Mark Ferguson (Chair)

Entrepreneur, Science Foundation Ireland

Mark Ferguson is Director General of Science Foundation Ireland and Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government of Ireland. He is an Honorary Professor at the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Manchester. His experience as a researcher led him to investigate novel fields, e.g. scar free healing, and led to applications for international patents. As an inventor and entrepreneur, he co-founded a rapidly growing European Biotech company. Read more

Hermann Hauser (Vice-Chair)

Co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners

Serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners, Dr Hermann Hauser CBE has wide experience in developing and financing companies in the information technology sector. He co-founded a number of high-tech companies including Acorn Computers which spun out ARM, E-trade UK, Virata and Cambridge Network. Subsequently, Hermann Hauser became vice president of research at Olivetti. Read more.

Kerstin Bock

CEO of Openers

Kerstin Bock is co-founder and CEO of Openers – a network of facilitators and service provider at the intersection of innovation helping technology companies enter new markets - and founding member and Head of Public Relations of Tech Open Air (TOA), one of the largest Tech Festivals in Europe. Read more.

Jo Bury

Managing Director of Flanders Institute of Biotechnology

Jo Bury is managing director of VIB, the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology. VIB is a multisite institution, integrated within the campuses of the universities of Ghent, Leuven, Brussels, Antwerp and Hasselt. It is based on a joint venture agreement of VIB with these five partner universities. Read more

Dermot Diamond

Principal Investigator: INSIGHT Centre for Data Analytics, Dublin City University

Dermot Diamond received his Ph.D. and D.Sc. from Queen’s University Belfast and joined DCU in 1987. He was Vice-President for Research at Dublin City University (2002-2004) and was director (2007-2015) and founding member of the National Centre for Sensor Research at DCU. In May 2014, in recognition of his academic contributions and achievements, he was admitted to Membership of the Royal Irish Academy. Read more.

Laura Gonzalez-Estefani

Founder and CEO at TheVentureCity

Laura is founder and CEO at TheVentureCity - a new venture and growth acceleration model that helps diverse founders achieve global impact. Originally from Madrid, Laura is passionate about making the global entrepreneurial ecosystem more diverse, international and accessible to fair capital. Mother of three children and proud dog owner, she opened TheVentureCity in 2017. Read more.

Jim Hagemann Snabe

Chair Siemens AG, Chair AP Moller Maersk A/S

Jim Hagemann Snabe is Chairman at Siemens AG (D), Chairman at A.P. Moller - Maersk (DK), and Vice Chairman at Allianz SE (D). He serves as a member of the Board of Trustees at the World Economic Forum (WEF) and is Adjunct Professor at Copenhagen Business School (CBS). He is former co-CEO of SAP AG and holds a Master’s degree in Operational Research from the University of Aarhus, Denmark. Read more.

Ingmar Hoerr

Founder and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of CureVac AG

ngmar Hoerr, PhD, MBA, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of CureVac and CEO until 2018, founded the biopharmaceutical company in Tübingen, Germany in 2000. His entrepreneurship was motivated by a surprising discovery during his doctoral research. As inventor of the mRNA technology platform he spun out the Start-Up from the Tübingen University with his colleagues. Read more.

Fredrik Hörstedt

Vice president of utilisation Chalmers University of Technology

Fredrik is highly committed to getting more innovation and business impact from investments in research. He believes that in each societal challenge lies a great business opportunity. He is currently a university vice president and has experiences from other significant sectors, such as business, research institutes and academia. Read more.

Heidi Kakko

Partner of BaltCap Growth Fund

Heidi has been contributing to building-up the early stage eco-system in Estonia – now one of the most successful start-up countries in Europe boosting the highest number of unicorns per capita – for more than a decade. She has helped to advance all stages of innovation funding – from prototyping as an expert jury of Prototron Foundation to the growth phase as a partner of BaltCap Growth Fund. Read more.

Bindi Karia

European Innovation Expert + Advisor, Connector of People and Businesses

Bindi is incredibly passionate about all things startup in Europe and has worked at the heart of innovation and disruption in Europe since 2000 – over which she has also influenced and co-designed policy and governance at the EU level. She is deeply inspired by entrepreneurship, and is the founder of a Boutique Advisory Firm, bindi ventures, focused on advising and connecting the dots across four core Innovation pillars (Corporate, Startup, VC Managing Partners, Government Innovation) all in the pursuit of their commercial success. Read more.

Anita Krohn Traaseth

Former CEO Innovation Norway

Anita is a Norwegian business executive, writer and former CEO of Innovation Norway (from 2014-2019). As the head of Innovation Norway, one of the Norwegian Government's most important instrument for innovation and development of Norwegian enterprises and industry, she also oversaw the important role as National Contact point for SMEs in Horizon 2020. Under her lead, Norwegian companies were highly successful in securing an important place in EU programs such as the SME instrument. Read more.

Jerzy Langer

Physicist, Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Prior to becoming an Emeritus Professor of Physics, Jerzy was active in the area of condensed matter physics. Some of his major internationally acclaimed scientific achievements and discoveries include the discovery of bistability of defects in semiconductors and their negative-U character and the co-discovery of a novel mechanism of efficient holographic storage in semiconductors with bistable defects and physics of recombination phenomena in solids. Read more.

Ana Maiques

Chief Executive Officer, Neuroelectrics

Ana is the CEO of Neuroelectrics, a company aiming to change the way we interact with the brain, developing innovative technologies to non-invasively monitor and stimulate the brain to help patients in need. Neuroelectrics technologies are being sold worldwide (in over 35 countries) for research purposes and as a treatment for depression chronic pain and stroke rehabilitation in Europe. Read more.

Marja Makarow

Biochemistry/molecular biology, director of Biocenter Finland

Marja’s career is very diverse and ranges from fundamental and applied research in biotechnology to top operational positions. She has held key positions at the level of strategy and implementation of science and innovation policy, university reforms, governance and management, assessments of national R&I systems. Since 2003, her responsibilities covered a wide array of areas, including technological, engineering, science, scholarly as well as artistic domains. Read more.

Carlos Oliveira

Serial Entrepreneur, Innovator, Executive President of José Neves Foundation

Over the past 19 years, Carlos has led the successful growth of several technology and digital enterprises. He has also involved in several M&As with publicly listed companies - Microsoft, Farfetch and SmithMicro. Carlos is the former Secretary of State for Entrepreneurship, Competitiveness and Innovation at the Portuguese Government. Read more.

Valeria Nicolosi

Chair of Nanomaterials and Advanced Microscopy

Valeria is Professor of Nanomaterials and Advanced Microscopy Schools of Chemistry, CRANN, AMBER & I-Form Director of the Advanced Microscopy Laboratory Trinity College Dublin. Valeria has dedicated her career to innovative research in future technologies and aspires to contributing to maximising the effectiveness of the innovation support ecosystem in Europe. Read more.

Bruno Sportisse

Chair and CEO at INRIA

Bruno has the strong conviction that fostering disruptive innovation in Europe is a key issue for the development of Europe. Since June 2018, Bruno is the Chairperson and CEO of Inria, the French public research and technology organisation for computer sciences and applied mathematics. Appointed by the French government to further develop excellence in research and technology at Inria, he reinforced the ability of Inria to transfer knowledge to enterprises and develop DeepTech start-ups. Read more.

Kinga Stanislawska

Managing Partner and Founder of Experior Venture Fund

Kinga is Managing Partner and Founder of Experior Venture Fund (EVF).

Kinga has been working in private equity / venture capital and finance for the past 18 years. She is the Vice President of the Management Board of the Polish Private Equity Association (PSIK). She sits currently on the supervisory boards of Cosmose Inc, Tylko, XTRF Management Systems, Tourmedica and iTaxi. As an independent board member, she represents pension funds in Supervisory Boards of publicly listed companies. Read more.

Roberto Verganti

Innovation academic, former RISE group

Roberto Verganti is Professor of Leadership and Innovation at the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano, where he directs Leadin’Lab, the laboratory on the LEAdership, Design and Innovation, and from 1 September 2019 at the House of Innovation of Stockholm School of Economics. He also serves as a member of RISE, the High Level Group of Research Innovation and Science Policy Experts at DG RTD of the European Commission. Read more.

Martin Villig

Co-founder of Bolt (formerly Taxify)

Martin Villig is the co-founder of Bolt (formerly Taxify), the leading European on-demand transportation platform with more than 25 million passengers in over 30 countries across Europe and Africa. Martin has been an entrepreneur for 20 years, and started and sold his first startup in 1998-1999. He has previously held management positions at Skype, Fortumo and NASDAQ Tallinn Stock Exchange. Read more.

Yousef Yousef

CEO of LG Sonic

Yousef Yousef is an innovator by nature with an entrepreneurial mind-set that never sleeps - LG Sonic is a leading example of a leading green innovative SME, providing environmentally friendly solutions to effectively control algae and biofouling in lakes, reservoirs, treatment plants, and other applications. Read more.