Rabbi Ranon Teller is a devoted and dynamic spiritual leader who combines his passion for Jewish music, education, and community with creative approaches to worship and congregational life. His television writing and music background has given him a unique ability to lead through innovative worship services and educational programming. As the senior rabbi at Congregation Brith Shalom in Houston, he has revolutionized prayer services, fostering strong membership engagement and forming deep connections within local and broader Jewish communities.

Raised in a suburban Detroit home, Rabbi Ranon grew up immersed in the practices and values of Orthodox Judaism as the second of three children. His early education occurred at Orthodox Day School, followed by Skokie Yeshiva High School outside Chicago. After completing high school, he moved to Israel, where he studied at an Orthodox yeshiva and dove into advanced Talmudic study, Jewish philosophy, theology, and sacred text. However, as he progressed in his studies, he began questioning the Orthodox practices he had grown up with, leading him to seek a deeper understanding of Judaism that would better align with his evolving spiritual identity.

1996, Rabbi Teller returned to Israel to explore alternative Jewish spirituality and practice. He became particularly drawn to contemporary Chasidic music and the teachings of Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, which helped him connect with Jewish traditions in new and meaningful ways. During this time, he audited classes at a Conservative rabbinical school in Jerusalem and participated in an intensive Jewish education program. These experiences led him to a profound realization that his calling was to pursue Jewish leadership, prompting him to return to the United States in 1998 to further his studies and become a rabbi.

Upon returning to the United States, Rabbi Ranon enrolled at the University of Judaism (now the American Jewish University) in Los Angeles, where he focused on Jewish education and rabbinic ordination. His dedication to his studies and growing love for Jewish learning were evident as he excelled in his coursework, culminating in an Honorary Doctorate from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in 2022. Exceptional achievements, including the Fingerhut School of Education Award for Outstanding Achievement and the Ziegler School Award for Excellence in Talmudic Studies, marked his academic journey.

In 2002, Ranon Teller was ordained as a rabbi and began his rabbinic career as the associate rabbi at Congregation B'nai Amoona in St. Louis, where he served until 2005. During his time there, the congregation faced a period of senior leadership turnover, and he was called upon to provide vision and stability. He successfully engaged young families and introduced innovative, interactive prayer services, further solidifying his role as a dynamic and compassionate leader. This experience helped shape his approach to leadership, which would prove invaluable in the future.

In 2005, Rabbi Teller moved to Houston to become the senior rabbi at Congregation Brith Shalom. His soulful, personable, and diplomatic approach to leadership quickly led to congregational growth and revitalization. During his two decades at Brith Shalom, he introduced innovative musical prayer services that united congregants and community members, making services more engaging and spiritually enriching. He also played a key role in securing a $1.5 million endowment for the synagogue and a $5 million contribution toward a building renovation campaign, helping ensure the synagogue's long-term stability and success.

Rabbi Ranon's impact extends far beyond the walls of his synagogue. He is deeply involved in the Houston Jewish community, actively collaborating with and volunteering for organizations such as the Houston Food Bank, SEARCH Homeless Services, and the Food and Faith Collaborative. In addition, he works closely with the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston and Alexander Jewish Family Service to support those in need, further reflecting his commitment to tikkun olam, the Jewish principle of repairing the world.

Outside of his professional responsibilities, Rabbi Ranon Teller enjoys a variety of hobbies and interests that further enrich his life. He continues to play blues and folk guitar and remains passionate about song-leading, bringing joy and spirituality through music. Reading non-fiction, particularly biographies and books on human nature, is another of his favorite activities. He also enjoys juggling, magic, and backpacking, often finding spiritual fulfillment in the natural world. He has written for Kolot magazine, the Jewish Herald-Voice, and the Jewish Journal. He co-authored the book, Peaceful Bones, sharing his insights and experiences with a broader audience.

Rabbi Ranon Teller is a devoted and dynamic spiritual leader who combines his passion for Jewish music, education, and community with creative approaches to worship and congregational life. His television writing and music background has given him a ... Show more

Philip Chidera is a Product Designer and entrepreneur building fintech, SaaS, and Web3 products for clients and companies across Nigeria and internationally. He is also the Co-founder of Termwise, a school management platform built for Nigerian schools. He serves as Design Lead (UI/UX) for Port Harcourt Talent Tribe under ATC Africa, where he mentors and supports emerging tech talent. He combines product design with AI and no-code tools to build and ship production-ready interfaces. His work and speaking focus on product design, AI, emerging tools, and the evolving ways modern digital products are designed and built.

Philip Chidera is a Product Designer and entrepreneur building fintech, SaaS, and Web3 products for clients and companies across Nigeria and internationally. He is also the Co-founder of Termwise, a school management platform built for Nigerian schoo... Show more

Sébastien est ingénieur logiciel chez OVHcloud à Nantes, dans l'équipe SIA (Service Integration & Automation).
Exerçant ce métier depuis maintenant plus de 14 ans, il a toujours aimé vulgariser et partager ses connaissances en public.

Il anime actuellement des conférences autour de la cybersécurité, de la gestion d'incidents et divers autres sujets techniques.
Portant un grand intérêt pour l'enseignement, il intervient également régulièrement dans certaines écoles et universités.

Il est également passionné par le théâtre, ayant joué 10 ans dans une troupe en région parisienne.

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Références
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https://blog.kimi.ovh/my-talks/

Sébastien est ingénieur logiciel chez OVHcloud à Nantes, dans l'équipe SIA (Service Integration & Automation). Exerçant ce métier depuis maintenant plus de 14 ans, il a toujours aimé vulgariser et partager ses connaissances en public. Il anime ac... Show more

I'm a Senior Product & Brand Designer with 7 years across fintech, B2B SaaS and health-tech; I design complex, high-stakes products end to end and then build many of them in code myself.

Most of my recent work lives at the intersection of design and AI-assisted development. I've been building and shipping live products with AI since mid-2025; and I've kept a steady cadence ever since, with new work going out most weeks. Full-stack apps with real users, dashboards, design systems and landing pages. That means what I hand over isn't a mockup waiting on a developer; it's often a finished, deployed product built with the same eye for craft I bring to every design decision.

My design foundation is deep. I've designed treasury and core banking systems for government and financial institutions, a compliance engine unifying multiple third-party APIs, clinical EMR dashboards validated with practising doctors, and a design system spanning an entire product suite. I care most about the hard, invisible parts; dense workflows, expert users, decisions where getting it wrong actually costs someone something.

I also lead design for FlutterBytes, recognised by Google as Africa's largest Flutter developer community; carrying brand, product and event design across every touchpoint.

Portfolio: design.headfavour.com

4 Products I've built with AI:
www.stampdx.com
www.wordmaths.com
www.moniematch.com
www.magznmaker.com

I'm a Senior Product & Brand Designer with 7 years across fintech, B2B SaaS and health-tech; I design complex, high-stakes products end to end and then build many of them in code myself. Most of my recent work lives at the intersection of design ... Show more

An experienced and certified Product Designer, with experience in different sectors including retail, beauty, fintech and ed-tech. I delivered my first talk at UX London 2026 and loved it. I got great feedback from it and I would like to bring my perspective to more events.

An experienced and certified Product Designer, with experience in different sectors including retail, beauty, fintech and ed-tech. I delivered my first talk at UX London 2026 and loved it. I got great feedback from it and I would like to bring my per... Show more

Développeur fullstack senior & game dev avec 10+ ans d'expérience

Java Spring Boot, Angular/TypeScript.
Godot (C#/GDScript), game jams régulières (Global Game Jam, Ludum Dare).

Mission : lier expertise pro et passion jeux vidéo pour des projets et des architectures résilientes sous pression 🎮💻

Développeur fullstack senior & game dev avec 10+ ans d'expérience Java Spring Boot, Angular/TypeScript. Godot (C#/GDScript), game jams régulières (Global Game Jam, Ludum Dare). Mission : lier expertise pro et passion jeux vidéo pour des projet... Show more

Eriol has been working as a designer for 15+ years working in for-profits and then NGO’s and open-source software organisations, working on complex problems like sustainable food systems, peace-building, censorship circumvention OSS, Human Rights OSS tools and crisis response technology. Eriol now works at The Open Home Foundation on OSS first smart home technology.

Eriol is part of the core teams at Open Source Design (http://opensourcedesign.net/) Sustain UX & Design working group (https://sustainoss.org/working-groups/design-and-ux/) and help hosts podcast about open source and design (https://sosdesign.sustainoss.org/)

Eriol is a non-binary, queer person who uses they/them pronouns.

Eriol was studying a Comp Sci PhD looking at how designers participate in humanitarian and human rights focussed open-source software projects and is looking for a new home for this research.

Eriol has been working as a designer for 15+ years working in for-profits and then NGO’s and open-source software organisations, working on complex problems like sustainable food systems, peace-building, censorship circumvention OSS, Human Rights OSS... Show more

Iva Silla već više od desetljeća vodi maštovite tematske razglede grada pod zajedničkim nazivnikom Secret Zagreb. To je samo dio njenog opusa u kreativnom turizmu i interpretaciji baštine, a trenutno joj je najveća strast razvoj igrificiranih istraživanja diljem Hrvatske.

Iva Silla već više od desetljeća vodi maštovite tematske razglede grada pod zajedničkim nazivnikom Secret Zagreb. To je samo dio njenog opusa u kreativnom turizmu i interpretaciji baštine, a trenutno joj je najveća strast razvoj igrificiranih istraži... Show more

Alessandro is a Community Evangelist / Sr Solutions Engineer in the F5 community team, where he empowers users in their journey to stay ahead of the curve by using the latest F5 / NGINX tech offerings. Alessandro is also the primary maintainer of the NGINX Ansible collection, the NGINX Docker unprivileged image, the NGINX community forum, and implementer of community best practices efforts on the various F5 GitHub repos, amongst being a contributor on various other OSS projects and initiatives at F5. Past speaker engagements include NGINX Sprint (previously known as NGINX Conf), Ansiblefest, AWS:ReInvent, cdCon, and Nerdearla. In his free time, Alessandro enjoys theatre, cinema, traveling, cooking, and any and all types of exercise.

Alessandro is a Community Evangelist / Sr Solutions Engineer in the F5 community team, where he empowers users in their journey to stay ahead of the curve by using the latest F5 / NGINX tech offerings. Alessandro is also the primary maintainer of the... Show more

In his current role Todd co-launches a new venture backed startup every few months, acting as an interim CTO / founding engineer. Over Todd’s close to 20 year career, he has held titles such as head of engineering, director of engineering and principal software engineer. Todd loves to build things and, like many of us, has been enjoying the shift into the AI native mindset of software development. When Todd is not telling an AI to write code, he can be found strumming his guitar in random places, such as the beach, in the mountains, on his front porch, or even at a tech conference such as this one :). Todd is passionate about creating positive experiences for people, including through writing music, building products, and community building . Todd is always open for a jam session or the occasional paired programming with strangers, just ask.

In his current role Todd co-launches a new venture backed startup every few months, acting as an interim CTO / founding engineer. Over Todd’s close to 20 year career, he has held titles such as head of engineering, director of engineering and princip... Show more

Dan has been building software since before the dot-com days, responsible for the modernization, site reliability and greenfield projects, as well as responsible for hiring software and devops engineers at various stages and skill levels, from junior to architect level. He has built a career at TRIRIGA, IBM, Wipro, and now as the Global Director of Software for Arcadis, a leading design, consultancy, engineering, project and management services across every phase of asset creation and management for projects all around the world.

Dan has been building software since before the dot-com days, responsible for the modernization, site reliability and greenfield projects, as well as responsible for hiring software and devops engineers at various stages and skill levels, from junior... Show more

Press: Featured in National Law Review and Atlanta Today, with syndication across the EIN Presswire network of 800+ outlets, and praised by industry analyst Jeff Kagan as "a clear example of how quickly the AI landscape is evolving and new opportunities are emerging" (March 2026).

Wilson Guenther is the Founder, CEO and CTO of Drivia — what Wilson calls "the personalization infrastructure of the AI era." Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, adopted at age 10 by an American family, Wilson arrived in the United States on New Year's Eve 2013. He taught himself to code in college and shipped 1,891+ commits across six live software products from his dorm room — no funding, no co-founders.

Drivia is the Canvas-class adaptive AI platform powering enterprise learning, higher ed, and public-sector workforce training. JAX, Drivia's adaptive AI tutor, runs Q-learning + Bayesian Knowledge Tracing on top of a UCB1 router across six AI models (Claude, Gemini, OpenAI, Grok, DeepSeek, Groq) with circuit breakers — co-architected with Frank Morales, a Boeing Fellow. Drivia is currently in active multi-million-dollar contract negotiation with TechServ Corporation as channel partner across healthcare, public safety, workforce, and city/county program markets. Accelerators: NVIDIA Inception, AMD Instinct, AWS Activate.

Wilson is also the author of the Drift Thesis — original IP on context decay and adaptive intelligence — and the System Architect newsletter on LinkedIn (16,100% growth in seven days). He has 2.2M+ combined social following (TikTok 1.1M, Instagram 633K, Facebook 471K) with one video at 44 million views, has appeared on Family Feud (Steve Harvey), Rich House Poor House (UK), and KVUE Austin News, and has consulted for Linktree and Beacons.

Wilson speaks on adaptive AI engineering, multi-model routing and inference cost engineering, the Drift Thesis (context decay, hallucination root cause), distribution as a moat for AI builders, and immigrant founder origin.

Press: Featured in National Law Review and Atlanta Today, with syndication across the EIN Presswire network of 800+ outlets, and praised by industry analyst Jeff Kagan as "a clear example of how quickly the AI landscape is evolving and new opportunit... Show more

Staff Software Engineer · GDG Nantes Android Lead · AndroidMakers by droidcon Staff · Watercolorist

Staff Software Engineer · GDG Nantes Android Lead · AndroidMakers by droidcon Staff · Watercolorist Show more

Phil Godfrey is a Principal Data Analytics & AI Consultant at Vertice Cloud.

He has over 10 years' experience working with data, in a combination of Finance Systems Development and Advanced Analytics in Healthcare roles.

He is a keen contributor to the Oracle community on all things Analytics and Data Science, which are shared on his personal blog, presenting at various Oracle User Group events across the UK & Ireland, and through the Analytics and Data Oracle User Community (AnDOUC).

Outside of work he is a keen photographer and set-up a photography business in January 2021.

Phil Godfrey is a Principal Data Analytics & AI Consultant at Vertice Cloud. He has over 10 years' experience working with data, in a combination of Finance Systems Development and Advanced Analytics in Healthcare roles. He is a keen contributo... Show more

Janine Rosado is a UX and strategy leader, educator, and writer with over 15 years of experience designing products and services across healthcare, financial services, government, and emerging technologies. Drawing from behavioral economics, cognitive psychology, and human-centered design, her work explores how people learn, make decisions, and interact with technology.

Janine Rosado is a UX and strategy leader, educator, and writer with over 15 years of experience designing products and services across healthcare, financial services, government, and emerging technologies. Drawing from behavioral economics, cognitiv... Show more

Ing. en sistemas, Co-fundador de CSN y Proticket.io, Co-Lider del Java User Group y Lider del AWS User Group Guatemala, especializado en crear soluciones seguras y escalables sobre la nube de AWS. He liderado proyectos en sectores de salud, educación, BPO's, eventos masivos y plataformas digitales, combinando inteligencia artificial, servicios serverless y visión de negocio. Actualmente impulso iniciativas tecnológicas que optimizan procesos y mejoran la experiencia.

Ing. en sistemas, Co-fundador de CSN y Proticket.io, Co-Lider del Java User Group y Lider del AWS User Group Guatemala, especializado en crear soluciones seguras y escalables sobre la nube de AWS. He liderado proyectos en sectores de salud, educación... Show more

I’m a software developer based in Bangalore. Since 2017, I’ve been building and contributing to open-source projects across a range of domains, including AI tooling and fintech products.

I love creating things, from software and fun GitHub projects to paintings and clay art. I’m also a trained Bharatanatyam dancer and began learning at the age of five.

I’m a software developer based in Bangalore. Since 2017, I’ve been building and contributing to open-source projects across a range of domains, including AI tooling and fintech products. I love creating things, from software and fun GitHub project... Show more

I’m a Full-Stack Developer with 2+ years of experience building high-performance, pixel-perfect web applications that combine engineering precision with creative expression. I specialize in developing responsive, scalable systems with a strong focus on UI, motion, and real-time interactivity, crafting experiences that are not only functional but intuitive and visually refined across devices. Currently working at Remote, I contribute to distributed systems that support global teams, building reliable, production-grade applications in a fully remote, async-first environment. This has strengthened my ability to design scalable solutions, collaborate across time zones, and deliver consistently in high-impact engineering workflows.

Alongside my professional work, I’m the founder of MorphAi, a creative AI initiative focused on real-time facial transformation systems, feature-level morphing, and expressive visual experiences powered by modern web technologies and computer vision. It explores the intersection of identity, security, and human-centered interaction. I actively contribute to the tech ecosystem as an author, researcher, and speaker. I’ve published multiple books and research papers centered around interactive UI systems, animation, and AI-driven experiences. My published works include Expressive Emojis: Adding Playful Expressions with HTML, CSS & JS, as well as titles from The Prompt Engineer’s Bible series, including The Complete Prompt Master Manual, Mastering AI Engineering: Prompt Frameworks for the Elite Developer, and The Claude Finance Playbook: Structured Prompts for Investment Banking, Valuation & Deal Strategy. These publications are available worldwide across major platforms, reaching a global audience of developers, engineers, and creators.

I spoke at Nerdearla in Santiago, Chile, where I presented The Hidden Potential of Face Morphing, focusing on its implications for security, identity, and modern digital systems. I’ve also been recognized as a Top 50 Global Thought Leader by Thinkers360 for my contributions to technology, AI, and developer education. I was also featured as a guest on Valentina Roberto’s Field Notes podcast, where I discussed community building, onboarding, and member retention, sharing practical perspectives on game-inspired engagement, visible progress, peer collaboration, and human-centered community experiences. In addition, I’m the creator of Smart Coding, a newsletter that breaks down advanced concepts in HTML Canvas, UI animation, and interactive systems into practical, real-world insights for developers. Beyond engineering, my work is influenced by photography, cinema, and storytelling, shaping how I approach motion, composition, and user experience. I view development as both a technical and creative process, focused on building systems that are intuitive, expressive, and impactful.

I’m a Full-Stack Developer with 2+ years of experience building high-performance, pixel-perfect web applications that combine engineering precision with creative expression. I specialize in developing responsive, scalable systems with a strong focus ... Show more

Sebastián Medina (Brown Director) es co-fundador y Director Creativo de HeyBrown Studio, una agencia de marketing digital construida como AI-first: usa inteligencia artificial en todo su flujo, creación de contenido, estrategia y pauta, para entregar a escala lo que antes requería equipos y presupuestos mucho mayores. Antes de fundar HeyBrown en 2022 se formó en producción audiovisual (2018–2021) en dirección de fotografía, dirección de comerciales y animación 3D, con más de 20 comerciales, +300 proyectos de CGI y más de 2.000 piezas para redes en su carrera. Hoy, siendo director creativo y no programador, está construyendo con IA un producto que convierte el trabajo de agencia estrategia y entregables de marketing, en un servicio de suscripción, usando una arquitectura multi-agente que él mismo levantó apoyándose en IA como su equipo de desarrollo.

Sebastián Medina (Brown Director) es co-fundador y Director Creativo de HeyBrown Studio, una agencia de marketing digital construida como AI-first: usa inteligencia artificial en todo su flujo, creación de contenido, estrategia y pauta, para entregar... Show more

Lawrencia is a Creative AI Designer standing at one of the most exciting intersections in tech right now where human experience meets artificial intelligence.
Currently working as a contractor at tastelabs , she works as design prompter and evaluator , training AI models to generate design outputs and evaluate them . Also, she works on AI projects (Build and deploy live websites using AI ) , shipping products faster and also explore how AI is reshaping the way designers think, build, and solve problems. She is not just watching the AI revolution from the sidelines , she is actively in it, asking the questions that matter most: How do we design AI experiences that actually serve people? How do we keep the human at the center when the technology moves this fast?
With two years in the tech space, Lawrencia brings something rare to the conversation ,the perspective of a designer who grew up in design alongside AI not before it. Her approach to Human-Centered AI is grounded in real project experience and a deep belief that the best AI products are the ones that feel invisible because they just work for the people using them.
She speaks because she believes the design community needs more voices that are in the middle of the journey not just reflecting on it from the other side. Raw and research-informed and that is what you get when Lawrencia takes the stage.

Lawrencia is a Creative AI Designer standing at one of the most exciting intersections in tech right now where human experience meets artificial intelligence. Currently working as a contractor at tastelabs , she works as design prompter and evaluat... Show more

JuanJo Ciarlante is a Principal Engineer at GrafanaLabs and Assistant Professor at Mendoza Uni. His industry experience includes working for Google as SRE TL, as well as other SRE roles at Canonical Ltd, and Bitnami.
His OSS journey started in 1998 when he contributed IP Aliasing support to Linux, and since then to several other OSS projects. He's particularly passionate about Cloud-y OSS projects like Kubernetes, Prometheus, Grafana, etc which made cloud computing accessible for the rest of us.

JuanJo Ciarlante is a Principal Engineer at GrafanaLabs and Assistant Professor at Mendoza Uni. His industry experience includes working for Google as SRE TL, as well as other SRE roles at Canonical Ltd, and Bitnami. His OSS journey started in 1998 ... Show more

Phil Stafford is a cybersecurity expert and AI safety strategist working at the shifting boundary between human intention and machine autonomy. With over 20 years of experience across IT, cybersecurity, and AI, his work blends offensive security, infrastructure defense, and emerging policy, driven by a central question: how do we build intelligent systems that extend our humanity rather than replace it?

Phil holds a M.Sc. in Cybersecurity and Information Assurance, along with expert-level certifications including CloudNetX, Pentest+, and Cysa+. He collaborates with researchers and practitioners through the Simply Cyber community and the Multiverse School, working to shape the ethical scaffolding around next-generation AI.

Outside the realm of security, Phil is a classically trained musician and multidisciplinary artist exploring what it means to make human art in a post-AI world.

Phil Stafford is a cybersecurity expert and AI safety strategist working at the shifting boundary between human intention and machine autonomy. With over 20 years of experience across IT, cybersecurity, and AI, his work blends offensive security, inf... Show more

Cateline Puccetti est Head of product chez iSYBUY. Depuis plus de dix ans, elle conçoit et fait évoluer des produits numériques complexes et a piloté plusieurs refontes majeures chez Eurécia, Berger-Levrault et aujourd’hui iSYBUY.

Formée à l’accessibilité numérique et sensible aux enjeux d’inclusion, elle s’intéresse aussi à la manière dont le design contribue à la qualité d’un produit.

Elle est également autrice de romans contemporains et cofondatrice de Tech Speak’Her, une communauté qui organise des meetups et un tremplin pour aider les femmes de la tech à prendre la parole en conférence.

Cateline Puccetti est Head of product chez iSYBUY. Depuis plus de dix ans, elle conçoit et fait évoluer des produits numériques complexes et a piloté plusieurs refontes majeures chez Eurécia, Berger-Levrault et aujourd’hui iSYBUY. Formée à l’acces... Show more

Sandra-Lorena Bahlmann is the Go-To Coach for Women 30+ in Tech Startups, helping them turn draining jobs into fulfilling careers—while keeping the income they deserve. As a certified systemic and agile coach, she previously built and led marketing teams in startups, co-founded an online manufacturing startup, and worked with Lean Startup methodologies for years. Now, she helps professionals break through career blocks, navigate transitions, and create fulfilling career paths—without losing financial stability.

Sandra-Lorena Bahlmann is the Go-To Coach for Women 30+ in Tech Startups, helping them turn draining jobs into fulfilling careers—while keeping the income they deserve. As a certified systemic and agile coach, she previously built and led marketing t... Show more

Amanda Hua is founder and CEO of Apova, building Agent Atlas, an execution platform for enterprise AI. A Turing Frontier Fellow and two-time 2026 CloudX/API World industry award winner, she has 20+ years of engineering and technology leadership experience spanning PayPal, Apple, Ripple, Rivian, and Anywhere Real Estate.

Amanda Hua is founder and CEO of Apova, building Agent Atlas, an execution platform for enterprise AI. A Turing Frontier Fellow and two-time 2026 CloudX/API World industry award winner, she has 20+ years of engineering and technology leadership exper... Show more

Robyn Sayles is the founder of Launching Your Success, a brand strategy practice built for professionals who never fit the mold and stopped trying to. Through her signature Brilliant Weirdo Brand Archetype system, she helps entrepreneurs, creatives, and unconventional leaders turn their so-called “too-much-ness” into a strategic advantage.

A self-described professional instigator, Robyn brings two decades of brand strategy experience to the stage with a delivery style that’s equal parts TED Talk and stand-up set. She developed eight proprietary brand archetypes, built an AI-powered brand audit system from scratch, and authored “The Professional Weirdo’s Survival Kit,” a field guide for anyone who’s been told to tone it down and decided to turn it up instead.

She’s a podcast host, guest, conference speaker, and contributor to The Podcast Academy community, including work related to the Ambie Awards. Her sessions blend improv-trained spontaneity with sharp strategic insight, giving audiences frameworks they can actually use, not just inspirational quotes for their phone wallpapers.

Suggested Session Topics
• Brand Strategy for Misfits: “Too Much” Is Your Competitive Advantage
• The Brilliant Weirdo Brand Archetype: Building Brands That Are Bold AND Smart
• Improv Is a Business Skill
• AI-Powered Brand Strategy: Building Systems That Actually Sound Like You

Robyn Sayles is the founder of Launching Your Success, a brand strategy practice built for professionals who never fit the mold and stopped trying to. Through her signature Brilliant Weirdo Brand Archetype system, she helps entrepreneurs, creatives, ... Show more

Rosemary Smith
Managing Director – Getting Better Foundation
Impact Producer – “Trust Me” award-winning documentary

Short Bio: Rosemary Smith has accumulated considerable international experience in the media over the last three decades. She began her career as co-owner of FCC licensed radio stations throughout Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas. Rosemary is a media literacy expert, Montana’s state advocate for Media Literacy Now, sits on the International Council 4 Media Literacy board, is an associate educator for the Center for Media Literacy, and serves as envoy to the U.S. State Department’s American Film Showcase. She manages Montana based Getting Better Foundation, spearheads its global distribution of award-winning “Trust Me” Documentary and the film’s educational curriculum in partnership with News Literacy Project.

Rosemary has authored many blogs, papers, and is working on her first young adult book about media literacy. She’s delivered presentations and contributed to publications on media and citizenship-related issues in dozens of countries. Rosemary is passionate about addressing the challenges posed by emerging media forms and issues relating to media literacy, mental health, and democracy.

Rosemary Smith Managing Director – Getting Better Foundation Impact Producer – “Trust Me” award-winning documentary Short Bio: Rosemary Smith has accumulated considerable international experience in the media over the last three decades. She ... Show more

After her Bachelor in Cognitive and Media Sciences B.Sc. and her master’s in interactive digital media at Trinity College Dublin, Milena decided to go into software development. She has been crafting software at adesso since 2020 and founded the startup DillyBeeze in 2021. Further, she has been invited to talk at JavaLand, Cyberland, JAX and JavaScript Days. Especially due to her background in cognitive studies Milena is especially interested in the interactions of psychology, software development and project management.

After her Bachelor in Cognitive and Media Sciences B.Sc. and her master’s in interactive digital media at Trinity College Dublin, Milena decided to go into software development. She has been crafting software at adesso since 2020 and founded the star... Show more

Jerry Black is a seasoned IT program manager, stand-up comedian, and the founder of IT Misfits, a movement that helps technical professionals build confidence, communication skills, and leadership presence through comedy. With more than 20 years leading infrastructure and software initiatives across enterprise environments, Jerry understands the real-world friction between business and IT firsthand.

As a performer who has taken the stage in cities across the U.S., Jerry turns the everyday chaos of IT into humor, insight, and connection. Through IT Misfits, he has built a platform where engineers, analysts, and architects write and perform their own comedy, and in doing so, become sharper communicators and stronger collaborators.

His workshops blend public speaking, leadership communication, and comedy frameworks to help technical professionals become more compelling in the rooms that matter. Audiences leave laughing, thinking, and seeing the people behind the technology differently.

Jerry Black is a seasoned IT program manager, stand-up comedian, and the founder of IT Misfits, a movement that helps technical professionals build confidence, communication skills, and leadership presence through comedy. With more than 20 years lead... Show more

Habeeb Babasulaiman is a Cloud & DevOps Engineer, OpenStack (Ironic & Bifrost) contributor, and AWS Practitioner. Starting his journey coding entirely on a phone, he grew into an active opensource community voice, authoring tutorials, mentoring at She Code Africa, and speaking at events. Passionate about open source, he empowers developers to embrace CNCF projects and scale their skills through global community programs.

Habeeb Babasulaiman is a Cloud & DevOps Engineer, OpenStack (Ironic & Bifrost) contributor, and AWS Practitioner. Starting his journey coding entirely on a phone, he grew into an active opensource community voice, authoring tutorials, mentoring at Sh... Show more