Thought leaders and industry specialists

Dr. Al Kuwaiti is currently holding the position of the Managing Director of the National Data Centre under the Supreme Council for National Security. He is also working as Assistant Professor (Adjunct) of Homeland Security Program at Rabdan Academy. In his current role Dr. Al Kuwaiti aims to create a fully governed approach to data privacy, sharing and processing as well as the unification and connectivity of government systems and digitization towards a smart government. In 2013, Dr. Al Kuwaiti joined the National Electronic Security Authority and held He held various positions. As the Executive Director of Government Operations, where he managed the National and International government relations. Executive Director of Operations Analysis and Cyber Security. In 2011, Dr. Al Kuwaiti was the Chief Technical Analyst at Ministry of Interior where he directed and managed various technical and administrative tasks. He also held other positions, such as Operations Director and CTO of the Counter Terrorism Center. He was also stationed as a Defense, Air, and Naval Military Attaché at the Embassy of The United Arab Emirates in Washington, D.C. Dr. Al-Kuwaiti has published numerous studies and lectured at many conferences such as IEEE, RSA, Cyber Warfare Europe, Tele Strategies, ISS World MEA, IDEX, International Anti-Cyber Crimes Conference, Future War Summit etc., Dr. Al-Kuwaiti presented the UAE Cyber Security Framework at INTERPOL in Singapore. He also organized various events such as National Cyber Security Exercise and Cyber Quest. His interests are consulting on detecting, monitoring and responding to cyber warfare, Network Forensics, Corporate Governance & Process, and national cyber policy. He is an honorable member of Society of Engineers – UAE, IEEE Society, Golden Key National Honor Society and Computer Society. He is a visiting lecturer on Cyber Security at few universities such as Khalifa University and National Defense College in Abu Dhabi.

Dr. Waltzman has 35 years of experience performing and managing research in Artificial Intelligence applied to domains including social media and cognitive security in the information environment.  He is the former Deputy Chief Technology Officer and currently Adjunct Senior Information Scientist at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, CA. Prior to joining RAND, he was the acting Chief Technology Officer of the Software Engineering Institute (Washington, DC) of Carnegie Mellon University. Before that he did a five-year tour as a Program Manager in the Information Innovation Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) where he created and managed the Social Media in Strategic Communications (SMISC) program and the Anomaly Detection at Multiple Scales (ADAMS) insider threat detection program.

Dr. Waltzman joined DARPA from Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories (LM-ATL), where he served as Chief Scientist for the Applied Sciences Laboratory that specializes in advanced software techniques and the computational physics of materials. Prior to LM-ATL he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, where he taught and performed research in applications of Artificial Intelligence technology to a variety of problem areas including digital entertainment, automated reasoning and decision support and cyber threat detection. He has also held research positions at the University of Maryland, Teknowledge Corporation (the first commercial Artificial Intelligence company in the world where he started in 1983), and the Applied Physics Laboratory of the University of Washington. Dr. Waltzman serves as Advisory Board Member of GLOBSEC HADES initiative.

Formerly: Executive Director, Beautiful Destinations (2018 - 2020); Facebook's first 'secretary of state' and founder of the Politics and Government division (2008-16); Google/YouTube Global Communications and Public Affairs (2007-08); Princeton University (2003 - 2007). California native; London resident.

Selim Eddé develops and leads public policy campaigns across the full range of policy areas that impact Google and the web. Key issues include technology innovation, economic development and intellectual property.
A passionate public policy leader, Selim is a thought leader on building innovation programs with governments and has a particular expertise in labor markets, entrepreneurship and job creation initiatives.
Selim advised governments in MENA and Africa, providing strategic programs and was previously the Vice President of Government Affairs at SAP, setting strategy, devising and implementing plans in Government Relations at SAP MENA. Formerly, Selim was the Country Development Officer at Cisco, and Senior Regional Lead at Hewlett-Packard and IBM.
A frequent speaker at regional and international events, with appearances in the specialised media, Selim graduated from Imperial College-London with a masters degree in management sciences. He is married, has two adult children and lives in Dubai.

Doowan Lee is a senior advisor to the Institute for Security and Technology (IST) and adjunct professor of politics at the University of San Francisco. He leverages emerging AI technologies to empower open society and support national security. He is a national security expert specializing in disinformation analysis and great power competition in the information environment. Before joining IST, he taught at the Naval Postgraduate School for more than eleven years as a faculty member and principal investigator. There he developed and executed operational and communications technology projects with federal R&D agencies to support the US government’s efforts to combat violent extremist networks and authoritarian regimes. In particular, he has closely worked with the US special operations community to support overseas operations. Central to this work is a focus on how the CCP and the Kremlin exploit social media and emerging technologies to threaten other countries' national security.

Ken is the executive director and chairman of international private intelligence and cyber investigations firm, IFW Global (IFW) headquartered in Sydney, Australia, ith offshore bases in various countries including the USA. IFW investigates complex cybercrimes and large-scale financial fraud across the world.

Ken and his team work closely with law enforcement, regulatory agencies and anti-corruption bodies to gather intelligence and uncover transnational criminal syndicates engaged in largescale cross border fraud and international money laundering. Ken also coordinates asset recovery operations on behalf of victims of serious fraud, using an extensive global network of intelligence and legal resources combined with state-of-the-art tracking technology.

Ken is a front-line investigator with extensive qualifications and experience in investigation, intelligence, surveillance, asset recovery, and security risk consulting, developed over a 32-year career. Ken has consulted to, and presented on, an array of cybercrime topics to various foreign governments and law enforcement agencies including Interpol.

Ken has received three law enforcement awards from the Philippine National Police, Anti-Cybercrime Group, since its inception in 2013 for his groundbreaking work on exposing cybercrime groups in the Philippines. Ken appears regularly in international news and television media, mostly for his work on uncovering and exposing cyber fraudsters.

Dr. Ahmed Alketbi is the Chief Information Security Officer of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, in which he leads and drives many innovative information security projects and initiatives, and he plays a key role in the enterprise Digital Transformation initiatives. Dr. Alketbi also the Chief Information Security Officer of MORO Hub, where he is leading the Cyber Security practice.

Hassan Al Noon began his career in digital security nearly 20 years ago. His expertise spans the fields of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Digital Security, all of which have led him to be named as one of the UAE’s official Artificial Intelligence and Robotics experts in 2020.

His deep knowledge of multiple digital security solutions and technologies gives him a distinctive expertise on global threats to cyber security. Early in his career, he led a team of researchers focused on cutting-edge digital security and cryptographic needs of the defense industry. He has also lent his knowledge and expertise to other agencies in the UAE to help protect their companies from cyber threats while enhancing their cybersecurity architecture.

Hassan is extremely passionate about the significant role technology plays and will exponentially continue to play in the evolution of humanity. Through his business, Multiverse Innovation Consultancy, he brings his extensive digital security experience and researcher mindset to various entities across the UAE to secure their digital transformation journey. His proficiency in Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain ensure that the latest technologies are efficiently adapted into the organizations he advises. Furthermore, his extensive global network of experts in this field allows him to offer his clients expertise across multiple platforms and countries.

Hassan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the United States, Illinois Institute of Technology. He received his Master’s Degree in Cryptology and Coding of Information at France’s National School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics of Grenoble.

Peter has been into neural networks since he was 17. He founded a start-up for automatic lip reading from video and has been a passionate Machine Learning Consultant for more than 4 years.

He is currently running a team of top talented software development and artificial intelligence for consulting and projects at Abelians -- a boutique AI consulting company consisting of a selected few top talents with vast and proven experience with Deep Learning projects and Business Development. Companies who work with us enjoy specific tailor-made solutions that give them an edge over the market. Faster results, easier operations and fewer mistakes in their processes are the main benefits for our clients.

Christina Nemr is Director at Park Advisors, managing projects at the intersection of disinformation and countering violent extremism (CVE). Christina has worked on CVE policy and programming for the past ten years in collaboration with governments, civil society, academia, and the private sector, with increasing focus on the dissemination of information and how it influences attitudes and behaviors. She spent five years as a CVE advisor with the Bureau of Counterterrorism at the U.S. Department of State where she was a founding member of the CVE program, working to develop strategy, policy, and programming.

Dr. Petros Violakis is an Assistant Professor at the Rabdan Academy (UAE), Research Partner at the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and Research partner of Intelligence & Cyber Security Lab and of Strategic Communications and Mass Media Lab of Piraeus University (Greece). He holds a PhD degree in Politics from Exeter University (UK). His research is published (2020) as a chapter titled “NATO-EU Relations: Is a greater EU self-defense autonomy, possible and useful?” in “Defence Integration of the European Union”, Hellenic Institute for Strategic Studies (HELISS) and (2018) as an academic book (monograph), entitled “Europeanisation and the Transformation of EU Security Policy: Post-Cold War Developments in the Common Security and Defence Policy” by Routledge. He has also published extensively in the areas of Fake News, EU Defence Policy, the Libyan Crisis, Turkey’s Neo-Ottoman Identity etc.

Megha is the firm’s Senior International Political Risk Analyst, focusing on global macro risks and opportunities for corporate and public-sector clients, especially with regard to cybersecurity, disruptive technologies, Industry 4.0 and emerging markets. Previously, she led our Asia analysis, specialising in South Asia, Indonesia and Thailand, and provided multi-year global security assessments for multinational corporations as well as advising on the regulatory outlook in developing Asian countries. Megha has extensive expertise in the political economy of India, in particular. She previously worked as a journalist in Delhi. Her broadcast appearances include outlets such as the BBC and NDTV, and she has been interviewed by Time Magazine, Times of India, The Hindu and Indian Express. Megha's book Communalism and Sexual Violence in India: The Politics of Gender, Ethnicity and Conflict was published by I.B. Tauris in June 2016 and by Tulika Books (under a slightly different title) in 2017. Before joining Oxford Analytica in 2010, Megha taught history at the University of Oxford and held the prestigious Past and Present Research Fellowship at the University of London. She holds a DPhil and an MSt from the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and a BA from the University of Delhi.

Lyric is an entrepreneur and engineer who founded Logically in 2017, after observing the breakdown in public discourse during the 2016 US presidential election, and the Brexit referendum in the UK. He first began identifying opportunities for early interventions during his time at MIT, and is motivated by the impact Logically can deliver through human-machine collaborations to mitigate risks posed by information disorder. Logically now works with governments, businesses and platforms around the world to uncover and address harmful misinformation and deliberate disinformation. Lyric was named Enterprise CXO Leader of the Year in the CogX Awards 2021, as well as being named by Ozy as one of the 100 people who defined 2020, and being announced as an honouree in the 2020 Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list in the Social Entrepreneurs category. In 2021, Logically was named one of the world’s most innovative artificial intelligence companies by Fast Company and awarded the Rising Star in Tech award at the CogX Awards.

Hoda A. Al Khzaimi is currently a research assistant professor at New York University Abu Dhabi and the Director of Center of Cyber Security in New York University Abu Dhabi. She served in different posts for research and development in Cyber Security and Cryptology for the past years. She headed the Department of Research and Development for Cyber Security and Cryptology in different national initiatives in the United Arab Emirates along with her associations to different security initiatives nationally and internationally. Alkhzaimi has a specific expertise in Cryptology; cryptanalysis, constructing and validating security hardware and software components, constructing trusted security architectures for different environments in different products for the respective industries. Hoda A. Alkhzaimi obtained her PhD in Cryptanalysis from Denmark Technical University. Her current research interests include Space, Aerospace, and UAV security, constructing and analyzing cryptographic primitives, validating and investigating links between different cryptanalytic approaches, and utilizing cryptographic primitives in different cybersecurity architectures as in Internet and Things of big data analysis among others.

Jessy El Murr is a certified media trainer and a multilingual digital journalist who spent over 18 years writing and presenting political, military and digital news stories for international news outlets and currently hosts ‘Stay Online’ a weekly digital tech show on Forbes Middle East

A seasoned field journalist and former BBC and Sky News Arabia correspondent, El Murr has recently acquired several media consulting and training projects for government and private entities across GCC countries including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, The United Arab Emirates and the State of Kuwait.

In 2019, El Murr led the digital production team for a confidential government project under the auspices of the Ministry of Defense in Saudi Arabia. In her capacity as the head of digital media department, she was entrusted with leading the production of digital campaigns related to counterterrorism and combating youth extremism. El Murr holds a Master’s degree in Integrated Journalism from Emerson College in Boston, MA and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the American University of Beirut.

Lindsay Whyte is an ex-military intelligence operative and now regional director at Constella. He was on the founding teams at cybersecurity startup CybSafe and Yapily, and consults on investigative techniques, open-source information and the Dark Web.

Completed his B.A in Business Administration & Marketing from the International School of IDC Herzliya, Dan has worked with various global ogranizations, including:

o Former Senior Strategy Consultant at Deloitte Digital
o Former Co-Founder, VP Business Development at a Parking Solution startup called “Spark”
o Former SMB Sales at Google (at European HQ)

Dr. Eyal Gruss is a machine learning researcher, consultant and teacher, working mainly in image and language processing. Eyal has a diverse industry background, including medical, financial, cyber, sensors, ads, web, real-estate and creative. Eyal holds a PhD in physics, and is a Talpiyot graduate. He is a mentor for Google Launchpad and gave ~150 talks, workshops and tutorials on machine learning or computational creativity to both professionals and the general public. Eyal is also a failed entrepreneur, and a guerrilla social activist. Eyal is a poet and a new-media artist, creating interactive installations, computer generated art, algorithmic poetry, audio-visual performances, AI art online interventions. Eyal also runs a new-media opportunities newsletter and hosts mini-residency for new-media artists interested in AI.