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Dr. David Bray is both a Distinguished Fellow and co-chair of the Alfred Lee Loomis Innovation Council at the non-partisan Henry L. Stimson Center. He is also a non-resident Distinguished Fellow with the Business Executives for National Security, and a CEO and transformation leader for different “under the radar” tech and data ventures seeking to get started in novel situations. He is Principal at LeadDoAdapt Ventures and has served in a variety of leadership roles in turbulent environments, including bioterrorism preparedness and response from 2000-2005. Dr. Bray previously was the Executive Director for a bipartisan National Commission on R&D, provided non-partisan leadership as a federal agency Senior Executive, worked with the U.S. Navy and Marines on improving organizational adaptability, and aided U.S. Special Operation Command’s J5 Directorate on the challenges of countering disinformation online, and Executive Director for the successful bipartisan Commission on the Geopolitical Impacts of New Technologies and Data that included Senator Mark Warner, Senator Rob Portman, Rep. Suzan DelBene, and Rep. Michael McCaul from 2020-2021. . He has received both the Joint Civilian Service Commendation Award and the National Intelligence Exceptional Achievement Medal. Business Insider named him one of the top “24 Americans Who Are Changing the World” under 40 and he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. With a background spanning technology, government and academia, Bray transformed the FCC's IT systems, earned CIO 100 Awards and delivered impactful speeches worldwide. As a Visiting Executive In-Residence at Harvard and Faculty Member at Singularity University, he also shares insights on impact and disruption. He's a passionate advocate for the Future of Work, Governance and Augmented Communities, emphasizing human-focused collaboration and individual choices.

Michael is a pilot, researcher and entrepreneur. He founded the Free Flight Research Lab to use non-rigid airfoil platforms to advance climate science, conservation and safety. He also developed robotic free flight platforms that would end up being the basis of Airbus’s Project Monark, which he led as Project Executive.

Dr. Melanie Rieback is CEO/Co-founder of Radically Open Security (the world’s first not-for-profit cybersecurity company), and “Post Growth” startup incubator Nonprofit Ventures. She designed and teaches the Post Growth Entrepreneurship' class in the Business School at the University of Amsterdam, is a Cybersecurity lecturer at Singularity University, and is a former Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Melanie is a Fellow of the Post Growth Institute, and she was also named “Most Innovative IT Leader of the Netherlands” by CIO Magazine (TIM Award) in 2017, and one of the “9 Most Innovative Women in the European Union” (EU Women Innovators Prize) in 2019. She is also one of the 400 most successful women in the Netherlands by Viva Magazine (Viva400) in 2010 and 2017, and one of the fifty most inspiring women in tech (Inspiring Fifty Netherlands) in 2016, 2017, and 2019. Her company, Radically Open Security was named the 50th Most Innovative SME by the Dutch Chamber of Commerce (MKB Innovatie Top 100) in 2016.*

SU has chosen to support impact-focused startups that are dedicated not only to solving humanity’s most urgent challenges but doing so at a global scale.

How is Singularity solving problems of female harassment? At Singularity University, we are unleashing a generation of women who are smashing through barriers and starting some of the most ambitious technology companies on the planet.

As a sought-after speaker, he has given keynote addresses and speeches around the world for organizations including Abbvie, Cisco, Oracle, Roche, E&Y, Accenture, Gilead, ENEL, Intesa, Banca Sella, Mediolanum, Alphabet, Internet Advertising Bureau, European Foundation for Management Development, and H-Farm. He is an author of Something New about the role of artificial intelligence in our society. The book is available in three languages, English, Italian, and Spanish. David is a mentor for the Thiel Fellowship, a Scientific Advisory Board Member for the Lifeboat Foundation, a Founder of the Open Government Data working group, and an Advisor to the Institute of Ethics and Emergent Technologies and numerous startups. He was the Chairman of the Board, and is an Advisor to Humanity+, an organization dedicated to promoting understanding, interest, and participation in fields of scientific advancement and emerging innovation that benefit the human condition. He was an Adjunct Professor at LUISS Business School in Rome, one of Italy’s leading institutions.

Arash Aazami is here for the big change: a world where every individual has the right to harvest, use and share nature’s ever-existing energy abundance. As founder of Unify.energy, global advocate for the Internet of Energy and chairman of UniversalRight, Arash inspires future-makers accross the globe to rethink energy and the role they can play in the establishment of a new 100% renewables-based, inclusive and just energy reality for all. After careers in music and online tech he founded the first energy company that earns more as it sells less energy, and his Path to Zero business model was awarded by MIT in 2014. His keynotes merge deep understanding of energy-related trends, geopolitics and digital technologies with the human elements: mindset, social design, values and ethics. As a strategic advisor, Arash has worked with the International Energy Agency, Singularity University, IRENA, the European Commission and multiple governments as well as a wide array of enterprises in energy, telco, IT, and various industries, bringing the Internet of Energy onto their strategic agendas. He has presented hundreds of keynotes and workshops for Singularity University, TEDx, European Commission, IEA, Blockchain Summit, IFMA, Young Presidents Organization, SXSW, Tomorrowland, The Next Web and many others, and was invited by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2022 for a dialogue on energy and climate. He also developed and curated various tech and energy hackathons, as well as Europe’s largest sustainability conference in collaboration with Tomorrowland: Love Tomorrow Conference. Arash wrote several publications and reports: From Volume to Value, Smart Multi Commodity Grid, Deltagrid 2050, and The Netherlands’ policy agenda for energy and digitalization ‘More than the Sum of all Parts’. His keynotes are widely acclaimed as insightful, inspiring, hope-giving and paradigm-shifting.

Dr. Annika Steiber is a senior executive, board member, advisor, author, and professor with a Ph.D. in Management of Technology. Dr. Steiber is an expert on leading practices in Innovation Management in a digital world. She was in 2024, the author of 17 management books including The Google Model: Management for Continuous Innovation in a Rapidly Changing World (1st edition 2014, 2nd edition 2024), The Silicon Valley Model: Management for Entrepreneurship (1st edition 2016, 2nd edition 2024), Managing in a Digital Age: Will China Surpass Silicon Valley? (2018), and Leadership for the Digital Age (2022). For five years, she was a professor and the Director for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Menlo College (California, USA) and is currently the Founder and Director of Management Insights and the Rendanheyi Silicon Valley Center.

Discover more about Singularity's 2019's Global Grand Challenges.