We were honoured to have gathered 20 AI experts and leaders sharing their views and experiences in their domains from across industries on “The Role of Leadership in the Advancement of AI. Here is a short summary of the conference, held on the 26th October 2022.

Written by Solveig Helland, Senior Full Stack Engineer, Data Scientist – “The Role of Leadership in the Advancement of AI – Virtual Conference Wrap-up”

Speakers’ Handouts HERE

We started off with an interview with Ben Bloch. Ben is a serial entrepreneur and senior strategy executive and has spent 18 years at well-known and well-recognized technology companies. He

knows the world of business and technologies inside out, and importantly, he knows how to communicate about it transparently also as a journalist. The combination of these for us is fundamental when it comes to artificial intelligence. The media is a huge shaper on how this technology is being accepted by society and how it is being adapted and scaled in business. Due to technological issues, the interview could not take place, but our SwissCognitive team is working on having Ben back to our virtual studio for a recording or welcome him back on our virtual stage in December.

Then, we dived into our first panel discussion, We heard concerns about over-regulation dampening innovation in AI. AI is a tool, and it was discussed whether we should regulate this tool or its usage. We also heard that leaders need to learn how to balance the AI budget through the whole AI pipeline.

“Thinking Outside of the Box” panel discussion: Caryn Lusinchi, Founder, Andromeda AI, Product Marketing, Arthur AI, Responsible Artificial Intelligence Expert& Auditor, | Patrick Bangert, VP of Artificial Intelligence, Samsung SDS | Matt Hervey, AI and IP Expert, Co-Editor of The Law of Artificial Intelligence, Partner, Gowling WLG | Thomas Zweifel, Award-Winning Author: “Strategy-In-Action”, “Leadership in 100 Days”, Board Member, Paramount Business Jets, Luca Baldassarre, Lead Data Scientist, Advanced Analytics Center of Expertise, Director SwissRE

In relation to the Ethics of AI in healthcare, we learned that there is a lack of inclusiveness, for instance in Genomic sequencing and that the scaling of AI in medicine, is still very much an experiment. The particular importance of data management was highlighted and recycling of data with new policies and standards, for instance through federated learning, was highlighted.

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“Thinking Beyond Necessity”: Interview with Dimitrios Kalogeropoulos, Digital Health and Innovation Expert, The World Bank, European Commission, World Health Organization, UNICEF, Health Executive In Residence, UCL Global Business School for Health by Dalith Steiger, Co-Founder of SwissCognitive, World-Leading AI Network

We heard that in order to engage people at work leaders need to create an environment where performance can happen.

To prepare for the future leaders need to be educated on AI, and focus on human-machine collaboration, where loyalty should ultimately align with end users.

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“Dare to Lead” panel discussion: Tiarne Hawkins, AI Services Director and AI Data Strategist, Welocalize, Host & Moderator, You & AI | Carlos Ignacio Gutierrez, Co-Chair of the AI and Autonomous Systems Policy Committee, IEEE, AI Policy Researcher, Future of Life Institute | Shay Hershkovitz, Advisory Specialist, HeroX, Author – The Future of National Intelligence: How Emerging Technologies Reshape Intelligence Communities | Jeremy Darot, Head of AI, Scottish Government | Martin Ahlström, Agile Coach, Sunrise UPC, Former SwissRE

We heard that leaders need to ensure that AI supply chains are built in an ethical way. One step to doing this is to focus on using fair and responsibly sourced data. The Importance of AI literacy and expanding access to AI was also highlighted.

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“Humans in the Loop”: Interview with Iva Gumnishka, CEO, Humans in the Loop, Forbes 30 under 30 by Dalith Steiger, Co-Founder of SwissCognitive, World-Leading AI Network

We also heard how characteristics such as continuously wanting to learn, collaboration and humility are becoming increasingly important for leaders.

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“Connecting the Dots” panel discussion: Diana Gehlhaus, Research Fellow, Center for Security & Emerging Technology, Adjunct Policy Researcher, RAND Corporation | Marija Skundric, Strategy and Innovation Unit, Office of the Director-General, DG IPOL, European Parliament | Noelle Silver Russell, Chief AI Strategist, AI Leadership Institute, Award-Winning Technologist, Empowering Leaders with Innovation | Michael Kanaan, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School, Author, T-Minus AI | Advisory Board Member, The AI Education Project | Austin Carson, Founder & President, SeedAI. Formerly: Government Relations, NVIDIA

Finally, we saw the huge impact a diverse and inclusive perspective can have in STEM. Okezue Bell also weighted in how he as a 16-year-old leads change not only in his own community but also on global levels – in fact, impacting 65’000 children in over 80 countries. He also expressed his views how he sees the young generation is aligning with the potentials of new technologies and where he sees the biggest challenges.

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“Leading by example”: Interview with Okezue Bell, Deputy Director Research, Encode Justice, Research Student, MIT Media Lab, Developer – Mobile, Hardware, Research, WeArm Neuroengineering Researcher, Harvard Medical School, Founder & Director, Fidutam by Dalith Steiger, Co-Founder of SwissCognitive, World-Leading AI Network