Jane Metcalfe is the founder and CEO of NEO.LIFE. She is also the founder, along with Louis Rossetto, of Wired Magazine and the former president of TCHO Chocolate. All of which have been ways to understand how technology is transforming our institutions, our food systems, and ultimately our species.
Prof. Olaf Blanke, MD
Bertarelli Foundation Chair in Cognitive Neuroprosthetics
Neuro-X Institue & Brain-Mind Institute
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)
Campus Biotech
Geneva, Switzerland
Olaf Blanke is Bertarelli Foundation Chair of Cognitive Neuroprosthetics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), where he directs the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience at Geneva's Campus Biotech. He founded and directed EPFL’s Center for Neuroprosthetics and is Adjunct Professor at Geneva University Hospital. Blanke’s research focuses on the neuroscience of consciousness and embodiment, human augmentation and personalized medicine. Blanke pioneered robotics and virtual reality technology in neuroscience of consciousness studies and cognitive psychology. His medical-translational activities are dedicated to preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic procedures and devices in neurodegenerative disorders (Parkinson’s disease, Dementia), mental health and well-being. Blanke is co-founder of Metaphysiks Engineering and member of the board of Mindmaze.
Maurizio Vretenar is an accelerator physicist who joined CERN in 1988 to take part in the design, construction, and operation of linear accelerators. From 2008 to 2017 he has been Project Leader for the construction of Linac4, the new 160 MeV linear injector for the CERN accelerator complex. Since 2013 he is engaged in a parallel activity as Coordinator of large EU-supported projects for joint particle accelerator R&D, taking responsibility of EuCARD-2, of ARIES, and of the new innovation-oriented IFAST. In recent years he has been increasingly active in the field of societal applications of accelerators, in particular in the medical field where he is presently leading the Next Ion Medical Machine Study (NIMMS), a new CERN initiative in the field of accelerators for cancer therapy with ions.
Janet Ginnard has 20 years’ international work experience in health, with broad professional experience in global health strategy, the pharmaceutical industry, pricing, market access and strategy consulting.
She is currently the Director of Strategy at Unitaid, a global health agency ensuring equitable access to lifesaving health tools for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, women’s health, children’s health, and health emergencies. She leads the development of new areas for Unitaid investment, with an emphasis on market analysis and strategic partnerships. She also coordinated Unitaid’s role co-leading ACT-A Therapeutics, part of the international response to COVID-19. She has a particular interest in optimizing access to appropriate drugs and diagnostics and applying private-sector business models to public health challenges.
She studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan and Bioscience Enterprise at the University of Cambridge, Judge School of Business, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Sonia Trigueros is a Professor in the field of Nanomedicine. She has a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from IBMB-CSIC and Universidad de Barcelona. She has been a researcher at Harvard and Oxford Universities. She is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Barcelona (Genetics department) and an Associated Researcher at the Biology Department at the University of Oxford. Sonia is the Co-founder and former director of the Oxford Martin School Institute of Nanomedicine at the University of Oxford. In 2021 she found her first international company NIVD www.nivd.word and she act as Founder and CSO.
Dr. Soli Makohliso is an international entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in the US, Switzerland and southern Africa. His current professional interests are in innovation and entrepreneurship for sustainable impact, with a particular interest in health. He currently serves the Deputy Head of the EssentialTech Centre at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), where he is actively involved in harnessing cutting-edge research to develop technology innovations that can leapfrog the development and drive sustainable impact in low- and middle-income countries. He was recently a member of the Ministerial Task Team in Technology Innovation Valorisation for the Department of Science & Innovation in South Africa and has held various advisory positions in the past in biotechnology innovation, and for the implementation of the South African Nanotechnology Strategy. He also served as the advisor to the Swiss government for the bilateral strategy with South Africa in science, technology & innovation. Soli received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering at Brown University in the US and his Ph.D. at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL).
Dr. Shirin Heidari is Senior Researcher at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, and principal investigator of a multi-country research project on sexual and reproductive health and rights in forced displacement. She is also Senior Technical Consultant on Gender at WHO, Gender, Equity and Human Rights unit.
Before joining the Global Health Centre, Dr. Heidari was the Executive Director of Reproductive Health Matters and Editor-in-Chief of its peer-reviewed journal, and prior to that she oversaw the Research Promotion Department of the International AIDS Society and was the editor of Journal of the International AIDS Society. She received her doctorate degree from Karolinska Institute in 2001, where she continued as an HIV researcher until she moved to Geneva in 2007.
She has been a board member of Amnesty International, Sweden and is the founding chair of the Gender Policy Committee of the European Association of Science Editors (EASE). She is the lead author of the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines and has given a TEDx Talk encouraging gender sensitive research and scholarly communication. She is also founding president of GENDRO, an association with the mission to advance gender-sensitive research and data analysis.
Richie Kohman is an inventor, chemist, and technologist with expertise in creating and leading high risk/high reward research initiatives. He is currently the Chief Scientific Officer at the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering where he oversees the creation and translation of biologically- and molecularly- based approaches to neurotechnology which can better study and treat brain disorders. He has numerous patents and publications and has worked at many academic institutes such as MIT, Boston University, and Harvard's Wyss Institute. His work has been published and highlighted by top journals and magazines such as Nature, Science, Forbes, and Wired.