Maximillian Naza is an entrepreneur and technology executive who founded PasciVite and Hope Records, where he serves as CEO and CTO, respectively. He is also a General Partner at Bias Capital. With a background in computer science and software engineering, his work spans artificial intelligence, go-to-market strategy, media, and business development.

He mentors startups through Techstars, Alchemist Accelerator, and Plug and Play, with a particular focus on helping international companies enter and grow in the U.S. market. He has also delivered workshops for startup founder delegations from Italy, the Netherlands, and Kazakhstan, covering market research, go-to-market strategy, public relations, and enterprise sales.

As a speaker, Maximillian explores the decisions behind business growth, from how enterprises evaluate risk and unfamiliar vendors to how companies establish credibility, win customers, and expand into new markets. Drawing on his experience as a founder, operator, and investor, he examines how technology, marketing, and organizational reputation influence commercial outcomes, challenging conventional assumptions and sharing lessons grounded in practical experience.

Maximillian Naza is an entrepreneur and technology executive who founded PasciVite and Hope Records, where he serves as CEO and CTO, respectively. He is also a General Partner at Bias Capital. With a background in computer science and software engine... Show more

Diplom-Soziologin und Betriebsinformatikerin
2002 - 2014: Consultant für die Bereitstellung von Websites und die Einführung von Intranets und IT-Trainerin
Seit April 2014 bei WBS GRUPPE
Digital Experience Managerin
- Projektteam Einführung eines Social Intranets
- Interne Kommunikation
- Projektleitung Einführung Microsoft 365 im Unternehmen
- Microsoft 365 Cloud Navigator
- Microsoft 365-Champion
- Service Owner Microsoft 365

Diplom-Soziologin und Betriebsinformatikerin 2002 - 2014: Consultant für die Bereitstellung von Websites und die Einführung von Intranets und IT-Trainerin Seit April 2014 bei WBS GRUPPE Digital Experience Managerin - Projektteam Einführung eines ... Show more

Niki Koutsardaki is the creator of the EUTOPIA Framework, a science-based mathematical equation that models the variables determining human happiness, fulfilment and human flourishing. During its development, the framework received an independent review and a positive signed statement from Yale neuroscientist and researcher Dr. Kathleen Garrison and positive academic feedback from Stanford cognitive scientist Professor Jay McClelland.

The EUTOPIA equation received a positive signed statement from Yale neuroscientist Dr. Kathleen Garrison and positive academic feedback from Stanford Prof. Jay McClelland, Lucie Stern Professor, member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and leading researcher in computational cognition and neuroscience, and Stanford Prof. Jo Boaler, internationally recognised in mathematics education and learning sciences and affiliated with Stanford’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute.

Behind the EUTOPIA Framework lies a single mission: to bring neuroscience to one of humanity's oldest unanswered questions: How do we build a life that is deeply meaningful, deeply fulfilling and truly worth living? Hidden within it are science-based answers to why we burn out, why success can still feel empty, why extraordinary people never reach their full potential, why some leaders change lives while others quietly diminish them, and perhaps the most important question of all: What is missing?

She holds a degree in Marketing and Communication from the Athens University of Economics and Business and has completed neuroscience studies through HarvardX. She has also completed NLP Mastery training at the Madanes Institute, further expanding her expertise in human behaviour, identity, emotional patterns and transformational change. She is proficient in English and speaks it fluently and confidently in professional, creative and public-speaking settings. An award-winning poet in national poetry competitions across Greece, she combines scientific thinking with the emotional power of language to communicate complex ideas in ways that deeply resonate with people.

Niki is also the host of one of Greece's leading self-development podcasts, which has reached more than 25,000 listeners, where she translates complex neuroscience into simple, practical and emotionally resonant ideas that people can immediately apply to their everyday lives. Her audience has formed an unusually deep connection with her work. Many people use the order notes of her EUTOPIA sportswear brand not to comment on their order, but to tell her what they finally understood about themselves after listening to one of her episodes.

She is also the founder of the EUTOPIA sportswear brand, built around the same philosophy of purpose, identity and personal growth. Through her content, community and brand, she has built a loyal audience that connects not only with her ideas, but with the deeper mission and values behind them.

Based in Greece and available worldwide, Niki's mission is to help people answer one of the most fundamental questions of human existence: What is missing? Through neuroscience, human behaviour and transformational communication, she helps people understand not only how the brain works, but why some lives feel deeply meaningful while others quietly feel empty and how to build a life that is not only successful, but profoundly worth living.

Niki Koutsardaki is the creator of the EUTOPIA Framework, a science-based mathematical equation that models the variables determining human happiness, fulfilment and human flourishing. During its development, the framework received an independent rev... Show more

Heather Satterley is the Director of Education of Media at Woodard.

Heather’s passion for helping others and her love for technology have shaped her career in public accounting. Her affinity for facilitating change within an organization is paramount to her work, helping businesses design and automate their business processes using cutting-edge technologies. Heather wholeheartedly believes in the power of community and the magic that is created when people work together toward the same purpose.

In addition to her work with Woodard, Heather is the co-host of The Appy Hour with Liz and Heather, a webinar series devoted to demystifying the world of technology and apps in the accounting profession. She is also the co-creator and producer of Appy Hour Camp, a collaborative retreat experience created to connect and nurture the relationship between accounting professional educators and software developers.

Heather was named a categorical top 10 ProAdvisor in 2017 and 2019 and was listed as one of the top influential people in accounting by Accounting Today in 2019.

Heather Satterley is the Director of Education of Media at Woodard. Heather’s passion for helping others and her love for technology have shaped her career in public accounting. Her affinity for facilitating change within an organization is param... Show more

Matthew Christiansen is the founder and former CEO/CTO of Bright Bridge Web, a certified Google Developer Expert, software engineer, community leader, and full stack engineer who is all-in on everything AI. He is a Co-Organizer of the Google Developer Group (GDG) Salt Lake City and the official Angular Community Meetup, where he helps build and inspire developer communities through talks, workshops, and mentoring.

As a featured speaker at conferences including DevFest Salt Lake City, Denver Dev Day, and West Slope Startup Week, Matthew presents on topics ranging from Web Frameworks to DevOPs and AI, helping developers bridge practical implementation with cutting-edge innovation. He also serves as a trainer and presenter at GDG events, delivering hands-on sessions in Generative AI and Google technologies.

Matthew co-produces and co-hosts the DevLife Podcast, a community-driven show featuring conversations with programming experts, business leaders, and fellow community members about software, growth, and the developer journey.

Professionally, Matthew is a lead implementer of many languages/frameworks in large-scale system designs at Limble, where he works with teams in building scalable, maintainable micro services and front-end. Matthew has deployed and shepherded deploys at large Enterprise scale. His previous experience as CTO of Bright Bridge Web includes leading tech teams, scaling business, and delivering 180+ apps for Fortune 500 companies and bestselling authors.

Matthew plans to continue long-term as a conference speaker and community educator, advancing the developer ecosystem through ongoing talks, workshops, and real-world implementations of software of all kinds. Beyond the keyboard, he’s often found rock climbing, playing League of Legends, riffing on guitar, or exploring big ideas with his community.

Matthew Christiansen is the founder and former CEO/CTO of Bright Bridge Web, a certified Google Developer Expert, software engineer, community leader, and full stack engineer who is all-in on everything AI. He is a Co-Organizer of the Google Develope... Show more

Francesco Marinoni Moretto works on agent-native commerce, how merchants and publishers make their catalogs and content legible to AI purchasing agents.

He is the author of the Layered Agentic Retrieval (LAR) working paper and the forthcoming book "Selling to Agents: The Merchant Playbook for Agentic Commerce".

His current focus is the publisher-side surfaces -and the payment rails (UCP/ACP, HTTP Message Signatures)- that sit in front of MCP and APIs. He also builds open tooling for probing and serving agent-consumable commerce endpoints (like ucp-probe and the LAR spec).

He also created two open-source frameworks on AI reliability, Stream Coding, a documentation-first methodology for AI-accelerated development (stream-coding.com), and Clarity Gate, a pre-ingestion verification protocol for RAG epistemic quality (github.com/frmoretto/clarity-gate), both from a single thesis: LLMs don't need help, they need clear and excellent documentation.

Based in Milan, he is AI Practice and Community Leader at N1AI, a 400+ member professional group.

Recently he moderated a roundtable hosted by GS1 Italy on agentic commerce and was the guest in a fireside chat at the ILTA Legal Tech On Tour in Milan. He presents regularly at Milan AI events including Claude Code Meetup, AI Tinkerers and Aperitivo AI.

Francesco Marinoni Moretto works on agent-native commerce, how merchants and publishers make their catalogs and content legible to AI purchasing agents. He is the author of the Layered Agentic Retrieval (LAR) working paper and the forthcoming book... Show more

Jonas Rashedi is Chief Digital Officer and a member of the management board at FALKE KGaA, where he owns IT, data and AI — scalable architectures and data-driven decision processes inside an international family-owned business.

Before FALKE he was Chief Data Officer at FUNKE Mediengruppe and Director Data Intelligence & Technologies at Douglas. Across 16+ years he has built data teams, platforms and governance from scratch — in corporates as well as in the German Mittelstand.

He hosts MY DATA IS BETTER THAN YOURS, the largest German-language Data & AI podcast, with 330+ episodes and weekly conversations with CDOs, Heads of AI and data practitioners across DACH. He is the author of six Springer books on data strategy, customer data platforms, data-driven organizations and online targeting — two of them in English.

Jonas has delivered 100+ talks on stages including DMEXCO, OMR, CMCX, d3con, K5, Medientage München and tekom, and lectures on data-driven marketing at DHBW. He also curates the monthly Data & AI Meetup series across DACH cities and the annual conference BEYOND THE DASHBOARD.

On stage he is practitioner-first: no buzzwords, no recycled consulting decks. Monday morning CDO, Friday evening speaker. Available in German and English.

Jonas Rashedi is Chief Digital Officer and a member of the management board at FALKE KGaA, where he owns IT, data and AI — scalable architectures and data-driven decision processes inside an international family-owned business. Before FALKE he was... Show more

Christina Aldan is a brand strategy consultant, keynote speaker, trainer, and mentor. She offers businesses brand consulting and creative content for everyday media. With over 18 years of experience in the digital realm, Christina is highly regarded for her approach to business, partnering with clients to find unique strategies that ensure their goals are met. She recently became a Licensed Massage Therapist and opened her own bodywork business.

Christina has delivered talks on all 7 continents, presenting training workshops for the Microsoft MVP community, Las Vegas Raiders, Yale School of Public Health, international corporations, and conferences worldwide. Christina uses her charisma and expertise to inspire others by mentoring women in business like herself. She also has sat on state and local boards supporting women in tech, entrepreneurship, mental health, and children with learning disabilities.

She is the recipient of the Las Vegas Women in Tech Community Service Award, the Distinguished Woman of the Year Award in STEM. Learn more at: Luckygirliegirl.com.

Christina Aldan is a brand strategy consultant, keynote speaker, trainer, and mentor. She offers businesses brand consulting and creative content for everyday media. With over 18 years of experience in the digital realm, Christina is highly regarded ... Show more

Deepak Wadhwani is a New Delhi-based speaker and entrepreneur known as the Business Buddha — a philosophy built on a simple premise: ambition guided by awareness, and calm as a leadership strategy, not a compromise on it.

As a speaker, Deepak has taken the stage at TEDx with "The Art of Persuasion," a talk built around a counter-intuitive idea — that real influence comes not from being louder, but from being clearer. He regularly speaks at business forums, leadership events, and entrepreneur communities on persuasion, conscious leadership, and the discipline of staying still in fast-moving industries. His talks are conversations, not performances — reflective, direct, and built around the question rooms full of business owners are usually too busy to ask themselves.
He is also a frequent voice on podcasts, where his unscripted, in-conversation style has become one of his most recognized formats — long-form discussions on business, persuasion, and leadership where the value lies in honest thinking rather than rehearsed answers.

Alongside his speaking work, Deepak is the founder of Natraj Home Furnishings and serves as India Growth Director for The Alternative Board (TAB), where he advises CEOs and business owners directly. He also runs the Chirag Foundation, a nonprofit established in memory of his late brother.

His core message across stages, podcasts, and boardrooms remains the same: build without noise. The most important decisions are rarely made in urgency — they're made in stillness, after the noise settles.

Deepak Wadhwani is a New Delhi-based speaker and entrepreneur known as the Business Buddha — a philosophy built on a simple premise: ambition guided by awareness, and calm as a leadership strategy, not a compromise on it. As a speaker, Deepak has ... Show more

I'm a developer, technical team leader, and architect. I started a career before StackOverflow existed. For over 17 years, I've been creating systems close to the business process. I believe that Event-Driven Architecture and Event Sourcing are great ways to achieve that.

I'm an active open-source developer active especially in the Event Driven space (I was working on tools like Marten, EventStoreDB, and now Emmett). I'm sharing my journey and findings on my blog https://event-driven.io and practical samples at https://github.com/oskardudycz.

I'm a developer, technical team leader, and architect. I started a career before StackOverflow existed. For over 17 years, I've been creating systems close to the business process. I believe that Event-Driven Architecture and Event Sourcing are great... Show more

A co-founder of QuestionsHeal Inc, and A2Agile Inc., Tom has overseen the delivery of hundreds of projects with budgets counted in the billions. He has been creating, teaching, and implementing agile methodologies for almost two decades with a current focus on building AI enabled teams.

Tom was a co-founder of one of the most successful little agile software development houses in the country, Menlo Innovations LLC. He consults on how to leverage ceremony, feedback, and metrics to achieve higher levels of engagement and success.

Tom has a direct marketer’s view on metrics. His best-selling book Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising was first published in 2011 by the Entrepreneur Press, the fourth edition was released in 2020.

Tom is a strong advocate for ceremony, something he considers a forgotten art, and authored the book Ceremony: A Profound New Method for Achieving Successful and Sustainable Change, released June 2017.

A co-founder of QuestionsHeal Inc, and A2Agile Inc., Tom has overseen the delivery of hundreds of projects with budgets counted in the billions. He has been creating, teaching, and implementing agile methodologies for almost two decades with a curren... Show more

Abdel Aziz Oumar El-Bashi is a digital communications specialist and elections observer, currently serving as Communications Officer at the Policy Lab for Civic Innovation and Community Solutions. Trained in law, with over six years of experience in digital marketing, branding, and strategic communications, he is a member of the UNESCO Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Alliance and a participant in the 2026 UNESCO MIL Hackathon challenge, where he contributed to technology-driven responses to disinformation. As an election observer, he has witnessed several elections firsthand, gaining direct insight into how disinformation, online harassment, and toxic digital environments shape civic discourse, voter confidence, and participation. He previously served as Chapter Executive Vice President of JCI Yaoundé Universities, was named Best Member of JCI Cameroon for the first half of 2020, and is a Gold Award holder of the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award, a member of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), and an alumnus of the Aspire Institute Training Program. His advocacy centers on digital literacy, safe civic spaces, and inclusive participation, ensuring that women, youth, and marginalized voices can engage in democratic processes without fear or harm.

Abdel Aziz Oumar El-Bashi is a digital communications specialist and elections observer, currently serving as Communications Officer at the Policy Lab for Civic Innovation and Community Solutions. Trained in law, with over six years of experience in ... Show more

Favour Onwuka is a Marketing Communications and Media Professional who builds the systems behind how ideas grow and scale. She is a trained Medical Laboratory Scientist, and that systems-first thinking now shapes her work across media, communications, creative strategy, and the creator economy.

She helps creators and professionals build things that last, including projects, careers, and commercially valuable brands. Over the past seven years, she has worked across energy, health-tech, food, and digital media, contributing to creator-led projects, digital communities, content and IP development, partnerships, and campaigns that have generated 3M+ views and reached audiences across multiple platforms.

Through her work, Favour explores how creators, communities, brands, and cultural ideas can be structured for sustainable growth and commercial value. She also runs Socialmediamadam Digital, where she helps professionals and creators build intentional digital presence and sustainable growth strategies.

Favour Onwuka is a Marketing Communications and Media Professional who builds the systems behind how ideas grow and scale. She is a trained Medical Laboratory Scientist, and that systems-first thinking now shapes her work across media, communications... Show more

With a broad, multidisciplinary background in software development, architecture, product ownership, and marketing, Fernandez is a gifted technology leader. He holds degrees in informatics and computer science and a Master’s in Finance, which shaped his combined expertise in technical and business realms.

Over the past 20 years, Fernandez has overseen more than 250 projects across four continents and 25 countries, delivering technical solutions in content, commerce, mobile, and martech for some of the world’s most renowned companies. From writing code as a developer and designing systems as an architect to training teams, serving as a CTO, advising global enterprises, defining product roadmaps, and developing marketing strategies, he has taken on nearly every role in technology and digital innovation.

Fernandez has led multicultural teams of managers, content experts, engineers, strategists, and architects (he is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and English). His professional mission is to constantly close the gap between business vision and technical execution. His work in media, retail, banking, hospitality, telecoms, and technology has given him a comprehensive view of the possibilities and challenges businesses face in the digital age.

Currently serving as Executive Director of Technology in VML, Fernandez is focused on the future of content, marketing, and automation platforms, investigating how companies can produce, distribute, and profit from emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, composable architectures, and data-driven personalization.

With a broad, multidisciplinary background in software development, architecture, product ownership, and marketing, Fernandez is a gifted technology leader. He holds degrees in informatics and computer science and a Master’s in Finance, which shaped ... Show more

Jihan Johnston-McGlotten is a visionary Cultural Technologist, Entrepreneur, and Ph.D.-trained HCI researcher with more than 20 years of experience across emerging tech, entertainment, education, and gaming.

She is Managing Director of Beyond Code Centers at Beyond Code Collective, a national nonprofit that bridges inspiration, training, and employment in tech for learners of every generation. She is also the founder of BeatBotics, where she uses AI, emerging tech, and digital media to build experiences that are innovative and empathetic.

A three-time award-winning keynote speaker, mother, mentor, and proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, Jihan is passionate about making technology more humane. Wherever she goes, she is always reimagining the role of play in how we live, learn, and work.

Jihan Johnston-McGlotten is a visionary Cultural Technologist, Entrepreneur, and Ph.D.-trained HCI researcher with more than 20 years of experience across emerging tech, entertainment, education, and gaming. She is Managing Director of Beyond Code... Show more

Amit Grinvald is a keynote speaker, moderator, and communication strategist who works with leaders and experts across corporate, startup, and investor environments to communicate complex ideas with clarity and conviction in high-stakes situations.

Over the past decade, he has worked with everyone from Fortune 500 executives and award-winning founders to Olympic medalists and aerospace engineers. His clients include leaders from organisations such as Microsoft, NVIDIA, Deloitte, Capgemini, Red Hat, Rolls-Royce, and Johnson & Johnson.

His work in the venture ecosystem spans both founder and investor perspectives. He is a mentor with Google for Startups and the Startup World Cup, and has supported companies through €60M+ fundraising rounds.

Amit regularly hosts and leads conversations at international conferences, including TED, SXSW London, and South Summit. He is also the founder and long-time lead organiser of TEDxUNYP, one of Europe's most recognised TEDx events, with multiple TED Editor's Picks and several talks ranked among the global Top 100.

His sessions are practical, interactive, and built for the room in front of him, whether that room is full of engineers, executives, or first-time speakers. Attendees leave with tools they can use in their very next meeting, pitch, or presentation.

Amit Grinvald is a keynote speaker, moderator, and communication strategist who works with leaders and experts across corporate, startup, and investor environments to communicate complex ideas with clarity and conviction in high-stakes situations. ... Show more

2026: Speaker at the Unlock Rab and Expo Gamers Opatija conferences.

2025: Speaker at the Unlock Rijeka conference.

2024: Author of the article "New Regulations on Exercising the Right to Use Musical Performances on the Internet", published in Novi informator.

2023: Presenter on "Press publishers' related right as a solution for the press publishing industry in the digital environment" at an International Scientific Conference.

2022 & 2023: Author and facilitator of the workshops "Intellectual Property Protection – Tips & Tricks".

2022: Speaker at the RiDOC 2022 conference, presenting on "Press Publishers’ Right in Croatia".

2022: Presenter of "Survival of the press publishing industry in a digital environment: Legal analysis of the EU press publishers related right in comparison with the Australian and USA" at a doctoral conference in Ljubljana.

2021: Author of the article "Analysis of the Croatian Normative Framework and Practice Regarding Pre-trial Detention in Psychiatric Institutions", published in Novi informator.

2020: Author of the article "The New Patent Act – A Review of Recent Amendments", published in Novi informator.

2014: Co-author of the academic paper "Income of Natural Persons Generated in Virtual Worlds and the Theoretical Framework of Income Taxation", published in the Collection of Co-authored Papers.

2026: Speaker at the Unlock Rab and Expo Gamers Opatija conferences. 2025: Speaker at the Unlock Rijeka conference. 2024: Author of the article "New Regulations on Exercising the Right to Use Musical Performances on the Internet", published in ... Show more

Leslie has spent 16 years blending creativity and strategy to help businesses increase sales. Understanding communications is both an art and a science, she develops brand messaging that isn’t afraid to be bold with customer connection. Known for enhancing digital presences that spark new profits and secure buy-in, she's trusted by corporations and nonprofits to deliver results.

A champion of entrepreneurship, Leslie teaches how she turned her side hustle into a life-time six-figure business through her signature P.L.A.N. Method. She now shares that framework in workshops and keynotes, inspiring new entrepreneurs across the country. Daily, she runs her communications consulting firm, Sharpline Messaging Group, where she transforms businesses and nonprofits into brands that exceed revenue goals, and build lasting customer relationships.

Leslie is a proud alum of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, where she received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration & Marketing. Through her academic excellence she was recognized as a Johnetta Haley Scholar, Dean's List Scholar, and Enterprise Corporation awardee. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the SIUE Alumni Association.

In 2025 she earned a certification in Artificial Intelligence Essentials for Business from Harvard Business School Online. In her career, she's led communications projects for corporations like 3M, Boeing and the American Heart Association, and guided digital growth as Communications Director for the largest church in Madison County, IL.

Originally from Chicago, she now calls the St. Louis area home and enjoys traveling with her husband, Jarrod.

Leslie has spent 16 years blending creativity and strategy to help businesses increase sales. Understanding communications is both an art and a science, she develops brand messaging that isn’t afraid to be bold with customer connection. Known for enh... Show more

Layshi Curbelo is a user experience designer specializing in digital accessibility, with a focus on creating inclusive solutions with high return on investment (ROI). She holds a Bachelor's degree in Advertising, a Master's degree in Education with a specialization in Instructional Design, and certifications in User Experience.

She is the CEO of Command Z Studio and the Command Z podcast, where she explores trends and challenges in design. Additionally, she produces other design-focused podcasts, including Design Tracks from Design Matters and If U Seek from the company Useberry. She is also the CTO and Co-Founder of Yestoday, an innovative software that blends creativity and functionality for entrepreneurs and creatives, ensuring that technology transforms ideas into tangible realities.

With over a decade of experience, Layshi has worked on international projects and has been a speaker at prestigious events such as Design Matters, South by Southwest, Interaction Foundation, and the 2020 Ibero-American Biennial, where she was a finalist. She has created educational materials used in more than 16 countries and has spoken at over 30 international conferences. Her commitment is to make every digital experience accessible and effective, changing the world one pixel at a time.

Layshi Curbelo is a user experience designer specializing in digital accessibility, with a focus on creating inclusive solutions with high return on investment (ROI). She holds a Bachelor's degree in Advertising, a Master's degree in Education with a... Show more

I run Hit My Algo, a marketing agency in Saint Louis.
We build client-owned marketing systems that report their own results.

Content, social and funnel run as one machine.
A plan first, then the build, then the client either takes it from there or we run it for them.
The domain, the data and the accounts stay theirs.

The piece I build myself is the measurement layer.
PostTrace tracks post to payment, joining social, GA4, scheduling and payments into one place the business owns.
It has an MCP connector so you can ask it questions in plain language instead of reading a dashboard.

Before this, nine years in content across roughly a dozen industries.
I ran socials for Forbes-listed AI and SaaS platforms at Series A and B, and grew the personal brands of leaders at tech companies valued up to ten figures.

I run Hit My Algo, a marketing agency in Saint Louis. We build client-owned marketing systems that report their own results. Content, social and funnel run as one machine. A plan first, then the build, then the client either takes it from there ... Show more

Mollie Adler is the creator and host of Back from the Borderline, a long-form podcast exploring depth psychology, philosophy, religious history, Western esotericism and the ways human beings develop their understanding of reality.

Her work investigates how we come to believe what we believe, how institutions influence our understanding of the world and how ideas change as they’re passed between generations. Through conversations with scholars and independent researchers, alongside her own audio essays, she explores everything from Jungian psychology and Christian mysticism to artificial intelligence, occult history and contemporary culture.

Her independent platform has grown into a substantial creator-supported community, with:

* 7,000+ Patreon members
* A global ranking in the top 0.5% of podcasts, according to Listen Notes
* Hundreds of long-form episodes exploring psychology, philosophy and contemporary life

Adler approaches controversial subjects with intellectual independence, investigating unconventional theories while remaining willing to question the authorities promoting them. Her work draws on historical research, depth psychology and cultural criticism, with a particular concern for how institutions can preserve valuable knowledge while also restricting the ways people understand and use it.

She is also the co-founder of MOODS, a reflective intelligence platform that uses AI to support dreamwork, Tarot study and sustained personal inquiry. The project explores how emerging technologies might support human reflection rather than simply provide instant answers.

Adler has spoken at South by Southwest (SXSW) about artificial intelligence and consciousness, and her work has been featured in outlets including Novara Media.

Her speaking subjects include artificial intelligence and consciousness, the psychology of emerging technologies, Western esotericism, religious history, Jungian psychology, institutional authority and the cultural forces influencing contemporary belief.

She welcomes invitations for conference talks, podcast interviews, panel discussions and media collaborations.

Speaking and media inquiries can be submitted through ⁠backfromtheborderline.com.

Mollie Adler is the creator and host of Back from the Borderline, a long-form podcast exploring depth psychology, philosophy, religious history, Western esotericism and the ways human beings develop their understanding of reality. Her work investi... Show more

Vontavius Hurd is an award-winning marketing strategist ,and content creator. He helps entrepreneurs, business owners, real estate pros, and organizations grow strategically so they stay relevant and never become extinct. When he’s not speaking, he runs his marketing agency, sells out impactful webinars and workshops, and partners with brands as a lifestyle and travel influencer. Off the clock, you’ll probably find him gaming or streaming.

Vontavius Hurd is an award-winning marketing strategist ,and content creator. He helps entrepreneurs, business owners, real estate pros, and organizations grow strategically so they stay relevant and never become extinct. When he’s not speaking, he r... Show more

Sujith Vellat is an accomplished technology executive with extensive experience leading and
implementing innovative solutions across industries.

As Chief Technology Officer, Sujith played a critical role in enhancing ViewLift's technology capabilities
and delivering cutting-edge solutions to streaming customers in broadcasting, entertainment,
and sports.
Under Sujith's leadership, ViewLift has implemented multi-cloud infrastructure, giving customers
the flexibility to choose their preferred cloud provider for their DTC streaming platform. He has
also spearheaded major enhancements to ViewLift's live streaming solutions, enabling
low-latency delivery at scale for clients across broadcasting, entertainment, and sports.
More recently, Sujith has led the development of ViewLift's practical AI innovations, including AI
Clipping, which turns live play into instant highlights; FanAssist AI, delivering always-on,
multilingual fan support; personalization powered by Vertex AI; and Conversational AI Search,
which uses semantic, intent-based understanding to help viewers discover content through
natural language.
Sujith's commitment to innovation and exceptional leadership have been instrumental in
positioning ViewLift as a leader in the streaming industry. He continues to drive the evolution of
ViewLift's proprietary technology stack, empowering D2C streaming properties to distribute
content across web, mobile, OTT, smart TVs, and gaming consoles, while enabling flexible,
hybrid monetization models that help clients acquire and retain viewers.

Sujith Vellat is an accomplished technology executive with extensive experience leading and implementing innovative solutions across industries. As Chief Technology Officer, Sujith played a critical role in enhancing ViewLift's technology capabil... Show more

Richard Essangabasi is a Speaker, Entrepreneur and Business Developer from Nigeria. With years of experience in entrepreneurship, marketing, media & entertainment, business development & sales, he builds businesses that solve real problems and helps other entrepreneurs do the same.

He has worked with global brands like Google, Ethereum, Base, Cowrywise, and more. He is the Co-Founder/CEO of Shard Network, a satellite-powered campus ISP, and the Convener of Campus Pitch Africa, Africa's biggest campus pitch competition. Beyond these, he is building a conglomerate of ventures across fashion, media, finance, and hospitality.

Beyond building, he runs webinars, mentors founders 1-on-1, and consults for African SMEs. His work is driven by three purposes: building the economic value of African SMEs, raising the next generation of young African leaders, and funding the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Richard Essangabasi is a Speaker, Entrepreneur and Business Developer from Nigeria. With years of experience in entrepreneurship, marketing, media & entertainment, business development & sales, he builds businesses that solve real problems and helps ... Show more

I design for user agency, across digital products and interactive narratives.

I’m the co-founder and CEO of Choose Your Fate, an interactive storytelling platform where creators build branching fiction and readers shape the story through their choices. I lead the company’s direction across product, business strategy, growth and the creator ecosystem, while staying hands-on in product design.

Most recently, I was a Principal Product UX/UI Designer at Persado, an enterprise AI platform that helps banks and other regulated brands create, score and optimize marketing language at scale. I designed the experiences where marketing and compliance teams review, approve and test AI-generated language.

I have a decade of experience in product design. I progressed from Product Designer to Head of Product Design at Mind-Alliance, a U.S.-based B2B software company building intelligence tools for law firms and legal teams, where I led a three-person design team. I’ve worked across AI, financial services, marketing and telecommunications, and my background is in Product & Systems Design Engineering.

Alongside my work, I co-organize ProductTank Athens, mentor designers on ADPList, and take part in events and conferences as a speaker or organizer, including the design team for PyCon Greece 2026. I write about design on Medium, with pieces published in UX Collective and Bootcamp.

I tend to gravitate toward the spaces between disciplines: where design meets technology, stories become systems, and products grow into communities.

I design for user agency, across digital products and interactive narratives. I’m the co-founder and CEO of Choose Your Fate, an interactive storytelling platform where creators build branching fiction and readers shape the story through their cho... Show more

Skyler Holobach built the compliance and abuse function at Pardot, now Salesforce, from scratch and spent 7 years deciding which senders got to keep sending. Her team made it through multiple acquisitions and shakeups without losing a single person, and she ranked in the top 10% of leaders at the company the entire time. She led product at SocketLabs next, where she grew revenue 25% year over year and shipped products from 0 to 1.

Today she runs Threadsmith Group, which pulls email senders out of deliverability crises (think Spamhaus listings, or the Monday morning when nothing is landing in the inbox) and fixes the habits that put them there. She has spoken at M3AAWG and Dreamforce more than once, and she chairs the Anti-Harassment committee for the Women of Email board, which has more than 9,000 members across 50 countries.

She writes and ships her own software with Claude Code and was a panelist on "Deciphering the AI Overwhelm" in New York. Years of watching bad actors hunt for every loophole give her a much less starry-eyed take on AI than most panels get. Her portfolio, also built with Claude, lives at holobach.com.

She also speaks on burnout, which she knows from every chair in the room: she has been the manager who caught it in her team before it became a resignation letter, she burned out herself as a high performer, and then she got laid off anyway with the metrics to prove performance was never the problem. Her Unspam talk on the neuroscience of burnout is where those two worlds met.

Off the clock, she trains saber and longsword at Athens School of Arms, crochets, sews, cross stitches, weaves, and has probably picked up another hobby since writing this bio. She holds a BS in Psychology from UGA and lives in Athens, Georgia.

Skyler Holobach built the compliance and abuse function at Pardot, now Salesforce, from scratch and spent 7 years deciding which senders got to keep sending. Her team made it through multiple acquisitions and shakeups without losing a single person, ... Show more

Kristin Nobles is an AI for Good founder, social impact strategist, entrepreneur, and capital innovator working at the intersection of technology, healthcare, media, intellectual property, and impact finance.**

As Founder and CEO of B Noble Impact and Noble Care, Kristin has spent more than 25 years building, financing, and positioning companies, technologies, intellectual property, and mission-driven initiatives. Across her career, she has helped structure more than $500 million in capital and transactions**, bringing an operator’s understanding of how technology, leadership, capital, and storytelling must work together to create meaningful scale.

Today, Kristin is the creator of CAREN AI, an AI-powered healthcare copilot being developed to help patients with complex health conditions navigate fragmented healthcare, organize and control their health information, connect with appropriate providers, and contribute to the research and outcomes data needed to improve care.

Her work began with her own experience navigating complex illness and the questions surrounding breast implant-associated illness. That experience evolved into SickTitties.org, Noble Care Research, and a broader mission to use AI, patient-owned data, research, advocacy, and media to help move underserved health conditions from fragmented information toward evidence, access, and ultimately covered care.

Kristin is also an experienced media entrepreneur and executive producer whose work spans podcasts, film, streaming, branded entertainment, advocacy campaigns, and emerging media technologies. Her projects include Close to the Chest, Creating Woodstock, and the development of new media designed to turn awareness into measurable action.

She has spoken on AI for Good and technology-driven impact at the United Nations and international innovation forums, bringing together perspectives that are too often separated: entrepreneur, financier, technologist, patient advocate, artist, and media creator.

In 2026, Kristin was named Women Entrepreneur of the Year by Women in Cloud, recognizing her leadership in technology, entrepreneurship, and impact.

Her signature framework, TLC: Technology, Leadership + Capital, challenges organizations to think beyond innovation as a product and instead build the complete ecosystem required to fund, communicate, distribute, and scale change.

Whether speaking about artificial intelligence, women’s health, impact investing, entrepreneurship, patient-centered innovation, intellectual property, media, or the future of capital, Kristin’s central thesis is simple:

Kristin Nobles is an AI for Good founder, social impact strategist, entrepreneur, and capital innovator working at the intersection of technology, healthcare, media, intellectual property, and impact finance.** As Founder and CEO of B Noble Impact... Show more

Madalena Costa shapes the future of product at the intersection of human behavior and intelligent systems. She is the founder of Human × Intelligent, a podcast exploring what it means to be human in the age of AI through conversations with founders, engineers, researchers and AI skeptics. As a product experience strategist, speaker and workshop facilitator, Madalena helps teams build thoughtful and human-centric AI experiences. She opens early access for Human+ at the end of October 2026, an app designed to help you decide what to delegate to AI, what to keep strictly human and how to stay sharp in an automated world.

Madalena Costa shapes the future of product at the intersection of human behavior and intelligent systems. She is the founder of Human × Intelligent, a podcast exploring what it means to be human in the age of AI through conversations with founders, ... Show more

Obsessed with building systems that ship valuable output.

9+ years across two throughlines: retrieval/AI infrastructure and founder-operator work. Started in 2017 funding a NLP geopolitics research platform, Damocles Analytics, which received a Google News Initiative grant. It did document Q&A over news corpora — Haystack, FAISS, ElasticSearch, Neo4j — years before "RAG" was a household term. That work got me a Financial Times data science consultancy building news classification and ESG-ranking ML APIs.

Since then: senior engineering across fintech (payment settlement engines processing weekly merchant chargebacks) and several 0→1 builds, then founding engineer at Morpheus (mor.org), a decentralized AI inference marketplace on Base L2, where I built the API gateway and the full marketplace frontend from scratch, plus a wallet-first gateway (agentaigateway.com) that lets autonomous agents pay for their own inference, no human in the loop.

Current build: Nuclear News Network, an AI newsroom I run largely through agent pipelines. In two months it hit 11K AI-assistant citation events and page-1 Google and Bing rankings against incumbents with a decade of domain authority. It's less "media project" and more proof that agentic content systems can produce output clean and well-sourced enough to get cited by other AI systems at scale, which is the same property that matters for enterprise RAG.

I also ship in public: 25 published agent skills (1,100+ installs), open-source tooling with 500+ GitHub stars, upstream contributions to OpenCode and other projects, and an MCP server or two whenever a workflow gets annoying enough to fix once and reuse.
Through my independent practice I take on architecture assessments and infrastructure builds — inference deployment, RAG systems, agent orchestration, edge/disconnected AI — for teams who want something running, not a strategy memo.

If you're evaluating agentic AI, local/edge inference, or retrieval architecture and want someone who's shipped end-to-end, that's what I do.

Obsessed with building systems that ship valuable output. 9+ years across two throughlines: retrieval/AI infrastructure and founder-operator work. Started in 2017 funding a NLP geopolitics research platform, Damocles Analytics, which received a Go... 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