Robin Wauters is a seasoned European technology journalist and Founding Editor of Tech.eu, the premier source of European technology news, data analysis and market intelligence. He was formerly the European Editor of The Next Web, and before that a senior editor at TechCrunch.
Ieva is the First Lady of Estonia, wife of President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. She is dedicated to her work in the domain of cybersecurity at the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Latvia, commuting between Riga and Tallinn.
The RiseUp Summit is the biggest entrepreneurship summit in Egypt and the Middle East to date, with an attendance of more than 3000. The summit is known for bringing together the entire entrepreneurship ecosystem in Egypt and MENA for the first time. Before founding RiseUp, Abdelhameed worked at Injaz-Egypt where he helped create the first start-ups pipeline in all Junior Achievement countries. He is also a Global Shaper, which is a network of young people under the age of 30 from all over the world who are selected by the World Economic Forum for their exceptional potential and achievements.
Bogdan’s work is based on a simple yet powerful vision – to create a positive impact by understanding technology and human nature. He is the organiser of the How to Web Conference, the Start-up Spotlight mentoring program and start-up contest, and the MVP pre-acceleration program. He is also currently running TechHub Bucharest, the most important tech co-working space in Bucharest.
Muzaffar is the Founder of Alchemy Ventures, Lecturer at SSE Riga, Co-Founder of Startup Wise Guys Riga and author of the book ‘Racing Towards Excellence’.
He completed his BSc in Industrial and Business Economics at the LSE in 1991, received an MA in English Literature from King’s College in 1992 and his MSc in Development Studies from the LSE in 2007. In 1998, Khan joined Moore Capital Management (a 75 billion dollar hedge fund), quickly becoming the Moore Emerging Market (MEM) fund’s senior strategist. Over Khan’s five-year tenure, the team enjoyed double-digit returns every year, with assets under management growing from $250 million to $1 billion. Khan retired from Moore Capital Management in 2003, becoming the Vice Chairman of ACOPS, an international environmental charity and consultant to the Man Environmental Capital Opportunities (Man ECO) division of Man Group. The main focus of his current work is Alchemy Ventures, a social enterprise he founded in 2004. Alchemy’s mission is to increase social mobility and reduce aspirational poverty in the world’s youth. Now Khan spends majority of his time investing in startups and mentoring students for free. Khan’s mentorship philosophy and techniques are encapsulated by ‘Racing Towards Excellence’, a book he co-authored with one of his mentees, Jan Sramek.
Joanna is a communications & PR strategist for international ecosystem builders, fast growth companies and startups in tech and creative industries. Currently based in Paris, she is Managing Director at StartHer, a non-profit organization that supports women in technology and entrepreneurship, and chapter lead for Techfugees France. Joanna co-founded the European Tech event programme Startup Sesame and music project Tales & Remedies. Previously in charge of communications & PR for global entertainment and tech events Midem, MIPTV, MIPCOM and LeWeb, Joanna holds an MBA in Cultural Management in Europe from Paris 8 and a BA in European Studies from Reading University.
Kayvan has over 12 years of international experience in event organisation, entrepreneurship, sales, marketing and relationship management. Passionate about building communities and connecting people, he is constantly finding ways how to reach people through start-ups, scale-ups, tech organisations (VC’s, governmental organisations, investors etc.) corporates, NGO’s and the media. Kayvan is the founder and CEO of Challenge.rs (premium tech & innovation event) and one of the ambassadors of the Slush start-up conference and 4YFN, Spain’s largest start-up event. He is also a passionate Spanish guitar player and a car aficionado.
Sean is an American investor and entrepreneur from California. He has invested in over 120 startups and founded several of his own. Previously Sean was a Partner at 500 Startups, a venture fund and globally acclaimed accelerator program. He is also formerly the Founder and CEO of Wittlebee, the kids clothing club and Vice President, Online Marketing of Myspace. Sean is currently based in Oslo, Norway but spends a fair amount of time in both Silicon Valley and Los Angeles.
Alise Semjonova is the Co-Founder and Product Designer at Infogram, a data visualization platform with a mission to create and deliver tools for people to tell and understand the stories behind data.
Infogram is used by more than two million journalists, NGO activists, marketers, and educators worldwide. On May 2017 Infogram and Prezi, the visual presentation giant, joined forces to deliver most powerful tools for visual communications.
Alise has witnessed Infogram’s growth from day one while working on continuous improvements and studying overall user reaction, which spiked interest in technology acceptance and human digital product design.
Alise has background is in Graphic Design, but after her passion had grown in digital product development, she pursued attaining her Master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction.
Alise’s passion for startups, entrepreneurship, technology and digital design led to co-initiating Riga TechGirls, the first community in Latvia dedicated to educating and inspiring women about technology.
Alise has been selected by Forbes as 30 Under 30 in Europe – Media (2017).
Till is the Co-Founder/CEO of the Pirate Summit + the EXEC series and is very passionate about entrepreneurship. He and his team organize more than 100 events a year, some of them invitation-only, some of them public and free of charge, all of them focused on helping start-ups to succeed. He is the ambassador of Digital Economy in his home state of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany, and an active Global Shaper.
Tim is the Managing Director of Pioneers Festival. He has founded three companies and studied industrial/mechanical engineering and management in Germany and Austria. Tim is an entrepreneur and tech & innovation addict driven by an inexhaustible curiosity about the future. Based on his interdisciplinary education (engineering, mathematics, social science, economics and IT), he is able to model, simulate and design systems from different perspectives. During 2012-2015 Tim was not only responsible for start-ups & investors relations and products at Pioneers, but also became MD of the Pioneers Festival in 2013.
Kiran, 76 countries and 290 cities old is an Impact Entrepreneur and is on a mission to make the world a better place one piece at a time.
Passionate about building initiatives for Entrepreneurs, Women, and Young People he founded The August Fest in India which is now one of the largest Startup Festivals in Asia. August Fest turned five in 2017 and brings together fifteen thousand participants including Entrepreneurs, Creative folks and the Global Startup Ecosystems to celebrate arts and entrepreneurship every August. I Am Tomorrow is his latest initiative that discovers women role models across the world.
Kiran was also the brain behind India’s first social network during the pre-facebook era and over the last decade he launched and scaled up several tech and impact initiatives. Apart from creating brands and scaling up companies, Kiran loves to live on the edge and traveled to over 70 countries. The best way to catch up with him is while cruising through the Amazon Forest in South America or running with the Bulls in Spain.