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Max Schrems is an Austrian lawyer, author, and privacy activist. Notably recognized as the individual who filed a complaint against the European arm of Facebook to prohibit the further transfer of data to the United States, a privilege established via the EU Commission's Safe Harbour Agreement and one he claimed was in direct violation of EU privacy laws. His actions were the ultimate catalyst to the accords dismantling and served as an important voice in the creation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR.) Schrems’ on-going fight to ensure data protection led him to found noyb, “none of your business,” an organization dedicated to closing the gap between privacy laws and the reality of corporate practice.

Edward Snowden has been called "The most wanted man in the world". The U.S. computer professional achieved international fame after disclosing in June 2013 thousands of classified documents that he acquired while working as an NSA contractor. Edward's leaked documents revealed numerous global surveillance programs, many of them run by the NSA and the Five Eyes with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments. A subject of controversy, Snowden has been variously called a hero, a whistleblower, a dissident, a patriot and a traitor. Like never before, his disclosures have fueled debates over mass surveillance, government secrecy, and the balance between national security and information privacy. On June 9, four days after the press first exposed a secret NSA program based on his leaks, Edward Snowden made his identity public. On June 14, 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice charged him with two counts of violating the Espionage Act and theft of government property, punishable by up to 30 years in prison. Edward flew to Moscow, where he remained in the airport transit zone for 39 days, during which time he applied for asylum in 21 countries. On August 1, 2013, Russian authorities granted him asylum. He lives nowadays in an undisclosed location in Russia. (Source: Wikipedia.com)

Marie Douglas is Vice President, Global Technology Service Providers (CSPs, MSPs, ISVs) Sales for IBM. She is responsible for and leads her team to work with Technology Service Providers, a NextGen segment that builds solutions for Customers based on solving a business problem with technology which include one or more IBM offerings. At IBM, she has been in a myriad of positions such as Channels Development, WW Sales Leader, and Business Partners Sales, all of these positions have made her a strong advocate for IBM’s ecosystem. Marie is a graduate of Franklin Pierce College with a dual major in Marketing and Business. She has received recognition at IBM with awards such as Golden Circle in 2007 as well as two Tivoli General Manager’s Team Awards.

Birgitta Jónsdóttir is a Politician and a former parliamentarian for the Civic Movement & Pirate Party in the Icelandic Parliament & chairman for IMMI (International Modern Media Institute). Birgitta helped create two political movements since 2009, the Civic Movement and the Pirate Party 2013, both parties were successfully elected to the Icelandic Parliament. She was selected as one of the International Politician of the Year in 2016 by Der Spiegel and shortlisted for the WTN awards in policy in 2014. Birgitta is a longtime activist and was a WikiLeaks volunteer and spokesperson in 2010. She played a crucial role in the WikiLeaks release of

Three times TEDx Speaker, Author and Technology Futurist, Ian is a leading voice in the technology space. Author of Meaningful Conversations, Cloud Wars, The Internet of Things (IoT) A Concise Introduction, The Internet of Things & the Future of Innovation, Make Me Like You, 21 Steps & Get Ahead, Ian is deeply passionate about helping audiences simplify their understanding of Technology and how to uncover more value. Ian is a frequent contributor to industry publications, including McGraw Hill Education, Huffington Post, & Techvibes and is the host of the Innovation Times Podcast. Passionate about helping newer generations develop key technology understanding, Ian also works with educational institutions & nonprofit organizations. His recent work includes Chang School (Ryerson University), Schulich School of Business (York University) and others. Ian is also a founding member of IOTAC (Internet of Things Association of Canada), Canada’s Only Internet of Things Advocacy group and Nonprofit dedicated at providing a platform & advocacy support for IoT initiatives in Canada. His latest book is “Meaningful Conversations- Value Creation in the Era of Digital Disruption”, targeted at technology industry professionals seeking to create more value from where they are and with what they have. Ian also holds a PMP designation and lives in Toronto, Canada with his wife and son. Follow Ian on twitter at @IanKhanlive or visit him at www.IanKhan.com

Fabian Thylmann started his programming career right out of school in 1997 by founding a company focused on statistical analysis and high-traffic websites. He then started the Manwin Group (now MindGeek) in 2004 which he grew to be the largest adult entertainment operator in the world in just five years. The sites in its network included YouPorn, PornHub, MyDirtyHobby, Brazzers and others which generated over 16 billion hits per month combined. Fabian stepped down from the company and sold his stake in October 2013 to focus on investing in early-stage startups through his new company, SN Invests, and to operate a co-working space in Brussels called SN-Cube.

Our Next speaker is Patricia Florissi. Patricia is Vice President and Global Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Sales. As Global CTO for Sales, Patricia helps define mid and long term technology strategy, representing the needs of the broader Dell EMC ecosystem in strategic initiatives. Patricia is the creator, author, narrator, and graphical influencer of the educational video series Dell EMC Big Ideas.

James Gosling received a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Calgary, Canada in 1977. He received a PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1983. The title of his thesis was "The Algebraic Manipulation of Constraints". He has built satellite data acquisition systems, a multiprocessor version of Unix, several compilers, mail systems and window managers. He has also built a WYSIWYG text editor, a constraint based drawing editor and a text editor called `Emacs' for Unix systems. He spent many years as a VP & Fellow at Sun Microsystems. At Sun his early activity was as lead engineer of the NeWS window system. He did the original design of the Java programming language and implemented its original compiler and virtual machine. He has been a contributor to the Real-Time Specification for Java, and a researcher at Sun labs where his primary interest was software development tools. He then was the Chief Technology Officer of Sun's Developer Products Group and the CTO of Sun's Client Software Group. He briefly worked for Oracle after the acquisition of Sun in 2010. After a brief stint at Google, he became the chief software architect at Liquid Robotics where he spent his time writing software for the Waveglider, an autonomous ocean-going robot. In May of 2017 he became a Distinguished Engineer at Amazon Web Services. Awards: The Economist Innovation Award, The Flame Award USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award, Officer of the Order of Canada, a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, the IEEE John von Neumann Medal, and a long list of patents.

Brian Behlendorf was a primary developer of the Apache Web server, the most popular web server software on the Internet, and a founding member of the Apache Software Foundation. He has also served on the board of the Mozilla Foundation since 2003 and the Electronic Frontier Foundation since 2013. He was the founding CTO of CollabNet and CTO of the World Economic Forum. Most recently, Behlendorf was a managing director at Mithril Capital Management LLC, a global technology investment firm.

Eugene Kaspersky is a world-renowned cybersecurity expert and successful entrepreneur. He is the Chairman and CEO of Kaspersky Lab, the world’s largest privately-held vendor of endpoint protection and cybersecurity solutions. Eugene began his career in cybersecurity accidentally when his computer became infected with the ‘Cascade’ virus in 1989. Eugene’s specialized education in cryptography helped him analyze the encrypted virus and understand its behavior and then develop a removal tool for it. In 1990 Eugene started gathering a team of like-minded enthusiastic researchers to create the AVP Toolkit Pro antivirus program. Four years later the University of Hamburg recognized this as the most effective antivirus software in the world. In 1997 Kaspersky Lab was founded, with Eugene heading the company’s antivirus research. Eugene holds an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Plymouth University, and was named as one the Top Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy Magazine in 2012.

Tatiana Tropina has more than 10 years of involvement in both legal research and various applied cybercrime projects at the international level. This includes carrying out a cybercrime study for the ITU Global Symposium of Regulators 2010, serving as a consultant to the UNODC Comprehensive Cybercrime Study 2013, World Bank's World Development Report 2016, Atlantic Council's report "Big Data: A Twenty-First Century Arms Race", and many others. Tatiana was the first Russian lawyer to defend a PhD thesis on cybercrime (Far Eastern Federal University, 2005). She also holds a Master of Communications Management degree from Business School of Strathclyde University, Glasgow, UK. She calls Freiburg, Germany her home, but mostly lives up in the air.

Mark founded Thawte, an internet commerce security company in 1996 while studying finance and IT at the University of Cape Town. In 2000 he founded HBD, an investment company, and created the Shuttleworth Foundation to fund innovative leaders in society with a combination of fellowships and investments. In 2002 he flew to the International Space Station as a member of the crew of Soyuz mission TM34, after a year of training in Star City, Russia. After running a campaign to promote code, science and mathematics to aspiring astronauts and other ambitious types at schools in SA, he started work on Ubuntu. Today he lives on the lovely Mallards botanical garden in the Isle of Man, along with 18 ducks, the equally lovely Claire, two black bitches and the occasional itinerant sheep.

Buzz Aldrin was born in Montclair, New Jersey on January 20, 1930 to Marion Moon — the daughter of an Army Chaplain — and Edwin Eugene Aldrin — a Colonel in the Air Force, a ScD from MIT, and an aviation pioneer. Buzz attended West Point Military Academy, graduating third in his class. He then joined the Air Force, flying 66 combat missions in Korea, shooting down two MIG-15's, and receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross. After a tour of duty in Germany flying F100's, he earned his Doctorate of Science in Astronautics at MIT and wrote his thesis on Manned Orbital Rendezvous. In 1963 NASA selected Aldrin to become the first astronaut with a doctorate degree. Known as “Dr. Rendezvous,” the docking techniques he devised for spacecraft in orbit became critical to the success of the Gemini and Apollo programs and are still used today. He also pioneered underwater training techniques to simulate spacewalking and, in 1966, performed the world’s first successful spacewalk and later set a EVA record of 5 ½ hours. On July 20, 1969, Buzz and Neil Armstrong became the first two humans to set foot on another world. The world’s largest television audience in history at that time — 600 million people – witnessed this unprecedented heroic endeavor. Upon returning, Buzz was decorated with the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the highest American peacetime award — along with numerous intentional honors, including the Congressional Gold Medal. Col. Aldrin has remained at the forefront of efforts to ensure America’s continued leadership in human space exploration. He devised a master plan for missions to Mars and has received three US patents for his schematics of a modular space station, reusable rockets, and multi-crew modules. He founded Starcraft Boosters, Inc. — a rocket design company — and Buzz Aldrin’s ShareSpace Foundation — a nonprofit devoted to addressing science literacy for children. Dr. Aldrin is an author of eight books including his best-selling autobiography “Magnificent Desolation.” He continues to inspire today’s youth with his illustrated children’s books “Reaching for the Moon” and “Look to the Stars.” He has also authored two space science-fact-fiction novels: “The Return” and “Encounter with Tiber.” His latest book — “Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration” — was published in 2013. As one of the leading space exploration advocates, Buzz continues to chart a course for future space travel and is passionate about inspiring the younger generations of explorers and innovators.”

Marietje Schaake has been serving as a Member of the European Parliament for the Dutch Democratic Party (D66) with the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) political group since 2009. She serves on the International Trade committee, where she is the ALDE spokesperson on transatlantic trade and digital trade. Schaake also serves on the committee on Foreign Affairs and the Subcommittee on Human Rights. Furthermore, Marietje Schaake is the Vice-President of the US Delegation and serves on the Iran Delegation and the Delegation for the Arab peninsula. In 2017 she was the Chief of the European Union Election Observation Mission in Kenya and is the founder of the European Parliament Intergroup on the Digital Agenda for Europe. She is a Member of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace and is a Young Global Leader and a Member of the Global Future Council on Future of Digital Economy and Society with the WEF.

A Silicon Valley icon and philanthropist for more than thirty years, Steve Wozniak has helped shape the computing industry. In 1976, Wozniak and Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer Inc. with Wozniak’s Apple I personal computer. The following year, he introduced his Apple II personal computer. In 1981, he went back to UC Berkeley and finished his degree in electrical engineering / computer science. For his achievements at Apple, Wozniak was awarded the National Medal of Technology by the President of the United States in 1985, the highest honor bestowed on America’s leading innovators. His television appearances include ABC’s Dancing with the Stars and The Big Bang Theory.

Jimmy Donal Wales is a U.S. Internet entrepreneur, wiki pioneer, and technology visionary, who is best known as the Founder of Wikipedia, an international collaborative free content encyclopedia on the Internet, and the Wikimedia Foundation. He is co-founder of Wikia, a privately owned free web hosting service he set up in 2004.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989 while working as a software engineer at CERN, the large particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. Sir Tim understood the unrealized potential of millions of computers connected together through the Internet and envisioned the Web as a global information sharing space. Sir Tim proposed what was to become the World Wide Web with a proposal specifying a set of technologies that would make the Internet truly accessible and useful to the world.. Despite initial setbacks and with perseverance, by October of 1990, he had specified the three fundamental technologies that remain the foundation of today’s Web : HTML, URL, and HTTP. He also wrote the first Web page editor/browser (“WorldWideWeb”) and the first Web server (“?httpd“). By the end of 1990, the first Web page was available. By 1991, people outside of CERN joined the new Web community, and in April 1993, from much encouragement from Sir Tim and his colleagues, CERN announced that the World Wide Web technology would be available for anyone to use on a royalty-free basis. Since that time, the Web has changed the world, arguably becoming the most powerful communication medium the world has ever known. Whereas only just over one half of the people on the planet are currently using the Web the Web has fundamentally altered the way we teach and learn, buy and sell, inform and are informed, agree and disagree, share and collaborate, meet and love, and tackle problems ranging from putting food on our tables to curing diseases. In 2009, Sir Tim recognized that the Web’s potential to empower people to bring about positive change remained unrealized by billions around the world. Announcing the formation of the World Wide Web Foundation, he once again confirmed his commitment to ensuring an open, free Web accessible and to all where people can share knowledge, access services, conduct commerce, participate in good governance and communicate in creative ways. In 2012 Sir Tim co-founded the Open Data Institute with Sir Nigel Shadbolt, which seeks to show the value of open data, and to advocate for the innovative use of open data to affect positive change across the globe. A graduate of Oxford University, Sir Tim is a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) andin the Computer Science Department at Oxford University.

Laura Dekker, the youngest person ever to sail around the globe. She traveled 27,000 miles in two years, completing the entire journey alone, and was aged just 16 when she finished. Laura starred in the 2013 film “Maidentrip”, which documented her incredible journey and the obstacles she faced.