERS. He is a regular speaker at entrepreneurs’ events and business schools and was named one of the 50 Most Innovative Men in the San Gabriel Valley. Andy holds an engineering degree with honors from Dartmouth College and received his MBA with a concentration in operations and technology management from Harvard Business School.

Emerging growth companies and their investors trust Amit Singh as the lawyer invested in achieving their goals. Amit’s practice focuses primarily on venture capital and mergers and acquisitions, including private equity transactions, and joint ventures for technology and life sciences companies. In the hundreds of venture capital and M&A transactions he’s led, Amit has immersed himself in his clients’ businesses and technologies while listening to their objectives and protecting their interests. As a result, he’s developed a deep understanding of the employment, tax and intellectual property legal considerations that impact his clients from their earliest stages of formation through to an exit event. Over the past two decades as a deal lawyer at large Wall Street and Silicon Valley firms and Stradling, Amit has helped technology and life sciences companies bring their ideas to market across a broad range of industries, including software, hardware, communications and networking, internet, manufacturing and distribution, and medical devices. He is an equally astute and responsive advisor to managers and investors involved in the formation of venture capital, private equity and hedge funds. Long after fund formation, he continues to add value as outside general counsel by assisting fund managers in transactions and advising on challenges that arise throughout the life of the fund. The experience, knowledge and practical advice he brings to every transaction is also the basis of the hundreds of thought leadership articles he’s written for his blog – www.startupblog.com.

Vikas is a Principal at Verizon Smart Mobility Group and in-charge of public and private sector engagements in southwestern quadrant of the United States. He has over 15 years of consulting experience in planning, design, and operations of transportation systems. As a registered Traffic Engineer in the state of California, Vikas has managed a wide variety of projects and programs in smart mobility, traffic engineering, intelligent transportation systems, parking, data analytics and has been a key advocate of using the latest technologies to solve traffic congestion problems. Vikas’ current role is focused on using Verizon’s smart mobility solutions such as safety analytics, intelligent traffic management, traffic data services and parking optimization to help public agencies and private entities to transition to connected and autonomous vehicles in a strategic, collaborative and cost effective manner.

Chad Sweet is CEO of ModalAI, Inc. He has more than 20 years of leadership experience and focuses on system architecture and business development. ModalAI is a leader in autonomous robot and drone perception and communication systems. The company develops highly-integrated artificial intelligence (AI)-powered modules that empower companies in a variety of industries to utilize aerial and ground autonomous navigation systems that communicate via 4G and 5G cellular networks. Through June 2018 he led global robotics R&D at Qualcomm Research. Previously at Qualcomm he led efforts in computer vision and wireless communications with 15 patents granted.

Scot is the CEO & Co-Founder of Classy, a social enterprise that creates world-class online fundraising software for nonprofits, modernizing the giving experience to accelerate global social impact. Since 2011, thousands of nonprofits have collectively raised more than $1 billion on the platform. Classy, a San Diego-based company, partners with over 4,000 nonprofit organizations, from the fastest-growing nonprofits such as Team Rubicon and The Trevor Project, to some of the largest organizations in the world, including The Salvation Army, Robin Hood Foundation, and Shriners Hospitals for Children. When one of the largest cancer organizations refused to accept the money he raised during a pub crawl held to honor his mom, a two-time breast cancer survivor, Scot was inspired to start Classy to make it easier for anyone to support a cause that’s meaningful to them—and just as easy for organizations to make purposeful and lasting connections with their supporters. Scot’s recent recognitions include accolades from Glassdoor as a Highest Rated CEO, from San Diego Business Journal as one of the 40 Next Top Business Leaders Under 40 and one of the 500 Most Influential Business Leaders in San Diego, and from Businessweek as one of the Top 5 Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs. Scot currently serves on the Board of Directors of Street Soccer USA and previously served a four-year term on the founding Board of Directors of Team Rubicon, a veteran-led disaster relief organization. Scot is also an active investor, investing out of a fund called Tall Timbers that includes a public SaaS portfolio and private investments that include Change.org, Casetext and ASC San Diego. Scot is a frequent speaker on a social entrepreneurship, trends in giving, and the journey of scaling a startup-for-good. Past speaking appearances include TEDx; Amazon’s Imagine: A Better World, Global Nonprofit Conference; Dreamforce; SaaStr; Collision; SOCAP; AFP; Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC); and Inbound.

Faruk Bhagani specializes in helping growing organizations in the technology sector grow and operate more efficiently. Faruk’s previous background is in technology sales, expansion of retail and automotive franchises and project management/operations. He has worked with prominent organizations like 3M, AT&T, Xerox, Microsoft, Pearson, Oracle, Salesforce, Porsche and VW/Audi. He utilizes his global exposure to leverage optimal results in his working environment, coupled with a strong work ethic, global network of resources and people management experience. He has a BBA from University of Houston

Darin Andersen is a distinguished serial Entrepreneur, Cybersecurity, Smart City, Internet of Things (IoT) and professional with over 20 years of experience in industry. Darin is the CEO & Founder of NXT Robotics which builds an AI security robotics platform. In 2013, Mr. Andersen founded CyberTECH (CyberHive and iHive Incubators), a global cybersecurity and IoT network ecosystem providing cybersecurity, IoT and Smart City resources, strategic programs and quality thought leader Forums across the nation. Before NXT Robotics, Darin was the CEO of CyberUnited a enterprise cybersecurity firm. Darin also served as President, North America for Norman Shark, a forensics malware analytics company, acquired by Symantec. Prior to Norman Shark, Darin was the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at ESET, an award winning and antivirus solutions company. While COO at ESET, Darin created the “Securing Our eCity” initiative. The initiative, now an independent Foundation, was recognized by The White House as the “Best Local/Community Plan” DHS National Cybersecurity Awareness Challenge. Andersen is a distinguished Ponemon Institute Fellow and serves on numerous boards and received an MBA in Finance and Operations Management and 2nd Masters in Information Systems and Operations Systems both from University of Southern California and a BA from Claremont McKenna College.

Rory Moore was the seed round investor, co-founder of Peregrine Semiconductor Corp. (NASDAQ: PSMI), one of the world’s leading providers of radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) for the wireless communications and aerospace markets. Peregrine ships millions of chips every week to cell phone manufacturers around the globe. Rory was also the seed round investor and founding CEO of Silicon Wave, Inc., now owned by Qualcomm. Silicon Wave produced the world’s first Bluetooth chips. Bluetooth chips are now in billions of devices from cell phones to automobiles. Rory was a co-founder of e-Fire.com, Georg!a Now and Optical River. In 2009 Rory founded a technology incubator called EvoNexus with Vice Admiral Walter Davis, a board member of CommNexus (now EvoNexus). In 2018, for all that he has done with EvoNexus, building a community to help give entrepreneurs a much better shot at success, Ernst & Young awarded Rory the Supporter of Entrepreneurship award. A University of Michigan graduate, Rory continues to make angel investments in technology firms throughout the region. His other passions include unlimited aerobatic competition flying, scuba diving and surfing.

Bridget is VP, Fellow, and Chief Architect at Intuit’s Consumer Group, focusing on products for personal tax and finance management. Previous to Intuit, she was at Comcast and served as President of a joint venture developing next generation conditional access and security products for the cable industry. She has also held senior engineering roles at Motorola, Copper Mountain Networks, General Instrument and Hughes Space and Communications Group. She holds 5 US patents. She has received numerous industry awards and recognition, including 2016 CableFax Most Powerful Women in Cable (Technology Award), and has a strong commitment to mentoring the next generation of women in technology. She is a board member at Evonexus, and also has served on the United Way’s Women’s Leadership Council, and volunteered as a troop leader and mentor for the Girl Scouts of America. Bridget has an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from University of Southern California (USC) and a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from California State Polytechnic University. She was inducted into the Cal Poly Engineering Hall of Fame in 2019. She has also completed the Executive Program for Scientists and Engineers (EPSE) at the University of California, San Diego, and an executive leadership program through the Center for Creative Leadership.

Mike serves as the Senior Vice President of Chicony Electronics since 2012. Mike leads business development, strategic partnerships, product/market strategy and drives consumer electronic innovation verticals for Chicony’s 12 global business units totaling $4B in annual revenue. Mike is a product solutions architect, consumer electronic, IoT and technology implementation expert. Mike has worked 1 on 1 with many iconic brands, as well as their C-Level such as Nick Woodman (GoPro), Jaime Siminoff ( Ring/Amazon), Tony Fadel ( Apple & Nest), Logan Green ( Lyft ) and many others. Prior to Chicony Mike was the Head of business development and strategic vertical development for one of the pioneering IoT and communications companies in Greenwave systems. Mike advises several technology focused boards ranging from IoT to AI/Machine learning. Mike has also advised for Evonexus (Southern California’s largest non-profit incubator), Internet of Things Consortium.

Ken Denman is the former President and CEO of Emotient, Inc., a company that developed software for automated facial expression measurement, and which was acquired by Apple, Inc. in January 2016. Prior to that he served as CEO for Openwave Systems Inc. and iPass, Inc. He has also held executive roles at Mediaone Group, Inc., US West Communications, and the Battelle Memorial Institute Laboratory. Ken is currently a venture partner at Sway Ventures. Ken is an active board member for public companies including; Costco Wholesale, Mitek Systems, LendingClub and Motorola Solutions. He formerly held board roles with ShoreTel, iPass, Openwave, and United Online. He has also served as the Director of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA). Ken continues to support early stage venture backed companies as an advisor and board member. Ken was appointed to the Edward V. Fritzky Endowed Visiting Chair in Leadership at the University of Washington’s Michael G. Foster School of Business in September 2012, is a member of the advisory board at the University of Washington’s Michael G. Foster School of Business, and sits on the board of directors at the University of Washington Foundation. He holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Central Washington University and an MBA in finance and international business from the University of Washington.

Vivek Chhabra is a partner at 2iQLabs, a company that focuses on strategic solutions, investments and product consulting in the areas of 5G, IoT, Robotics, and Retail. Prior to this, he built and spearheaded Marvell Technologies' Mobile and IoT global business, enabling the first Android-based devices in the market. In addition, he led the corporate business development at Marvell for all business units. With his experience, he has acquired a unique blend of hardware and software engineering, business partnerships, and product experience across various industries. This includes the SaaS, mobile, IoT, smart home, and hybrid cloud spaces, entailing world-wide partnerships with OEMs, operators, and other major software companies. Vivek has developed successful startups and helped several companies launch solutions globally. He has several patents and has worked with leading organizations such as IBM T.J. Watson Labs and Texas Instruments. Vivek has a master’s degree in Management of Technology from NYU and a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology.

With over 20 years in the telecommunications and technology communications industry, Goodman's experience spans a variety of sectors including media, non-profit organizations. Prior to her executive appointment at Sony, Goodman lead Athena, a professional association serving women in science and technology throughout southern California. Under Goodman's leadership, Athena launched the "Pinnacle Pitch" competition for female entrepreneurs in STEM startups, doubled its STEM partnerships and launched original research and content that led the national discussion on women in technology. Prior to Athena, Goodman founded several startup companies and led public relations, industry analyst relations and business development functions at Qualcomm, Qualcomm Labs, Lindows, Linspire and MP3.com.

Aditya Srinivasan is a seasoned professional who has held senior-level roles with technology companies, including Rebaca Technologies, Nuelight Corp, Connex Technology, Sage, Genesis Microchip and Oplus. He served for eight years as the President of Tamscin Corporation, a technology sales consultancy and is on the board of directors of SensThys, an RFID reader company. Prior to joining Innoviz as VP, North America, Aditya had a long career in the semiconductor industry taking video processing technology to market. He participated in early LCD Monitor and LCD TV development and in the application of video compression to Broadcast Encoders and Sports Cameras. Aditya has a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering and Masters in Computer Science from IIT, Bombay.

Yinyin Liu is responsible for designing and building the technology roadmap to achieve the business and technology goals of XOKind. Through her years of experience in the machine learning domain, Yinyin has collaborated with CSPs and enterprises in various verticals to apply AI/Data Science to build/deploy AI systems and services, and has always been passionate about designing and packaging the right AI algorithms to solve problems for enterprises and end-users. Previously, Yinyin was the Head of Data Science in the Artificial Intelligence Products Group at Intel where she led a global team of deep learning researchers and data scientists that is engaged in in-depth data science for AI product engineering, as well as Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Reinforcement Learning (RL) research. She was responsible for setting the strategy and leading the execution of connecting data science and AI research with AI hardware, enabling AI use cases through open-source data science tools in NLP, RL, model compression, and working with Intel partners and customers on innovative AI solutions across industry domains. Yinyin has also driven algorithmic design for the Intel Nervana NNP-L, one of the first Deep learning training ASICs, and contributed to neon (open source DL framework) and nGraph (open source DL compiler). Yinyin represented Intel at the Partnership on AI, a multi-stakeholder organization that brings together around 100 academic, industry, and civil society organizations working on making AI beneficial for people and society. Prior to working at Intel, Yinyin was a Principal Data Scientist at Nervana Systems (acquired by Intel in 2016), where she was responsible for developing deep learning algorithms and frameworks, and AI solutions for enterprises. She also previously worked at Qualcomm Research as a ML/neuroscience researcher working on Deep Learning, Robotics and Neuromorphic computing. Yinyin was named one of the 9 women in Silicon Valley to watch who are leading in AI by Silicon Valley Business Journal, and one of the top 30 Women in AI in US by RE.WORK. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University, China, and a Ph.D. focused in Machine Learning from Ohio University.