Speakers

Prof. Dr. Paul Verschure
Director, Synthetic Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems (SPECS) Laboratory, Pompeu Fabra University

Paul Verschure is Catalan Institute of Advanced Studies (ICREA) Research Professor, Director of the neuro-engineering program at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalunya and the Barcelona Institute of Science and technology where he runs the Synthetic Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems (SPECS) Laboratory (specs.upf.edu). He is founder/CEO of Eodyne Systems S.L. (Eodyne.com), which is commercializing a novel science grounded neurorehabilitation and cultural heritage technologies. Paul is founder/Chairman of the Future Memory Foundation (futurememoryfoundation.org) which aims at supporting the development of new tools and paradigms for the conservation, presentation, and education of the history of the Holocaust and Nazi crimes.

He received his MA and Ph.D. in Psychology, and Paul's scientific aim is to find a unified theory of mind and brain using synthetic methods and to apply it to the quality of life enhancing technologies. His theory of mind and brain, Distributed Adaptive Control, has shed light on the function of a number of brain structures, used to control advanced mobile and humanoid robotic systems and has laid the foundation for a novel neurorehabilitation approach called the Rehabilitation Gaming System (http://specs.upf.edu/research_in_neurorehabilitation). Paul explores new methods for the simulation, visualization, and exploration of complex data to support his DAC theory and advance clinical diagnostics and intervention in neuropathologies such as stroke and epilepsy (brainx3.com). Complementary to his science, Paul has developed and deployed over 25 art installations (http://specs.upf.edu/installations). These include the biomimetic mixed reality space Ada experienced by over half a million visitors (2002) and more recently three virtual/augmented reality educational installations and applications for the Memorial Site Bergen-Belsen (2012 - ) which is now generalized to other sites across Europe.

Paul manages a multidisciplinary team of 30 researchers (specs.upf.edu) with whom he has published over 300 articles in leading journals and conferences in a range of disciplines. Paul collaborates with a wide network of international researchers. He has represented Switzerland at the Global Science Forum of the OECD, is chair of the annual Barcelona Cognition, Brain, and Technology summer school and co-chair of the annual Convergent Science Network’s conference Living Machines. Paul also hosts a podcast (csnetwork.eu/talks/podcast). He is the founder and academic director of the Interdisciplinary Master programme Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media at University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.

Christophe Montagnon
Director of Organisation, Information Systems and Quality Randstad Group France

Christophe Montagnon, agronomist, began his career in 1985 by taking over the family farm. In 1992 he joined a subsidiary of the Auchan group as assistant director of a restaurant. In 1996, Randstad recruited him to run two agencies in the Loire. Shortly afterwards, he managed the merger of LTI-Bourgogne into the Randstad Group and then became district manager for Burgundy and the Rhône-Alpes region.

In 2003, he created and developed expert centres that grouped consultants according to their professional specialisms. In 2009, after the merger with VediorBis, he was appointed Director of Organisation, with the main mission to provide the new entity with the concepts that led to Randstad's success: the role of the consultant and the expert centres in particular.

Since 2011, Christophe Montagnon has been Director of Organisation, Information Systems and Group Quality. He is also in charge of Yacht, a subsidiary specialising in the technology service

Chris Johnson
VP Global Enterprise Vertical Markets, Nokia

Chris Johnson is Nokia’s Senior Vice President of Customer Operations for vertical Enterprise markets including, Transportation, Energy, Public Sector and other key segments.  Chris joined Nokia on September 1, 2017 and leads an organisation focused on bringing mission critical communications technology to our key Customers and Markets, and has global responsibility to drive sales in these defined segments.

Previously at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, he was Managing Director, for the Middle East, Mediterranean & Africa (MEMA) region. Before this he gained experience with NCR, EMC, Sequent and HP, holding IT Sales, Sales Leadership and General Manager positions across a variety of technology businesses and geographies around the world.

Chris graduated from Humberside University at Hull with a BA (Hons) in Business Studies and enjoys sports, cooking and writing, playing and listening to music.

Zia Yusuf
Founder and CEO, Velocity

Zia Yusuf is a leading European tech entrepreneur who believes in the power of exponential technologies and artificial intelligence to improve our lives. He speaks passionately on a range of subjects including the experience economy and the instagram generation, conversational commerce, artificial intelligence, automation, and the role of machines in our future. He was named as one of the eight most influential Goldman Sachs alumni in Fintech by Business Insider, and has been profiled in the likes of Esquire, Forbes, Fox Business and CNBC.

Zia succeeded in creating one of the world's fastest growing technology companies, having grown revenues 14x in the last 12 months, with this growth driven by next-generation products based on pioneering artificial intelligence. He has assembled an elite team of engineers in London, including the likes of Ijaz Akram as Velocity's CTO (former Global Head of Engineering at Amazon Prime), and other data scientists and AI experts. Through harnessing AI, Velocity has been able to generate $700k of revenue/employee, 5-10x greater than old-economy players in the space. Zia recently spoke at Founders Forum, and Velocity counts the likes of Sebastien Thrun (Founder of Google X) as an AI advisor. 

After graduating from the London School of Economics, Zia enjoyed a meteoric career in finance, firstly at Merrill Lynch and then at Goldman Sachs where, aged 28, he was named an Executive Director. He covered the Automotive, Industrial and Aerospace sectors, learning what made great businesses.

He quit his job and co-founded Velocity, a tech startup whose mission is to inspire and facilitate extraordinary lives in the digital age. Velocity Black, its flagship product, is a revolutionary technology to enhance and optimise your life. A 24/7/365 always-on digital assistant powered by human and machine intelligence, which simplifies and enriches your time. From discovering and booking restaurants to hotels, from flying fighter jets to swimming with orca whales. Velocity Black is the fastest, most convenient, advanced way to get the most out of life.

Velocity has raised over $30m in venture capital, and has offices in London, New York, Los Angeles and Miami. 

• Want to fly to the edge of space? All you need to do is download this app, Marie Claire, 4 August 2017
• Velocity Black: the app that will let you fly to the edge of space,GQ, 7 April 2017.
• This is what you can do with the Velocity Black app, GQ, 29 September 2017
• The new app that lets you live like Gigi Hadid, Harper’s Bazaar, 21 June 2017
• New app giving instant access to fine dining experiences, Fox News, 29 August 2017
• Velocity's digital dine and dash plan, CNBC, 22 September 2015
• The 8 most important Goldman Sachs alumni who left to lead fintech startups, Business Insider, 10 July 2015