Artificial Intelligence 2019

Bulgarian-born Mariya Gabriel is the current European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society and Commissioner-designate for Innovation and Youth in the 2019-2023 Commission.

She was the Vice-President of the EPP Group in the European Parliament from 2014-2017.

Mariya Gabriel was a Member of the European Parliament, EPP/GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria) from 2009-2017.
Since 2012, Mariya Gabriel has served as Vice-President of EPP Women. Prior to this she was Parliamentary Secretary to MEPs from the GERB political party within the EPP Group in 2008-2009.

She is part of project teams, such as Digital Single Market, Energy Union, Better Regulation and Interinstitutional Affairs, Budget and Human Resources, and Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness.

As a member of the project teams, her responsibilities include launching ambitious proposals for the completion of a connected Digital Single Market, supporting the development of creative industries and of a successful European media and content industry, as well as other activities turning digital research into innovation success stories.

Former Minister of Education, Culture and Sport from 2000 to 2004, Dr. del Castillo was elected to the European Parliament for the first time in 2004. She belongs to the Partido Popular (People’s Party), which in turn is a member of the European People’s Party.

She is the European Parliament’s rapporteur on the European Electronic Communications Code.

She has also been the rapporteur of the Telecoms Single Market Regulation; the Directive on Security of Networks and Information Systems for the ITRE committee; the Regulation on the Body of European Regulators in Electronic Communications’ (BEREC); the report on Cloud Computing Strategy for Europe and the Report “A Digital Agenda for Europe: 2015.eu, to name just a few examples.

Del Castillo is the Chair of the European Internet Forum and member of the European Energy Forum and of the Transatlantic Policy Network.

Del Castillo is Professor in Political Science and Administration. She obtained a PhD in Law from Universidad Complutense. Before, she had attended Ohio State University on a Fulbright scholarship, graduating with a Master’s degree in Political Science. She was the Executive President of the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (Sociology Research Centre) from 1996 to 2000. She is the author of numerous publications and member of various national and international political science and sociology associations.

Jim Shaughnessy is executive vice president for corporate affairs at Workday, responsible for the company’s work across policy and public affairs and its corporate development initiatives.

Jim has more than 25 years of experience as a strategic legal and business executive for leading technology companies.  He served as Workday’s General Counsel from 2011 to 2019, and previously was general counsel at PeopleSoft, Lenovo Group, and Orbitz Worldwide.  Jim has also held senior legal positions at Hewlett-Packard, Compaq Computer, and Digital Equipment.  Over his career, Jim has had responsibility for public policy, government affairs, and other business functions in addition to his legal roles.

Jim holds a Juris Doctor degree and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Michigan, as well as a bachelor’s degree from Northern Michigan University.

Doc. Ing. Karel Havlicek, Ph.D., MBA

He graduated from the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague and from the PIBS at the Manchester Metropolitan University. He completed his doctoral studies at the Faculty of Business Administration of the University of Economics in Prague and was habilitated and obtained the Doc. title at the Faculty of Finance and Accounting.

Since the turn of the millennium, he has been defending the interests of entrepreneurs, especially in the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Association of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Crafts of the Czech Republic. As co-owner and CEO of the SINDAT Group, he developed this company into a respected investor in the small and medium-sized industry and new technologies over the past twenty years.

He has been involved in the academic world for many years and, in recent years, has was associated with the University of Finance and Administration, where he built a faculty of economic studies and prepared a study program Economy and Management. He has written several books on the subject of small and medium-sized enterprises and has published dozens of peer-reviewed articles in the Czech Republic and abroad.

He has been a member of a number of advisory bodies of the government and ministries; since 2014 he has been a member of the Government Council for Research, Development and Innovation and since 2018 he has been its Vice-Chairman.

In April 2019, he was nominated by Prime Minister for a post of Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs and Minister of Industry and Trade. On 30 April 2019, he was appointed to both positions by President of the Czech Republic. At the same date, he resigned from the statutory and ownership positions in the business sector and left the management of the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises and Crafts.

He speaks English, German, Russian, Spanish, partly French and Chinese. He is married and has two children.

His hobbies include rock and folk music and occasionally writing columns about world music performers (Pink Floyd, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, etc.)

Dr. Balázs Kégl is Chief Data Scientist and the Head of AI research leading a team of researchers and engineers working on cutting edge AI research motivated by telecommunication applications.

His team is part of at Huawei’s Noah’s Ark Lab, a world class research with facilities located in China, Canada, UK, and France. Dr. Kégl’s research focuses on applied machine learning for achieve intelligent, automated network traffic control through automatic detection and accurate prediction of traffic changes. The aim is to help telecom operators and enterprises achieve differentiated, self-adaptive control of complex services in ultra-large networks.

Balázs joined Huawei’s Algorithm and Software Design Department in France on sabbatical from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), where he was a senior research scientist from 2006 to 2019 and head of the Center for Data Science of the Université Paris-Saclay between 2014 and 2019.

Dr. Kégl is co-creator of a code-submission platform (RAMP) to accelerate building predictive workflows and to promote collaboration between domain scientists and data scientists.

Balázs graduated from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary with an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering. He also obtained a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada and was assistant professor there from 2001 until 2006.

Eline Chivot is a senior policy analyst at the Center for Data Innovation. Based in Brussels, Eline focuses on European technology policy issues and on how policymakers can promote digital innovation in the EU. Prior to joining the Center for Data Innovation, Eline Chivot worked for several years in the Netherlands as policy analyst in a leading think tank, where her work included research projects on defense, security and economic policy issues. More recently, Eline worked at one of Brussels’ largest trade associations and managed its relations with representatives of the digital tech industry in Europe and beyond. Eline received Masters degrees including from Sciences Po in France, in political science, economics, strategic management, and business administration.

Jeremy Rollison is Director of EU Government Affairs within Microsoft’s Corporate, External, & Legal Affairs (CELA) group. Based in Brussels, his work focuses on policy related to the EU Digital Single Market (DSM), with a particular emphasis on data issues and corresponding public policy covering privacy, cybersecurity, cloud policy, and the cross-border provision of online services. Prior to joining Microsoft, he worked in the Government Relations team at Nokia in the company’s EU representative office, and was previously Director of the European Digital Media Association (EDiMA) in Brussels. He has over a decade of experience in Brussels at the company, association, and consultancy levels, focusing and engaging with EU stakeholders on issues related to the development and delivery of online services in the Internal Market and corresponding EU regulatory policy.

Erik Huneker started his professional career at Pechiney and Alcan, holding management positions in manufacturing, marketing and Lean in the US and in France.
Prior to founding Diabeloop, he spent 7 years in the medical devices field at GE Healthcare, where he managed the international localization business to a ten-fold growth in sales.

Erik Huneker is a tech and science enthusiast dedicated to growing people within the Diabeloop team. He gets energized by listening to the feedback of patients and Diabeloop devices potential to improve their lives.

He graduated from the École Polytechnique (Paris, France) in 1998.

Frederic Pivetta is Managing Partner at Dalberg Data Insights as part of Dalberg, which is a global firm focusing on social impact projects (e.g. gender gap, financial inclusion, public health, energy, mobility) in Africa, Asia and LATAM. He tends to mostly focus on tech, Big Data and AI for social impact. Frederic has been leading the development of the AI plan for Belgium. He is a co-founder of Real Impact Analytics, which a big data firm developing solutions for telecom operators. He has been invited as a keynote speaker or panelist at multiple events on Big Data or AI (e.g. WEF, OECD, MIT) and is a columnist in various newspapers. Frederic is also on the board of Accountable active in Fintech. Frederic was a senior Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company for 7 years.

Frederic holds a PhD in Economics from Harvard University and has graduated in Business Economics and in Econometrics from Brussels University (ULB and Solvay Business School).

Thomas Boué oversees the BSA | The Software Alliance’s public policy activities in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. He advises BSA members on public policy and legal developments and advocates the views of the ICT sector with both European and national policy makers. He leads on security and privacy issues as well as broader efforts to improve levels of intellectual property protection and to promote open markets, fair competition, and technology innovation in new areas such as cloud computing.

Prior to joining BSA, Boué served as a consultant in Weber Shandwick where he advised clients on a wide range of technology and ICT-related policy issues and represented them before the EU institutions and industry coalitions. In this role, he also served as policy and regulatory adviser for both EU and US telecom operators. Prior to that Boué worked for the EU office of the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry where he was responsible for the lobbying activities towards the EU Institutions in the areas of trade, education, and labor, as well as for the organization and running of seminars on EU affairs for SMEs and business professionals.

Boué holds a Master of Business Administration from the Europa-Insitut (Saarbrücken, Germany), a Certificate of Integrated Legal Studies (trilateral and trilingual Master’s degree in French, English, German and European Law, from the Universities of Warwick (UK), Saarland (Germany) and Lille II (France) as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Law from the University of Lille II, France. He is based in BSA’s Brussels office.

Eline Chivot is a senior policy analyst at the Center for Data Innovation. Based in Brussels, Eline focuses on European technology policy issues and on how policymakers can promote digital innovation in the EU. Prior to joining the Center for Data Innovation, Eline Chivot worked for several years in the Netherlands as policy analyst in a leading think tank, where her work included research projects on defense, security and economic policy issues. More recently, Eline worked at one of Brussels’ largest trade associations and managed its relations with representatives of the digital tech industry in Europe and beyond. Eline received Masters degrees including from Sciences Po in France, in political science, economics, strategic management, and business administration.

Mary Carol Madigan is a strategist for artificial intelligence at SAP, where she helps define how SAP leverages artificial intelligence to build the Intelligent Enterprise. Mary Carol also focuses on implementing AI ethics at SAP as well as other strategic topics key to the success of innovation. Prior to joining SAP, Mary Carol worked in new product development for UnitedHealth Group, where she focused on launching new healthcare services. She received her MBA from the University of Notre Dame and has a degree in Political Science from College of the Holy Cross.

Irina Orssich is working for the European Commission, in the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT ). She is specialised in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Her responsibilities include the coordination of European and national AI strategies (coordinated plan on AI) and ethical and regulatory aspects of AI. She also contributed to the work of the OECD Expert Group on AI. A German national, she has a law degree and a postgraduate degree in European law.

Christiane Woopen is Professor for Ethics and Theory of Medicine at the University of Cologne. There she is Executive Director of the Cologne Center for Ethics, Rights, Economics, and Social Sciences of Health (CERES). She is as well Head of Research Unit Ethics and formerly vice dean for academic development and gender at University Medicine Cologne. She is coordinator and leader of several international and national research projects concerning ethical aspects of reproductive medicine, neuroethics, quality of life, aging, genome editing as well as health and society in the digital age. She is former chair of the German Ethics Council and President of the 11th Global Summit of National Ethics/Bioethics Committees. Amongst others she was member of the International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO until 2017. In 2017 she was elected Chair of the European Group on Ethics of Science and New Technologies (EGE), which advises the European Commission. In July 2018 she was appointed co-chair of the newly established Data Ethics Commission of the German Government. Woopen is member of the Academia Europaea and was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class.

Fanny Hidvegi (@infofannny) is Access Now’s Europe Policy Manager based in Brussels. She develops Access Now’s European policy strategy and manages the EU office. Fanny got appointed to the European Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, she serves on the board of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU), and she is a Marshall Memorial Fellow (2019-20). Previously, Fanny was International Privacy Fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. where she focused on E.U.-U.S. data transfers. For three years Fanny led the Freedom of Information and Data Protection Program of the HCLU where she engaged in strategic litigation with journalists and other NGOs, participated in the fight against the national data retention law in Hungary, and promoted privacy enhancing technologies. There, she gained experience on how to operate as a human rights advocate in a restrictive environment. Fanny also worked as a consumer protection lawyer both in the public and the private sector. She has a law degree from Eötvös Loránd University Budapest and she spent one academic year at the University of Florence.

Gertrud Ingestad was born in Sweden in 1958. She did her studies in languages and history and worked as a language teacher in Stockholm before joining the European Commission in 1995.

Her main domain in the Commission has been resources, with a specialisation on people-and organisation-related issues, in DGT and DG CONNECT, where she also started working with IT from a digitalisation perspective. In January 2014 she joined DG DIGIT as Director for Information Systems and Interoperability Solutions, now Digital Business Solutions. Since 16 April 2016 she is Director-General of the Directorate-General for Informatics.

Her main driving force is constant improvement in collaboration.

Federico Milani is the Deputy Head of the Data Policy and Innovation Unit of CNECT Directorate General. The Data Policy and Innovation Unit is responsible for defining data policies to support access to data and support the further development of the European data economy.

Previously he has worked as a deputy head of unity in the Creativity unit to support the competitiveness of the creative industry sector.

Mr. Milani studies include a PhD in neural networks and intelligent systems, and a degree in electronic engineering.

Emanuele Baldacci is currently Director of Digital Services at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Informatics. From May 2015 to February 2018 he was the Director of Methodology, IT and Corporate Statistical Services at Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. From October 2011 to April 2015 he was the Head of the Integration, Quality and Research Department of the Italian Statistical Office. Before that, he was a deputy division chief at the International Monetary Fund, a senior economist at the World Bank and also served as chief economist at SACE, Italy’s largest trade finance group. He has a PhD in Demography from the Universities of Rome, Florence and Padua; he is the author of several scientific publications on fiscal sustainability, macroeconomic risk in advanced and emerging economies, population ageing and social protection and official statistics modernisation.

Matthew Newman is a chief correspondent for MLex and writes about data protection, privacy, telecoms, cyber security and artificial intelligence. Matthew began his journalism career in 1991 in community newspapers. He worked as a reporter in Riga, Latvia in 1993 and then moved to Chicago where he covered local news. In 1995, he became a personal finance reporter for Dow Jones Newswires, and was then transferred to Brussels in 1999. He specialized in EU regulatory affairs, including trade and telecom issues. He began covering competition for Bloomberg News as an EU court reporter in 2004. In 2010, he was named spokesman for Viviane Reding, the EU’s justice commissioner. In January 2012, he helped launch the commission’s proposal to overall data protection rules. He began working at MLex in April 2012 and has covered mergers, antitrust and state-aid cases. He spent a year studying French, history and communications in Grenoble, France in 1988 and 1989 and is a graduate of Boston University with degrees in history and journalism. He earned a diploma in competition law from King’s College in 2016.

Elena is leading the EluciDATA Lab, The Data and AI Competence Lab of Sirris. She holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics from UGent and has an extensive technological R&D experience, both in an academic and an industrial environment. She has worked for more than 25 years in the field of Data Analytics, Speech Processing, Bioinformatics, Knowledge Engineering and Multimedia at different industrial and research organizations in Belgium, UK, Bulgaria, Germany and Austria.

Sirris is a non-profit industry-owned research center, which has about 2.500 member companies, and is active in 13 technological sectors. Its mission is to improve the competitiveness of its member companies through technology and innovation. The EluciDATA Lab bundles Sirris’ expertise in advanced data processing and AI. The Lab’s mission is to stimulate data innovation and the uptake of data science and AI within the Belgian technological industry.

Mark Smitham is Senior Manager of EU Public Affairs at Huawei responsible for the policy area of cyber security and data privacy.

In this role, Mark works with policy and technical stakeholders on a range of cyber security issues, including security strategy and policy, 5G security, risk management, information assurance, and critical infrastructure protection.

Before joining Huawei’s EU Public Affairs team in 2019, Mark worked in EU Government Affairs (EUGA) at Microsoft. He came to Microsoft from the Directorate General for Communications, Network, and Content Technologies (CNECT) at the European Commission where he worked on the Directive on Security of Network and Information Systems (NIS) and actions to extend access and build trust as set out in the European Commission Communication on the European Cloud Initiative.

Mark has 15 years of experience in the policy areas of cyber security, cloud, IoT and 5G, standards, interoperability and public procurement issues of cloud services, including developing trust and improving the overall level of security across Europe.
In 2010, Mark joined the UK Government where he worked in the Government Digital Service and UK Home Office, leading cloud security public policy and managed large IT projects and delivered systems in very high-profile and secure environments.
Mark holds an M.Sc. in Information Technology from the University of the West of Scotland, UK as well as an M.A. from the University of Glasgow, UK.