H.E. Dr. Anwar Mohammed Gargash is a member of the Federal Cabinet of the United Arab Emirates and has served as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs since 2008. Between 2006 and 2016, Dr Gargash was the Minister of State for Federal National Council Affairs.

In addition to his ministerial portfolio, Dr Gargash was Chairman of the National Elections Committee, overseeing the UAE’s first elections which took place in 2006 and the subsequent elections in 2011 and 2015. He is also the Chairman of the National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking; the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Al Owais Cultural Foundation; Member of the Board of Trustees of the Emirates Diplomatic Academy; and leads the UAE team for the Human Rights Periodic Review.

Dr Gargash previously served in several other senior positions in both the state and federal government, including as a board member of the Emirates Media Establishment from 1999 to 2007, and was a board member of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry from 1997 to 2006.

Dr. Gargash received his Ph.D from King’s College, Cambridge and holds Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Political Science from George Washington University.

Mina Al-Oraibi is the Editor in Chief of The National, a daily English language regional newspaper based in Abu Dhabi. An Iraqi-British journalist, Mina has over 15 years of experience covering Middle Eastern, European and American affairs. Prior to assuming her role at The National, Mina was a Senior Fellow at the Institute for State Effectiveness (ISE) and a Yale World Fellow. At ISE, Mina is working on developing policy recommendations for improved governance in the Arab world, with a focus on Iraq and Syria.

Before starting her fellowship at Yale, Mina was the Assistant Editor-in-Chief of Asharq Alawsat, the international Arab-language daily newspaper 2011-2015. She has written extensively on US and European policies in the Middle East, in addition to conducting several high profile interviews including with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Iraqi President Barham Salih, and UNHCR High Commissioner Filippo Grandi.

Mina is an Advisor to the Global Dignity Day Movement and a trustee of the American University in Iraq – Sulaimani. Mina was named as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

An independent writer, lecturer, and consultant on international affairs. He was formerly Editor of The Economist from 1993 until 2006, having worked there since 1980 in Brussels, Tokyo, and London. He is an author and documentary film maker, and chairs The Wake Up Foundation, a charity dedicated to education and communication about the decline of western societies, which he co-founded with Italian film-maker, Annalisa Piras. In 2016 the Japanese government awarded him the “Order of the Rising Sun: Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon” for services to UK-Japan relations.

• 3 Question Interview
• Rise of Populism
• The Fate of the West

Formerly Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and later Dean of the prestigious Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, he is now Professor in the Practice of Public Policy at NUS. He was listed as Foreign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers in 2011 and Prospect magazine’s Top 50 world thinkers in 2014, and has recently published a book titled ‘Has the West Lost It?’.

• America’s Misunderstanding of China
• Conversation with Kishore Mahbubani
• Three Global Revolutions

Gordon Brown is the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2007 to 2010 and is widely credited with preventing a second Great Depression through his stewardship of the 2009 London G20 summit. Previously, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1997 to 2007, making him the longest-serving Chancellor in modern history.

• The Great Disruption (3 mins)
• Wiring a web for global good (17 mins)
• What makes a successful Brexit (65 mins)

Matteo Renzi is an Italian politician who served as the Prime Minister of Italy from February 2014 until December 2016. Renzi served as President of the Province of Florence from 2004 to 2009 and as Mayor of Florence from 2009 to 2014.

Renzi is the youngest person to serve as Italian Prime Minister and was the youngest leader in the G7. He was also the first serving Mayor to become Prime Minister. In 2014, the American magazine Fortune ranked Renzi as the third most influential person under 40 in the world, and Foreign Policy listed him as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers. Moreover, Renzi is nicknamed il Rottamatore (the Scrapper) due to his ambition of renovating the Italian political establishment. Renzi, who did not hold a seat in either house of Parliament during his tenure as Prime Minister, became a member of the Senate as a result of the 2018 general election. Following the 2018 election, Renzi announced his resignation as Secretary of the Democratic Party, effective 12 March 2018.

Syed Irteza Hussain, MD is the Chair of the Department of Neurology in the Neurological Institute at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. Dr. Hussain is a Consultant Neurologist with 17 years of experience. After completing his medical degree from the prestigious Aga Khan University he underwent extensive post graduate training in the US. He is American Board certified in Neurology, Vascular neurology, Neurocritical Care and Neuroendovascular surgery. He has been involved in setting up clinical and training programs related to disorders of circulation of the Nervous system in the United States. He has been working at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi since 2016. His research interests are related to stroke and acute neurological illnesses. He has special interest in the historical depiction of neurological conditions in history, literature and the arts.

A technical executive and inventor in the fields of display, imaging, and computer hardware, Mary Lou has been a project leader at Intel and Google X, and more recently an executive at Facebook on their Oculus VR project. She is founder of OpenWater a startup working on fMRI-type imaging of the body using holographic, infrared techniques, which led to her being named to CNN’s top 10 thinkers in science and technology.

• Inventor, entrepreneur
• Could future devices read images from our brains?,
• How we use light to see deep inside our bodies and brains

A novelist, poet, translator and autistic savant with Asperger’s syndrome who has incredible mental abilities as a result of a childhood injury

• The language of numbers
• Different ways of knowing
• The boy with the incredible brain

Defitech Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) where he explores the use of brain signals for the development of non-invasive brain-controlled robots and neuroprostheses. In this multidisciplinary research effort, Dr. Millán is bringing together his pioneering work on the two fields of brain-computer interfaces and adaptive intelligent robotics

• Mind-controlled machines,
• Telepresence robots give people with disabilities a feeling of being home
• Brain-machine interfaces

Anthony Geffen is one of the world’s leading documentary film makers and a pioneer in multi-platform storytelling. He has won four British Academy awards (BAFTAs) and eight American Emmy Awards. He followed Ang Lee and James Cameron to be presented in Hollywood with the Charles Wheatstone Award for his outstanding contribution to film and television. His diverse films include eleven projects with Sir David Attenborough including the BBC series The Great Barrier Reef, the theatrical film The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest and the recently acclaimed The Coronation with The Queen. He is considered by the media as a visionary for storytelling across different digital multi-platforms in 3D, interactive apps, and now immersive VR, AR and AI experiences. These include Space Decent, The Munduruku, First Life and Health VR. In 2007 he received the first British Academy Award for VR storytelling. Anthony is a fellow at St. Cross College, Oxford University.

Harold J. Bursztajn, M.D., a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Medical School, has served as senior Harvard Medical School faculty for over 25 years. He has been honored with Harvard Medical School’s highest award for medical-faculty mentorship, awards for psychiatric research, and national recognition via the Abraham Flexner Distinguished Medical Education Lectureship at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine. Internationally, Dr. Bursztajn’s service includes the Presidency of the American Unit of the UNESCO Bioethics Chair. Dr. Bursztajn, a Founder of the Harvard Medical School Program in Psychiatry and the Law, practices nationally and internationally as a clinical and forensic neuropsychiatrist, psychoanalyst, risk manager, and advisor on artificial intelligence-empowered complex decision making under conditions of uncertainty. He has authored 5 books and over 80 scholarly journal articles. Dr. Bursztajn continues to confidentially advise the risk management, virtual reality, and arts communities. He served as a founding investor in S2Security Systems and consults to officers and boards of both established enterprises and start-ups.

American journalist and editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, one of the world’s leading monthly publications on technology, culture, and the economy

• 25 years of Wired and what’s next for tech
• A look into the future
• The future of being human

Cassandra Kelly is a global thought leader, speaker and coach to leaders who dare: corporate and political. A tech entrepreneur and former CEO, Cassandra has served as advisor, board director and chair for some of the world’s most influential organizations.

She has worked in most of the world’s continents. She co-founded the multiple award-winning global corporate advisory firm, Pottinger, and subsequently CChange. Pottinger works with leaders to help them solve their most complex problems through creating destination-led strategyTM and assisting on inorganic growth. CChange accelerates meaningful outcomes by working with influencers and leaders to make change happen quickly.

Cassandra’s ability to compel organizations to embrace new opportunities, challenge the status quo and seize opportunities has resulted in numerous accolades.

She works with the B20/G20, was appointed as an international expert advisor to China’s One Belt One Road initiative and is a member of the European Union’s Global Tech Panel.

Toomas Ilves served as President of Estonia from 2006 to 2016. In this post, he was key in driving the initiatives in e-government and cyber security for which the country has been acknowledged as a world-leader. Educated in the United States, President Ilves graduated from Columbia University in New York City in 1976 and received his Master’s degree in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978. From 2002 to 2004, Ilves was a Member of the Estonian Parliament; in 2004 he was elected a Member of the European Parliament. During his presidency, Toomas Ilves was appointed to serve in several high positions including chair of World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Cyber Security. Since November 2016, Ilves has co-chaired The Global Futures Council on Blockchain Technology, a working group set up by the World Economic Forum focusing on how blockchain technology can be used to improve the security of the internet.

Admiral Michael Rogers is the former director of the National Security Agency (NSA), the former chief of Central Security Service, and the former commander of US Cyber Command. He served under both Presidents Trump and Obama and oversaw the NSA and Cyber Command responses to both the Snowden leaks and Russian interference in the 2016 US Presidential election.

Previously, Rogers was a surface warfare officer, a fleet information operations officer and fleet cryptologist. He has led direct support missions focused on signals intelligence aboard U.S. submarines and surface units in the Arabian Gulf and Mediterranean.

Rogers is an Auburn University graduate, he is also a distinguished graduate of the National War College and a graduate of highest distinction from the Naval War College. He is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Seminar XXI fellow; Harvard Senior Executive in National Security alum; and holds a Master of Science in National Security Strategy.

Jack Stewart is a senior reporter at Marketplace, an American Public Media radio show heard by 14.8 million people across the US, and available by podcast around the world. Based in Los Angeles, he covers transportation and sustainability, examining how new modes of mobility will impact our lives, cities, and wider environment.

Previously Jack was a senior transportation writer at WIRED. He has a degree in engineering which makes him a good fit to report on autonomous and electric vehicles.

Before WIRED, Jack spent 15 years working for the BBC, initially in London, from where he was sent to Baghdad and Basra in 2003 to cover the conflict in Iraq. In 2006 he was asked to become the host of Science in Action, the longest running program on BBC World Service radio.

Jack’s been a speaker and moderator at SXSW, The Aspen Ideas Festival, The Atlantic’s Big Science Summit, and the BBC’s World Changing Ideas Summit. He is a co-author on a scientific paper “On the future of transportation in an era of automated and autonomous vehicles,” published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Amin is the CEO of T Labs. He was formerly the director of strategy and Vice President of Strategic Relations at Singularity University. He brings a unique set of technological, entrepreneurial and policy perspectives to the dialogue of innovation on campus.

Before Singularity, Amin founded for-profit and social impact organizations in a range of domains including: artificial intelligence, peer to peer lending, bitcoin, human rights, international development, carbon offsetting, and solar energy.

Google Search ranks him as the world’s best guitar player – a title he readily rejects. In addition to his work at Singularity, he is building the World’s first hedge fund for the poor, as well as Reversopedia – a reverse encyclopaedia composed of things we know we don’t know.

Amin has a degree in artificial intelligence from the University of British Columbia, an MBA from Stanford, and an MPA in economic policy from Harvard. He attended Harvard and Stanford concurrently and graduated an Arjay Miller Scholar.

Josh Giegel is the CTO and Co-Founder of Virgin Hyperloop One, leading a world-class team of engineers making Hyperloop a reality.

Josh’s background is unmatched in thermodynamics, heat transfer, compressible fluid mechanics, power cycles, turbomachinery, nonlinear structural analysis, and hardware-based development. He leads the design, analysis, and innovation for thermodynamic elements of the Hyperloop system.

Previously, Josh led research activities at Echogen Power Systems. Josh was the sole inventor of four novel supercritical CO2 power cycles. He developed custom multi-objective, nonlinear optimization software, drastically reducing engineering man-hours.

Prior to Echogen, Josh worked at SpaceX as lead analyst on six successfully tested rocket engines including Merlin 1D and Super Draco. Josh’s analysis was critical to the success of the Dragon spacecraft where microgravity propulsion systems are an integral piece in docking and deorbiting from the International Space Station. He received an “Ass-Kicker” award for identifying and replicating the Falcon 9 first flight anomaly.