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Kirsten Rulf has been working as a senior advisor for digital, technology, and innovation policy to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and current Chancellor Olaf Scholz since 2019. She is Head of Division for General Digital Policy Issues and “Nerd-in-Chief” at the Federal Chancellery of Germany in Berlin. In her strategic leadership position, Kirsten is shaping Germany’s and Europe’s role in the geopolitics of tech. What does European digital sovereignty mean in a global context? How should Germany navigate the Great Power competition between USA and China?

Kirsten first started to think about these issues during her decade-long career as an award-winning journalist: as current affairs correspondent for Germany’s flagship TV news program “Tagesschau”. She has published extensively on social, economic, and political ramifications of the Internet, social media, and specific technologies, like AI, including for the BBC. She has worked in London, Brussels, Tel Aviv, and Beijing.

Prior to joining the Chancellery, Kirsten was a McCloy Fellow at Harvard University and graduated with a Master of Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School. She taught courses on cyberconflict, on digital policy, and on compliance and computation at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School. Her first degree is a Masters in Latin and Ancient Greek Literature from Oxford University.

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Manasi Subramaniam is Editor-in-Chief at Penguin Random House India, where she heads the literary division’s flagship imprints: Allen Lane, Viking, Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Paperbacks, Penguin Classics. She has published some of the most exciting new voices across South Asia, including two winners of the Booker Prize, one winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and several winners and finalists of international awards including the National Book Awards, Folio, JCB, Andrew Carnegie Medal, Women’s Prize, Desmond Elliott, among others.

Manasi has been recognized for her contributions to global publishing and has been invited to the Frankfurt Buchmesse fellowship, the Bureau International de l’Édition Française fellowship, the Australia Council for the Arts Visiting International Publishers program, and the Zev Birger fellowship. She is committed to making publishing more inclusive and accessible and bringing underrepresented voices into mainstream media, and has spoken on trends in publishing at world forums.

Manasi has an MA in Renaissance Literature and has worked in amateur theatre and academic research on Shakespeare.

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Solangel Fernández is an architect, urban designer, and urban economist with 15 years of experience. Throughout her career, she has been in charge of directing urban development and sustainable mobility initiatives as well as large infrastructure projects, especially during trying political times. In Peru, Solangel directed the urban planning offices at the municipalities of San Isidro and San Borja where she and her team developed innovative strategies to transform public spaces for the wellness of communities. Additionally, she has participated and coordinated metropolitan urban plans, key for the development of the country, and directed urban regeneration projects in vulnerable human settlements over the hills of Lima. Previously, she worked on urban design projects in various cities across Uk, Europe and Asia.

Recently, Solangel held the position of Minister of Housing, Construction and Sanitation of Peru during the Transitional Government of President Sagasti. During her administration, as a historical milestone, the National Housing and Urbanism Policy and the Sustainable Urban Development Law were approved. She holds a Master’s degree in Urban Design from Oxford Brookes University and a Master’s degree in Land Economy from Cambridge University.

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Zhao Zhong is the founder and director of Green Camel Bell, a grass-root environmental NGO in Northwest China. At the local level, he conducts a range of programs and projects focusing on environmental education, water pollution monitoring, and community-based eco-agriculture and sustainable development. At the national level, he promotes and researches public participation in environmental decision-making and provides training and mentorship to grassroots partners. At the global level, he bridges Chinese overseas energy and forest investors and impacted communities of host countries promoting responsible green investment.

From 2015-16, as a Hubert H. Humphrey fellow, Zhong completed a year of course work and professional affiliation at the University of California, Davis on Natural Resources Management and Climate Change. In 2009, he was named a “Hero of the Environment” by Time magazine, and in 2017, he was nominated as an Asia 21 Young Leader by Asia Society. Zhong received his Bachelor’s degree in Electronic and Information Engineering from the Hefei University of Technology and a Master degree of Laws from the University of Hong Kong.

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Kyriacos Koupparis is Head of Frontier Innovations at the United Nations World Food Programme’s Innovation Accelerator. In this role, he leads a team that explores how emerging technologies – such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and robotics – can be harnessed to catalyze impact within the context of humanitarian assistance and food security.

Previously, he worked for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as Senior Innovation Advisor where he designed and administered multi-million dollar programs to advance social and environmental prosperity across the globe. He spent the last 15 years working at the nexus between innovation and international development – first as a biomedical researcher working on drug discovery for neglected tropical diseases and further on in his career by managing programs to build better communities in emerging markets through science, technology, innovation and partnerships. He has worked in more than 20 countries throughout Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, and Asia through his various roles at the U.S. Department of State, USAID, and the United Nations.

Kyriacos is a native of Cyprus, was born in Johannesburg, and spent his adult years in the USA. He holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of California, San Francisco. He is a graduate of the Management of Technology program at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Wayne State University.

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Huong Dang is a social entrepreneur and founder of HopeBox, an NGO based in Vietnam that provides employment, training, and opportunities to victims of gender-based violence. Prior to this she worked as Director of Partnerships and Strategy of KOTO, an organization that aids and empowers at-risk and disadvantaged youth in Vietnam. From a humble beginning as a street kid, Huong made her way to Melbourne via a scholarship and was honored as Victoria’s International Student of the Year. In 2021, Huong was recognized as the winner of Women of the Future under the category of Social Entrepreneur. She is passionate about social enterprise and education and believes that innovative approaches can solve social problems. She completed a Master of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia.