2021 LINEUP
Speakers Series
AI ETHICS: Beyond Theory And Into Practical Application
What is the fuss with ethics in AI?
Governance and Accountability in AI

Richard Foster-Fletcher
Founder of NeuralPath.io
Chair @ MK:AI
About
Richard is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Influencer, Speaker and Podcast Host. He is the Founder of NeuralPath.io, an AI Advisory Practice, Chair of MK:AI and Host of the Boundless Podcast: Designing Our Digital Future. He is a graduate of the MIT AI Strategy Course and a Wiley published author on the Future of AI. Formally with Oracle Corporation, Richard consults on AI innovation, ethics and the future of work for leading institutions including the International Institute of Digital Technologies and Henley Business School. He is a visiting lecturer in AI for Cranfield School of Management and has a working partnership with the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) to support their AI and Digital Transformation journey.

Dr. Ansgar Koene
Global AI Ethics and Regulatory Leader @ EY
Senior Research Fellow @ Horizon Digital Economy Research institute
About
Dr. Ansgar Koene is Global AI Ethics and Regulatory Leader at EY (Ernst & Young) where he supports the AI Lab’s Policy activities on Trusted AI. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Horizon Digital Economy Research institute (University of Nottingham) where he contributes to the policy impact and public engagement activities of the institute and the ReEnTrust and UnBias projects. As part of this work Ansgar has provided evidence to parliamentary inquiries, co-authored a report on Bias in Algorithmic Decision-Making for the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, and was lead author of a Science Technology Options Assessment report for the European Parliament on “a Governance Framework for Algorithmic Accountability and Transparency”. Ansgar chairs the IEEE P7003 Standard for Algorithmic Bias Considerations working group, was the Bias Focus Group leader for the IEEE Ethics Certification Program for Autonomous and Intelligent Systems (ECPAIS), and participates in the IEEE standards P2089 “Age Appropriate Digital Services Framework” and IEEE P2863 “Governance of AI”. Other standards development work includes participation in the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC42 Artificial Intelligence activities and the CEN-Cenelec Focus Group for AI.

Merve C. Hickok
Founder @ www.aiEthicist.org platform
About
Merve Hickok is the founder of www.aiEthicist.org platform and Lighthouse Career Consulting. She is an independent consultant, lecturer and speaker on AI ethics and bias and its implications on individual & society. She aims to create awareness, build capacity, advocate for ethical and responsible AI. Merve is part of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Working Groups (7008 – Ethically Driven Nudging for Robotic, Intelligent and Autonosmous Systems; and 2863 – Recommended Practice for Organizational Governance of Artificial Intelligence). She is an instructor at RMDS Lab providing training on AI & Ethics; and a ForHumanity Fellow working to draft rules for independent audit of AI systems. Merve is a founding editorial board member of Springer Nature AI & Ethics journal. She is also a technical/policy expert for AI Policy Exchange to support its mission to make the discussion on impact of AI systems more accessible and to drive better policy decisions. Merve currently works with a Nevada-based social enterprise, High Sierra Industries, focused on learning systems for individuals with intellectual disabilities. She manages IT and software projects, acts as the organization’s HIPAA privacy and security officer, and leads all the business process improvement initiatives. Merve has over 15 years of senior level experience in Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) and Marriott Corporation. She was responsible for BAML’s college recruitment and executive recruitment technologies across over 20 countries.

Patricia Shaw
CEO and Founder @ Beyond Reach Consulting Ltd
About
Patricia Shaw is CEO and Founder of Beyond Reach Consulting Ltd, supporting organisations in the delivery of ‘ethics by design’ across the whole AI lifecycle to build trust with customers, industry and wider society. Beyond Reach advises on the design and implementation of ethics public policy engagement, bespoke ethical governance frameworks, including providing expert advisory services and curation of data and ethics Advisory Boards, in the field of AI. Patricia has over 20 years’ experience providing legal, regulatory, government affairs, and risk management advice in the Data, Tech, and Financial Services sectors, both in house and private practice. She is a public speaker and writer in the area of AI and data ethics, privacy, policy, and governance. She is a co-Author of The AI Book (the first crowd sourced book on how AI impacts finance), co-Author of the Human Technology Foundation’s report on Technology Governance during a Health Crisis, co-Author of the forthcoming update to the Global Responsible AI Policy Framework for iTechLaw, and co-Author of the forthcoming Sweet and Maxwell book The Law of AI. She sits on various bodies and boards, including the Society for Computers and Law as a trustee; the IEEE ECPAIS ethics certification program as a member and contributing writer; IEEE Standards Project P7003 (creating international standards to mitigate algorithmic bias in autonomous and intelligent systems) as a member and contributing writer; Women Leading in AI as steering committee member; Royal Society of Arts Fellow and on the Advisory Board for the ‘Power over Information’ project concerning regulation of online harms; iTechLaw’s AI Committee as vice chair; and is a ForHumanity Fellow (creating and implementing international AI data and algorithmic audit standards).

Maria Axente
Responsible AI and AI for Good Lead @ PwC
About
In her role as Responsible AI and AI for Good Lead at PwC, Maria advises clients and partners across industry, academia, governments, and more, on how to harness the power of AI in an ethical and responsible manner. She has played a crucial part in the development and set-up of firms’ AI Center of Excellence, AI strategy and the Responsible AI toolkit, a suite of products dedicated to operationalisation ethics in AI. Maria is a globally recognised AI ethics expert, a Advisory Board member of the UK Government All-Party Parliamentary Group on AI and ORBIT, vice chair of techUK Data and AI leadership committee and member of BSI/ISO & IEEE AI standard groups. Maria is a passionate advocate for gender diversity, children and youth rights in the age of AI.

Lord Clement Jones
Former Chair of House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence
Consultant @ DLA Piper
About
Lord Clement-Jones was made CBE for political services in 1988 and a life peer in 1998. Until July 2004 he was the Liberal Democrat Health Spokesman and thereafter until 2010 Liberal Democrat Spokesman on Culture, Media and Sport, in the House of Lords. He is the current House of Lords Liberal Democrat spokesman for Digital and a former spokesman on the Creative Industries (2015-17). He is the former Chair of the House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (2017-18) and Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on AI. He is a founder member of the OECD Parliamentary Group on AI and a member of the Council of Europe’s Ad-hoc Committee on AI (CAHAI). He is Deputy Chair of the APPG China. From 2018, he has been a Consultant of global law firm DLA Piper where previous positions held included London Managing Partner (2011-16), Head of UK Government Affairs, Chairman of its China and Middle East Desks, International Business Relations Partner and Co-Chairman of Global Government Relations. He is Chair of Ombudsman Services Limited, the not for profit, independent ombudsman service providing dispute resolution for the communications, energy, property and copyright licensing industries. He is Chair of Council of Queen Mary University of London and Chair of the Advisory Council of the Institute for Ethical AI in Education, led by Sir Anthony Seldon. He was an external member of the Council of University College London and Chair of its Audit Committee (2012-17). He is a Board Member of the Corporate Finance Faculty of the ICAEW. He is a Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center which focusses on technology, altruism, geopolitics and competition. He is President of Ambitious About Autism, an autism education charity and school for children with autism and other communication disorders and its former Chairman (2001-08).

Shamus Rae
Founder @ Engine B
About
In 2019, Shamus formed Engine B which aims to expedite the digitisation of the Professional Services industry. Previously Partner and Head of Innovation and Digital Disruption at KPMG, Shamus is a dedicated change-maker, focused exclusively on leveraging AI and data to transform organisations.

Katherine Holden
Head of Data Analytics, AI and Digital ID @ techUK
About
Katherine joined techUK in May 2018 and has recently taken on a new role as Head of Data Analytics, AI and Digital ID.
Prior to techUK, Katherine worked as a Policy Advisor at the Government Digital Service (GDS) supporting the digital transformation of UK Government.
Whilst working at the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) Katherine led AMRC’s policy work on patient data, consent and opt-out.
Katherine has a BSc degree in Biology from the University of Nottingham.

Ellis Parry
Solicitor
Data Ethics Adviser @ Information Commissioner
About
Ellis is a solicitor with 20 years PQE and an MBA and was appointed in November 2019 as the Information Commissioner’s first Data Ethics Adviser, responsible for articulating the regulator’s view of the interplay between the inherently ethical principles of the GDPR and the growing field of data ethics. While at the ICO and as part of its response to the pandemic and the issues that has created for the public sector, he was sent on a secondment to the NHSX’s Information Governance team and sat as an Observer on the Data Ethics Board appointed to advise on the first iteration of the NHS’s Contact and Trace App.
Prior to the ICO Ellis was the Global Lead for Data Privacy at BP, responsible for maintaining its Binding Corporate Rules and designing its GDPR global change programme, and before that Ellis was Global Privacy Counsel at the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca where negotiating the relationship between medical research ethics and the data protection principles was a regular and constant feature of his practice. Ellis is a contributor to Sweet & Maxwell’s “Data Protection Law and Practice” 4th and 5th editions and their standalone guide to the GDPR.

Danilo Poccia
Principal Evangelist @ Amazon Web Services
About
Danilo Poccia is a technical evangelist at Amazon Web Services, where he leverages his 20 years of experience to support innovation and to help startups and companies bring their ideas to life.
Danilo focuses on event-driven programming and serverless architectures as well as the technical and business impact of mobile platforms and data analytics. Prior to joining Amazon, he worked at Sun Microsystems and Oracle. Some of his interests include IT, simulation and modelling, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and photography

Manoj Saxena
Executive Chairman @ Cognitive Scale
About
Manoj Saxena is the Executive Chairman and a successful serial entrepreneur who founded and sold two venture-backed software companies within a five-year span. He is former Chairman, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, San Antonio branch, and is founding Managing Director of The Entrepreneurs’ Fund IV, a seed fund focused exclusively on B2B AI and cognitive computing with nine active investments.
Most recently, Manoj was General Manager of IBM Watson (2011-14), where his team built the first cognitive systems. Manoj currently serves on the boards of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Communities In Schools, and the Saxena Family Foundation. Holder of six U.S. patents for AI and web services technologies. Saxena holds an MBA from Michigan State University, and a master’s in Management Sciences from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, Indi

Professor Leslie Willcocks
Professor of Work, Technology and Globalization @ Blueprism
About
Alisa has 10 years experience in tech startups and multinational companies commercialising new technologies including computer vision, AR and nutrigenomics as applied to agtech. She is the Head of Marketing & Operations for Greyparrot, a UK tech company using AI-based computer vision to power next-generation robotics and smart systems for waste management. Previously, she was Brand Partner at Blippar, developing cutting edge computer vision and augmented reality products with global brands. Alisa has an MBA from Imperial College and was President of the Imperial Marketing & Digital Society. She is a strong believer in the transformative power of deep learning and its potential to solve key challenges in our society.

Alisa Pritchard
Head of Marketing and Operations
About
Alisa has 10 years experience in tech startups and multinational companies commercialising new technologies including computer vision, AR and nutrigenomics as applied to agtech. She is the Head of Marketing & Operations for Greyparrot, a UK tech company using AI-based computer vision to power next-generation robotics and smart systems for waste management. Previously, she was Brand Partner at Blippar, developing cutting edge computer vision and augmented reality products with global brands. Alisa has an MBA from Imperial College and was President of the Imperial Marketing & Digital Society. She is a strong believer in the transformative power of deep learning and its potential to solve key challenges in our society.

Sachin Kapila
Chief Policy Officer @ Cervest
About
Sachin is a seasoned executive in sustainable development and natural capital. He served as VP in Shell’s Government Relations, responsible for interfacing with global organisations e.g. World Bank, IFC, OECD, G20 and UN – to ensure effective coordination of Shell’s policy in energy and climate. Prior to this, he had sole Group responsibility for establishing global biodiversity policy, developing tools and guidelines for forestry carbon, as well as building relationships with global organisations. Previously, he worked for environmental consultancy ERM covering EMEA, LATAM, and SE Asia. He holds an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College.