Tendayi Viki / Ben Evans / Tim Harford / Sofie Hvitved / Agnes Stenbom / Torgeir Waterhouse / Angela Mills Wade / Petra Wikström / Gry Haugsbakken / Per Thorsheim / Richard Rumelt / David Carroll / Marty Cagan / Shivvy Jervis / Dr Ayesha Khanna / Shoshanna Zuboff / Jake Tapper / Brett King / Tom Xiong & Jacob Lovén, Digital Dragon / Roland Becker / Matt Eaton / Kate Adams / Erica Orange / Loek Vredenberg / Kalle Palling / Yves Bergquist / Doug Clark / Henrik Syse / Eirik Solheim / Håkon Pettersen & Tom Osnes Svellingen / Kimberly Larsen / Maria Amelie / Nicolai Møller / Miguel Silva / Emma Tryti / Steinar Søreide / Jan Åge Skaathun / Martin Wik Sætre
Tendayi Viki
Managing innovation processes and your core business at the same time is hard. Deciding to invite Tendayi Viki to educate us on this topic for mcb tech was an easy choice.
Viki is an award-winning author and an expert on how to innovate within large corporations. In his books “The Corporate Startup” and “Pirates in the Navy”, he outlines core principles and practices that established companies can use to build their innovation ecosystems. Listening to Tendayi will help you understand how companies can innovate like startups, without having to act like startups.
So leave your corporate suit and tie at home, and put on your favorite cap and hoodie. Tendayi is coming to town, and he brought sticky notes.
Ben Evans
Ever feel overwhelmed by the ever-changing tech landscape, trying to figure out what matters and how it affects you and your company? Imagine if someone could break it down and give you the key takeaways from the tech scene … Well, your prayers have been answered, by none other than Ben Evans!
Evans is an internationally renowned expert on emerging trends who has spent 20 years analyzing mobile, media, and technology, and has worked in equity research, strategy, consulting, and venture capital. These days he’s an independent analyst, which for the most part means trying to work out what questions to ask.
What matters in tech? What’s going on, what might it mean, and what will happen next? After attending mcb tech you might find some answers, and perhaps some new questions too?
Tim Harford
Think all economists are dull and uninspiring? Think again! Tim Harford is a rare but living proof that economics can be exciting, beautiful, and creative (not the illegal kind).
Being an economist, a journalist, and a broadcaster, Tim knows how to captivate an audience and tell great stories. In one of his books, “The undercover economist”, he explains in non-technical and familiar terms how Starbucks and other coffee providers price their products, why it is hard to buy a decent used car, why the health insurance system in the United States is failing, and why poor countries remain poor while China has continuously grown rich in the last couple of decades.
Sofie Hvitved
How will we communicate and interact in 2030? It might look quite different from today, and according to Sofie Hvitved, knowledge about the “metaverse” is a must.
Sofie Hvitved is a futurist and special advisor in Media & Technology at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies and is here to blow our minds on how the metaverse can shape our future ways that closer resembles sci-fi than real life.
Is it all a hype or is it the biggest innovation since the internet? Does it signal a brighter tomorrow for you and me, or a dystopian future resembling the dark sci-fi novels of the 90s? Join us and decide for yourself!
Agnes Stenbom
Artificial Intelligence is increasingly being deployed in all industries to provide us with better, and more tailored services. It is a powerful tool, both in the right and wrong hands, and it can change the world in subtle ways.
Agnes Stenbom is highly recognized as a dedicated and knowledgeable spokesperson for responsible use of data and AI in news, media and advertisement. Combining her love of journalism with her passion for technology, Agnes Stenbom is dedicated to finding new ways to leverage the best of both worlds.
She sees a clear path to using technology, particularly AI, to make a greater impact in journalism. Apart from her research engagement, Stenbom leads the work with Responsible AI at the largest media group in the Nordics, Schibsted.
Torgeir Waterhouse
Torgeir Waterhouse is an accomplished speaker on topics related to digitization, artificial intelligence, the internet, security, and much more. In 2007, Waterhouse was named one of the world's 50 leading figures in intellectual property law when he played a key role in forcing Apple to allow for iTunes to be downloaded on non-apple devices.
In addition to his role as a representative of the IT industry, he is also politically involved and has been asked to take positions on government committees on topics such as digital value creation, copyright, legal eavesdropping, and online gambling. He also holds several board and advisory positions for organizations and companies in the internet sphere.
Angela Mills Wade
Since 1991, Angela Mills Wade has been the Executive Director of the European Publishers Council (EPC), a high-level lobby group of Chairmen and CEOs of leading European media groups. EPC companies are delivering a diverse range of independently financed, professionally produced journalistically driven news, analysis, and entertainment across all platforms and devices bringing print or digital newspapers, magazines, journals, eLearning solutions, books, and broadcasting to citizens across the EU and globally. Angela has led many successful lobbying and press campaigns in support of publishing and media businesses and has specialist knowledge of media, copyright, data protection, and advertising and has been closely involved with the development and promotion of effective advertising self-regulation, including the innovative transparency and choice program run by the EDAA.
Petra Wikström
Petra Wikström is Director of Public Policy at the Nordic media- and digital consumer brands company Schibsted. Wikström has extensive experience in working with policy issues for several Nordic media companies, both as a self-employed consultant as well as head of public affairs for the largest commercial broadcasters in Sweden and Finland. She has worked at various media associations both in London and Brussels and has been a member of the board of the Association of Commercial Television in Europe (ACT). Petra, who has a degree in political sciences, is originally from Finland, but is now living in Stockholm with her husband and her two teenage children.
Gry Haugsbakken
Gry Haugsbakken is a Norwegian politician in the Labor Party. Since October 2021, she has been State Secretary in the Ministry of Culture and Gender Equality.
Haugsbakken has been involved in politics all her life, especially in working life policy and gender equality. She has previously worked as communications manager for the LO union for Industry Energy, as an adviser to the Labor Party's parliamentary group.
Per Thorsheim
Per Thorsheim is security manager for BankID & BankAxept at Vipps. He has previously worked in Nordic Choice Hotels, Evry, Telenor, and PWC, among others. He is perhaps best known for his burning interest in passwords and digital authentication and has for many years been a commentator in the media around security and privacy. He claims to know your next password.
Richard Rumelt
Richard Rumelt is a sought-after speaker and consultant who works with numerous corporations and other organizations around the world. He is widely known for his unique and penetrating perspectives. The McKinsey Quarterly has dubbed Rumelt as “Strategy’s Strategist,” and the Wall Street Journal as “Guru.” Rumelt’s clients have included institutions such as AT&T, Shell, Telecom Italia, Kings College London, O-I Corp, The National Bank of Canada, Lukoil, Microsoft, HP, Apple, and the US Army Special Operations Command.
His book, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy–The Difference and Why It Matters, has received many accolades and significant press attention and was short-listed in the Financial Times Goldman Sachs 2011 Best Business Book of the Year Award.
Richard Rumelt is the Harry and Elsa Kunin Professor of Business & Society at UCLA Anderson, a graduate school of business and management. Rumelt is widely recognized as having put in place many of the key foundations of the intellectual subject of business strategy in a series of highly-cited books and scholarly articles. Among his many honors and awards, he has been elected as the 2014 Fellows of the Academy of International Business Eminent Scholar.
Rumelt studied decision sciences and corporate strategy at the Harvard Business School, receiving his doctorate in 1972, and before that earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. His first job was at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, designing Mars Mission spacecraft.
David Carroll
Carroll has become a leading advocate for data protection rights in the United States and is also featured by Netflix in the film The Great Hack, a documentary providing an inside look into the Cambridge Analytica scandal and Carroll´s fight for his own data. Cambridge Analytica accessed the data of near 90 million Facebook users without their consent to target advertising for President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.
David Carroll is an associate professor of media design at Parsons School of Design at The New School in New York and former director of the MFA Design and Technology program. Also a recovering tech entrepreneur, David is more recently known for challenging Cambridge Analytica in the UK in a crucial test of data protection laws and the prosecution of data crimes. Before delving into the world of regulatory arbitrage, Professor Carroll was exploring the intersections between advertising, journalism, politics, data, algorithms, and user-experience design. He has written about his Cambridge Analytica data quest for Wired, Motherboard, and the Boston Review.
Marty Cagan
Marty Cagan is the founder of the Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG). Before founding SVPG to pursue his interests in helping others create successful products through his writing, speaking, coaching, and advising, Marty was recently senior vice-president of product and design for eBay, where he was responsible for defining products and services for the company’s global e-commerce trading site. Marty is a guest speaker at conferences and major tech companies around the globe, and is the author of the book "INSPIRED: How To Create Tech Products Customers Love."
His talk at mcb tech discussed the critical traits and behaviors of many of our industry's best product teams. Marty Cagan has worked with many of the very best technology product teams in the world. People creating the products you use and love every day. Teams that are literally changing the world. What he has learned is that there is a profound difference between how the very best product companies create technology products and the rest. And not minor differences. Everything from how the leaders behave, to the level of empowerment of teams, to how the organization thinks about funding, staffing, and producing products, down to how product, design, and engineering collaborate to discover effective solutions for their customers. In this talk, Marty gave a glimpse into some of the important differences that distinguish the best product teams from the rest.
Shivvy Jervis
Voted one of Europe’s most trailblazing women in digital, Shivvy Jervis is a four-time award-winning Innovation Futurist, Advisor, and Broadcaster. TED Global commends Jervis as having "a remarkable ability to analyze the socio-economic impact of new technologies", the World Economic Forum cites her as "a thought leader beyond compare" and Britain’s former Digital Minister finds Jervis to be "a true expert". Jervis' research, keynote speeches, and broadcasts have garnered an astonishing 22 pieces of industry recognition. This includes a national Outstanding Achiever award, being nominated a 'Woman of the Year' by public vote, and being named one of Britain's 10 most influential South Asian women. Shivvy has also been the youngest recipient worldwide of a prestigious academic fellowship.
A seasoned broadcaster, Shivvy currently discusses hot-button industry themes on the NextTech Insider series, hosts live debate broadcasts Ringside Sessions, and fronted a bold documentary. She is well-known as the former creator of the video series' Digital Futures and The Trailblazers which drew a 12 million+ viewership. Both were backed by the world's third-largest telco, for whom Shivvy was also Head of Digital for many years.
Jervis contributes as an independent expert to IBM's Global C-Suite Study Advisory Board and is called on extensively by organizations to make sense of the dizzying pace of innovation and identify which advances are best suited to their needs. Shivvy is equally at home headlining an event, presenting a high-profile broadcast, or chairing a demanding agenda. Her speaking style has been called ‘deeply persuasive’, ‘instantly relatable’ and above all, ‘uncompromisingly passionate’.
Dr. Ayesha Khanna
Dr. Ayesha Khanna is Co-Founder and CEO of ADDO AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) advisory firm and incubator. She has been a strategic advisor on artificial intelligence, smart cities, and fintech to clients such as SMRT, Singapore's largest public transport company, SOMPO, Japan's largest insurance firm, and Smart Dubai, the government agency tasked to transform Dubai into a leading smart city. In 2017, ADDO AI was featured in Forbes magazine as one of four leading artificial intelligence companies in Asia, and Ayesha was named one of South East Asia's groundbreaking female entrepreneurs by Forbes magazine in 2018.
Khanna has been named one of Singapore's leading female entrepreneurs and a leading Asian fintech influencer by Fintech Asia. She also served on the Singapore Ministry of Education’s Steering Committee on future skills and applied learning for emerging industries. Khanna is the author of Straight Through Processing and co-author of Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization. She is the Founder of 21C GIRLS, a charity that delivers free coding and artificial intelligence classes to girls in Singapore.
Shoshanna Zuboff
You recently saw Shoshanna Zuboff in the Netflix docudrama; “The Social Dilemma”, and were probably as shocked as the rest of us. Do you still sleep with one eye open?
Zuboff is a powerful global voice against tech giants such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon, and their use of our personal information. Needless to say, this is one of the scariest developments in the digital age and one with catastrophic consequences. We are being manipulated. We may have democracy, or we may have Facebook, but we cannot have both. We are living in the social and political chaos created by the digital age - what author and Harvard business professor Shoshana Zuboff predicted in her groundbreaking, epoch-defining bestseller “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism”.
In The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Zuboff describes a world in which we, as users of these platforms, are neither customers, employees, nor products. Instead, we are hugely exploited, as tech giants commodify our personal data for profits. Now, as we brace ourselves through pandemic-related waves of economic, social, and political instability, Zuboff presented the solution we must embrace.
Zuboff is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor Emerita at Harvard Business School, a bestselling author, social psychologist, and philosopher who is a thought-leader in technology and capitalism.
Jake Tapper
Where do we go from here? When journalists are framed as “enemies of the people”, and the lines between facts and lies are blurred - how can democracy prevail? Jake Tapper, CNN Anchor and Chief Washington Correspondent presented the story of the enthralling mix of fake news, alternative facts, disturbed leaders, and a never-ending election coverage - with CNN at the epicenter of it all. Will newsrooms go back to “normal”, will they forever change – or what is the new normal now?
Known for his unrelenting commitment to uncovering the truth and taking on politicians from both sides of the aisle, Jake Tapper is an influential and award-winning American journalist. He has worked closely with American politics for several years, representing a clear voice in the discussion of future journalism.
Tapper is the Chief Washington Correspondent for CNN and anchor of the two-hour weekday program "The Lead with Jake Tapper" and the Sunday morning show "State of the Union". As a widely-respected reporter with strong political expertise, Tapper played an essential role in covering the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.
Tapper has received several awards for his work and has been called "a staunch defender of facts in the Trump era" by The New York Times. He is recognized for being a fair and balanced commentator and critic whose unbiased reporting makes him an equal opportunity skeptic, confronting Democratic politicians just as strongly as he would Republicans. Tapper has also authored five books, including The Outpost, which debuted in the top 10 on The New York Times bestseller list, and The Devil May Dance.
Brett King
Is your business ready to adapt? Because chances are, you don’t really have a choice. Brett King, the King of Disruptors, provided a future vision on how huge tech shifts can impact your business as both a disruptive force and an area of significant opportunity. From selfie-pay in China, blockchain in Africa, self-driving cars with their own bank accounts and augmented reality tech, this proves once and for all that we're not in Wall Street anymore.
Brett King is a thought leader within disruption and innovation, a world-renowned futurist, and bestselling author - known for his outlook on the future of business and how technology is disrupting business, changing behavior, and influencing society and society. King is the CEO and Founder of Moven, a $200m mobile bank start-up, with the world’s first smart bank account. He has previously advised the Obama administration on Fintech policy and the Future of Banking and advises regulators and bank CEOs around the world on technology transformation.
His book for the post-Coronavirus world, The Rise of Technosocialism, looks to answer both how our children will live with AI and climate disruption, along with which economies will likely emerge victorious in an always-on, smart world. He has previously authored famous books like international bestseller Augmented: Life in the Smart Lane and Bank 4.0.
Tom Xiong & Jacob Lovén, Digital Dragon
From the world's largest internet population, a new world order has been created. Digital China has outgrown the rest of the world and has become the only real competitor to Silicon Valley. But what can we learn from studying the world's largest digital population and its services and companies? How are we affected going forward?
The Digital Dragon brought the audience on a journey where they explored extreme digital development, future user behavior, and global tech competition in the world's most important digital market.
Tom Xiong is the founder of Move Shanghai, a leading health and fitness platform in China, and Jacob Lovén is Head of Innovation at OMD, one of Sweden's largest media agencies, responsible to help large brands accelerate their digital transformation. Since the duo launched the podcast The Digital Dragon in 2016, it has become one of the most influential voices about how technology from the East and specifically China is overtaking Silicon Valley and impacting the rest of the world. Tom Xiong and Jacob Lovén addressed digital transformation, disruptive technologies, digital strategy, and user trends.
Roland Becker
Becker, CEO at JUST ADD AI GmbH, is a passionate and skilled engineer and entrepreneur, with a special talent for AI and deep learning. He had the somewhat crazy idea that the German Bundesliga, one of the most competitive leagues in the world, could benefit from using AI both to find and analyze new players – to find the best talents. He talked about "How to use AI to unlock human talent", and how AI can change your focus, give you unique and valuable business insight and transform the way you work. He also spoke on "The Next Generation of Chatbots – Intelligent, Offline, and Open Source". This session introduced RASA.ai, the leading Open Source platform for next-generation chatbots, and demos JAAI Agent, an enterprise management and collaboration tool for the RASA stack.
Becker is a passionate advocate for the use of artificial intelligence to unlock human talent. Roland has founded five companies and has over fifteen years of professional experience in the areas of Digital Content, SaaS, E-Commerce, Mobile, Social Media, and AI, thereof ten years in management positions. He holds an AI Engineer and a Deep Learning degree from Udacity and a master's degree in Political Science and Economics from the University of Hamburg. Roland has been selected as IBM Champion 2018.
Matt Eaton
Eaton presented the talk "Storytelling the Royal Wedding with AI – ‘Who’s Who’ among Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Invited Guests?". No longer a futuristic scenario, video AI and analytics know who and where you are, and how ‘important’ you are. For the royal wedding, where the world watched as Prince Harry got his Meghan Markle, Sky News viewers could also follow along as GrayMeta’s solution automatically identified the guests upon arrival.
Based in London, England, Matt plays a key role in strengthening GrayMeta’s global strategy and oversees international business development, partner relationships, and key accounts in EMEA. Matt has led initiatives and teams at media powerhouses such as BBC, Disney, Turner, Sky, WPP, Channel 4, UKTV, Foxtel, Virgin Media, and others.
Kate Adams
As tech continues to create new opportunities, people need to be ready to learn, grow, and change! Kate has a unique combination of talents, with a background in tech, focused on storytelling. She is a highly motivational, entertaining, and energetic speaker, and discusses how the reinvention of oneself is critical during this time of advancing innovation. How do you keep up? As tech continues to create new opportunities, people need to be ready to learn, grow, and change! Kate's message is a powerful way to remind ourselves that we need to change our story.
Storytelling is the common thread in Kate’s varied career. Kate graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communication. She started in television news before moving to event production, casting, and digital marketing and analytics. She spent eight years as the Assistant Casting Director at the Emmy-winning As the World Turns before giving her popular TED talk, Four Larger-than-Life Lessons from Soap Operas. She worked for digital-streaming company BAMTech Media and speaks to audiences around the world, sharing surprising inspiration from some of daytime drama’s most audacious characters.
Erica Orange
Erica Orange makes you think in ways you never have before. She evaluates the global trends that are shaping the landscape today and identifies the strategic implications (the “So what?”) that you need to be aware of. How can you think differently about the future? How can you put change in context so that you can better deal with it – and profit from it? How will the emerging trends affect you?
Erica Orange has been the Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of world-leading Future Hunters. Orange is recognized in the industry as having a unique, innovative, and fresh perspective. She works with several of the most influential Fortune 500 companies, trade associations, and public sector clients. Her ability to connect the dots, spot patterns, think critically and analytically, and translate that into actionable strategies is what has made her an invaluable asset to clients. She has also authored numerous articles, book chapters, and industry white papers on cutting-edge, future-focused topics.
Loek Vredenberg
Society is in the midst of a digitization push that the world has never seen, and we have only just started. AI and Cognitive technologies are changing the way we use machines, the way we view the world, and the way we engineer new products and systems. But how will AI itself evolve in the near future and what will this mean for us? How will it change the way we work and live?
Loek Vredenberg is the CTO of IBM Norge and works with IBMs technologies across the different business units. Loek has long experience with technical leadership roles within IBM internationally and for deliveries of complex IT solutions. In recent years, he has focused his attention on artificial intelligence and IBM's cognitive technologies that go by the name of Watson. Also, he is working in the area of industry platforms. Loek contributes to public debate around AI and gives lectures and keynotes on this topic in many different settings.
Kalle Palling
It takes 3 min to declare your taxes. It takes an hour to set up a legally functioning company. The first country to introduce e-voting, and everything is 24/7 - you never need to wait for officials to come to work Monday morning if you want something done over the weekend.
How can a state be so disruptive? At mcb tech, Palling gave a talk on how Estonia digitalized a whole country.
What happens when society becomes increasingly digital, where most aspects of life can be managed online. Kalle Palling, MP from Estonia, told us about how this has taken shape for his country, which is probably the most digital country in the world. Almost all parts of your life can be dealt with online in Estonia. What are the opportunities in this scenario for the country and for companies?
Kalle Palling was born in 1985 in Käru, located in central Estonia. He earned a degree in environmental management from the University of Tartu in 2009. In 2005 he joined the liberal Estonian Reform Party, where he served as the Secretary-General of Reform Youth from 2006-2007. He has also been a Member of several Municipality Councils.
In 2007, he was elected to the Estonian Parliament. Since 2014 he is the Chairman of the European Union Affairs Committee of the Estonian Parliament. He also belongs to the Economic Affairs Committee of the Estonian Parliament and acts as the Chairman of the Estonia-Germany, Estonia-Finland, and Estonia-Slovakia Parliamentary Group. Additionally, Palling served as a member of the Supervisory Board of the Tallinn Airport and Estonian Environmental Research Centre. In his work, he puts special focus besides EU issues also on topics relating to the sharing economy, energy, and connectivity. Furthermore, he is also following closely developments relating to the countries of the Eastern Partnership. In his free time, Kalle Palling enjoys sports and is especially keen on running.
Yves Bergquist
Bergquist is the Director of the “AI & Neuroscience in Media” Project at the Entertainment Technology Center, where his team is developing next-generation applications drawn from AI and neuroscience for the media and entertainment industry.
Yves is also CEO of AI startup Corto, which is building a comprehensive knowledge engine to help media and entertainment companies develop deep, “genomics”-type insights into how their content resonates with audiences. Corto creates integrated insights across content and audience data using semantic knowledge representation and probabilistic evolutionary meta-learning to autonomously “breed” new generations of machine learning algorithms from hundreds of “parent” algorithms.
At ETC, Yves and his team manage a half dozen research and development projects applying advanced AI and neuroscience methods to the challenges facing the entertainment industry, including AI-driven content development, production, postproduction, and marketing. Their efforts include using social media conversations to model audience decisions in the theatrical window, developing the first audience intelligence application focused on the Chinese market (“Gaosu”), correlating narrative structures in film to theatrical performance (“StoryCipher”), and a Deep Learning-driven semantic content classification application through vector embeddings (“film2vec”). Yves’ team has also worked on applying machine intelligence to model algorithmic structures of narrative and “interestingness” in film and TV, as well as building neurobiological models of audience emotions using fMRI.
Doug Clark
Doug Clark is EMEA leader for Watson Media which is IBM’s AI and Cloud Platform business across Media and Entertainment industries. He’s on a mission to help these businesses pivot and unlock the full power of Cloud and AI technologies to enable them to achieve their full business growth potential. Cloud offers uncompromised agility and in parallel, IBM's AI, known as Watson, can help expose and act upon deep business insights for competitive advantage.
With nearly 20 years of international experience in IT and including some 9 years leading IBM Cloud, Doug has seen and helped tackle most industry issues and brings SME passion to drive M&E forward despite the exciting turbulence and threats from emerging disruptors. A Serial Intrapreneur, prior to joining IBM via PwC, Doug’s held Director roles in Marketing, Sales, Distribution, and Process Improvement in 2 industry Blue Chips, so brings experience that underpins his passion in Tech and his eminence as a Cloud thought leader –Doug has previously won Cloud Personality of the Year in the UK Cloud Industry Awards.
Henrik Syse
The prominent philosopher and author, Henrik Syse, gave an insight into how humans relate to the concept of the future, how tech advancements impact us, and which dilemmas occur. Is there a connection between ethics, philosophy, and technology?
Henrik Syse is a sought-after keynote speaker and lecturer known for engaging his audience. He is a philosopher, author, and researcher with a broad professional background. Currently, he is a senior researcher at PRIO, professor at Bjørknes Høyskole, freelancer, editor, and lecturer. He has written and edited several academic and popular science books and articles on ethics, philosophy, religion, and war.
Eirik Solheim
Eirik Solheim is renowned for his inspiring and engaging presentations. Solheim shows how NRK has combined skills, cutting edge tech, and lots of creativity, to develop unique experiences and storytelling techniques for its viewers.
Eirik Solheim is a senior strategic advisor in the development department of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK). He is leading projects involving internet services, interactive TV, social media, and broadband strategies. His experience includes years of work as a consultant within the media and entertainment industry for Accenture and experience within digital production as a sound designer, editor, Steadicam operator, and photographer. He is the editor of NRK’s technology website NRKbeta.no and he’s also an experienced, and price-winning blogger with the web page eirikso.com.
Håkon Pettersen & Tom Osnes Svellingen
While we frequently look to both Silicon Valley and the new “Digital Dragon” of China for inspiration and innovations for our digital future, we need not leave our own backyard to find one of the Nordic region's most exciting and forward-looking digital public sector. Ranked as number four in the world on the Future Today Institutes Smart Cities 2019 Ranking, the city of Bergen leads the way in the digitalization of both public services and the public sector in Norway.
The City of Bergen has developed solutions that now are standard components in the digital transformations in Norway and is working with local, regional, and national public and private partners to solve problems that matter in the fields of education, transport, integration, democracy, healthcare, public services, proactive awareness, and safety. Bergen is developing a data lake with data from different aspects of city life to start using machine learning to monitor and predict public services
Håkon Pettersen previously served as a political adviser to city council Dag Inge Ulstein. He is a graduate teacher and has a master's degree in pedagogy. Pettersen is committed and dedicated to engaging in positive change, and is highly involved in different kinds of voluntary work as well as serving as the deputy mayor in the City of Bergen.
Tom Osnes Svellingen is notoriously optimistic about technological advancements and the way he believes they are going to fundamentally change our way of life. Tom is working as an enterprise architect for the City of Bergen, primarily focusing on big data and smart city-oriented initiatives, one of which being the mobility lab “MUST” where he helps push the bar towards radical thinking in how to solve today's issues of transport with smarter solution based on new technology and citizen involvement.
Kimberly Larsen
Kimberly Larsen has her quite unique take on the future. She is a unique media talent, with more than 20 years of experience from multiple sides of the creative industry, where she has been an actress, journalist, show host, director, concept developer, scriptwriter, manager, casting agent, producer - and now founder. She is the founder of timetoRIOT.com, a showcasing & hiring platform developed specifically for the creative industry. Three years after launch, they had 50K+ members, a team of 14, and offices in four countries.
Maria Amelie
Maria Amelie loves to disrupt narratives, she is a nerd about entrepreneurship and will someday sail to Antarctica to hang out with penguins. On a more serious note, Amelie is a sought-after public speaker and the co-founder of Factiverse and Startup Migrants; a tech startup working to fuel the economic growth in Europe with migrant founders. She is also an award-winning author, having written five books on freedom of speech, immigration, and entrepreneurship. Her first book, detailing her life as a refugee, went as far as contributing to changing the immigration laws in Norway.
Amelie is the Co-Founder of Factiverse, a company which automates the detection of misinformation with cutting-edge AI and NLP, making credibility checking in newsrooms effective, easy, and simple! By simply installing their browser plugin journalists and editors can conveniently fact-check the news and automatically identify fact-check worthy claims for any online information. Their patented solution is backed with 15 years of research by their founder and CEO; Vinay Setty, and helps prevent further spread of misinformation.
Nicolai Møller
Nicolai leads the User Experience in Bulder Bank and has a strong vision of building a financial super app to make users be one step ahead - all the time. Nicolai has a Master of Information Science from Aarhus University. He loves to be in that tight squeeze between user demands and business goals where it’s possible to create new and exciting products.
Bulder Bank is a new banking app that aims to provide financial services in a smarter, inexpensive, and more innovative way. They are going “all in'' on mobile - and mobile-only - but in return, they promise to do this better than anyone else in the market. Their current value proposition includes automatic interest reduction on your mortgage, subscription management, and a smart overview of your finances and spending.
Miguel Silva
Miguel Silva is the Founder and CEO of Visualyst. He has worked in the media and broadcast industries for many years, including Vimond Media Solutions and the Schibsted owned startup Rubberduck Media Lab. Miguel has a Master of Arts, International Relations, from Boston University.
Visualyst is redefining what video compliance workflows should look like. Their tool helps publishers get more movies and series cleared for distribution to consumers faster using artificial intelligence and machine learning. The easy-to-use tool revolutionizes the process of compliance by automating complex compliance review tasks and enables team collaboration and sign-off; making for faster and more accurate compliance checks.
Emma Tryti
Emma is the CEO of Kron and has a long track record in the fintech industry. Prior to joining the Kron team, Emma was CCO for eCommerce and Invoice at Vipps. Emma holds a Master of Economics from the University of Western Australia. She’s a problem-solver who loves simplifying everything from value chains and business models to technical solutions and customer experiences. The best and most sustainable investments have traditionally been inaccessible and too complex for most people.
Kron´s mission is to make sustainable investments available to everyone. Their solution is built on financial expertise and smart technology, combined in a user-friendly app. Kron is one of the fastest-growing industry players in Norway and recently launched a pension scheme, available to 1.5 million Norwegians, with a special offer to 200,000 members in the organization Akademikerne Pluss. This has resulted in an exponential growth in new customers and assets under management. With the speed of a startup and the professionalism of a financial institution, Kron offers the best of investment and savings at the lowest possible price.
Steinar Søreide
After working at Vizrt for 18 years, Steinar Søreide started working for Mediability, and Mjoll was founded. Steinar had an idea to use existing technology to develop a tool for journalists and content producers that not only made their workflow simpler but shortened the whole process. Soon after the seed was planted, the idea became reality and resulted in the success that is Mimir.
Mjoll facilitates the use of AI in Media Production to make everyday life for journalists and video editors more efficient. Their award-winning workflow tool; Mimir, is a cloud-based platform for automating a number of time-consuming tasks such as multi-language translation, transcription, and event tagging. It’s an easy-to-use tool for video content creators which harnesses the power of market-leading cognitive services from Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, and others to automatically make your archives searchable and more valuable.
Jan Åge Skaathun
Jan Skaathun is one of two founders of the Norway-based Fintech Quantfolio which delivers data-driven advisory technology for banks and wealth managers with some of the Nordics major brands on their client list. He has a passion for technology and Co-founded his first technology company in 1999. Since then he has co-founded / helped scale technology companies such as itslearning, TicketCo, Travis, and the new startup PNGR. He is also an early-stage investor and founding member of the Tripod Capital Collective investor community.
Martin Wik Sætre
Martin has 15 years of experience as a consultant in Accenture and his own company, where he managed large, international projects for clients as DNB, Yara, and Kværner. In Quantfolio, Martin has overall responsibility for operations and major client projects and relations. Martin has a genuine interest in understanding his customers’ needs to develop kick-ass investment advisory solutions for banks and wealth managers. In 5 years Martin believes he will be sitting on the top floor of Quantfolio Towers, waving to NCE Finance Innovation over the street in MCB.