LaShawnda Rodgers is a visionary leader in change management, DEI, and leadership development, standing at the forefront of organizational transformation. As the Founder and Principal Consultant at Rodgers Global Leadership Consortium, she brings over 20 years of experience in guiding multi-million-dollar global projects, technical consulting, coaching, career growth, and stakeholder management.

LaShawnda’s expertise extends into the realms of data science and technology, where she has successfully led initiatives that leverage data-driven insights to enhance customer engagement, leadership development, and employee experience. Her technical acumen is complemented by her role as a Microsoft Partner and a member of Microsoft’s Black Partner Initiative, where she collaborates on innovative solutions and strategies.

In her capacity as Vice President of Community Outreach for Blacks in Technology, LaShawnda partners with organizations to increase African American representation in the technology fields. She is also a Founding Member of Tech Ladies, mentoring and equipping women with the tools to advance their careers in tech. Her efforts have empowered many professionals to confidently negotiate their salaries, articulate their value, and achieve their desired career outcomes.

LaShawnda’s commitment to creating equitable, inclusive work environments has led to significant increases in profitability for organizations. Her recognition with the 40 Under 40 Award and features on platforms like Hired.com, Mentor Me Tech Summit, and Power To Fly underscore her impact as a thought leader dedicated to uplifting individuals and businesses alike.

When she is not speaking, consulting, or coaching, LaShawnda enjoys horseback riding, hiking, and spending time with her family.

LaShawnda Rodgers is a visionary leader in change management, DEI, and leadership development, standing at the forefront of organizational transformation. As the Founder and Principal Consultant at Rodgers Global Leadership Consortium, she brings ove... Show more

Seyed Muhammad Hossein Mousavi is an advanced AI researcher and innovator with a strong focus on optimization, multimodal learning, and emotion recognition. With over 50 peer-reviewed publications and a Google Scholar H-index of 12, he is ranked among the top 6% of active researchers in AI globally, according to ResearchGate metrics.

Mr. Mousavi is known for his pioneering work in emotion recognition from various modalities, synthetic data generation, and meta-heuristic optimization algorithms. His research bridges theory and real-world application, from emotion recognition using body motion and physiological signals to VR-based stimulus systems, depth estimation, pose optimization, and hardware-integrated multimodal AI systems.

As the founder of Cyrus Intelligence Research, he has led several independent projects combining Kinect motion capture, Arduino-based sensors, VR protocols, and AI pipelines involving techniques like PSO, GA, GCNs, ANFIS, and GANs. He has also contributed to open-source research and published reproducible codebases on GitHub.

Mr. Mousavi’s work spans multimodal fusion, emotion-driven synthetic data, graph neural networks, and real-time optimization for health and affective computing, with datasets and frameworks designed for academic and industrial AI use.

In addition to research, he is passionate about scientific transparency, hands-on experimentation, and democratizing access to AI knowledge through tutorials, pipelines, and public datasets.

Seyed Muhammad Hossein Mousavi is an advanced AI researcher and innovator with a strong focus on optimization, multimodal learning, and emotion recognition. With over 50 peer-reviewed publications and a Google Scholar H-index of 12, he is ranked amon... Show more

Native from a small south Caribbean island, passionate about good music and good food, Jonathan was convinced that he would have followed his dreams. Instead of being a chef in a starred restaurant on a paradise island, or being the sound engineer for several major international artists in a large studio in L.A., he finally preferred to take the red pill from the hands of Morpheus in order to fight in the Matrix.
Fervent defender of Neo, he first started with Mouse as a web developer. Following many updates, and more than 15 years of hard fighting, he is now in control of the Oracle as PO/PM and Product Coach to better guide this small team.

Native from a small south Caribbean island, passionate about good music and good food, Jonathan was convinced that he would have followed his dreams. Instead of being a chef in a starred restaurant on a paradise island, or being the sound engineer fo... Show more

Power Platform enthusiast / Co-founder Power Platform Mallorca User Group / Promoter of using humor at work / Optimist

Power Platform enthusiast / Co-founder Power Platform Mallorca User Group / Promoter of using humor at work / Optimist Show more

Jeongkyu Shin, Lablup Inc. founder, has contributed to open-source projects like Textcube and represented South Korea on the Northeast Asia OSS Promotion Forum. A Google Developers Expert in AI and Cloud, he influences AI work and mentors at Google for Startups. Holding a Ph.D. in Statistical Physics from POSTECH, he leads AI and open-source initiatives including Backend.AI.

Jeongkyu Shin, Lablup Inc. founder, has contributed to open-source projects like Textcube and represented South Korea on the Northeast Asia OSS Promotion Forum. A Google Developers Expert in AI and Cloud, he influences AI work and mentors at Google f... Show more

Caio co-founded NP Digital Brazil and worked with Neil Patel for over a decade. After scaling the agency in Brazil, he moved to the U.S. to help grow NPD's SMB division as COO. Now, he leads International Growth, supporting NP Digital’s expansion across over 20 countries.

Caio co-founded NP Digital Brazil and worked with Neil Patel for over a decade. After scaling the agency in Brazil, he moved to the U.S. to help grow NPD's SMB division as COO. Now, he leads International Growth, supporting NP Digital’s expansion acr... Show more

I joined Microsoft in 2021 after 2+ years as a consultant with Microsoft Partners. Power Platform enabled me to make a career change in 2019 after 10+ years working in the broadcast industry where I was a SharePoint site collection admin and Power Apps Champion. I am passionate about the Power Platform, especially PowerApps and Power Automate.

I co-organize the Washington DC Power Platform user group and I've presented at GlobalCon, Community Summit North America, SharePoint Saturday DC, the Power Platform World Tour, the Baltimore SharePoint User Group and the Power Platform Virtual Conference.

I joined Microsoft in 2021 after 2+ years as a consultant with Microsoft Partners. Power Platform enabled me to make a career change in 2019 after 10+ years working in the broadcast industry where I was a SharePoint site collection admin and Power Ap... Show more

Tech, Finance, Team Outcomes, Diversity, Product, People First

Tech, Finance, Team Outcomes, Diversity, Product, People First Show more

Alexander Opalic is a Senior Full Stack Developer from Germany. He writes at alexop.dev about Vue, TypeScript, and AI in software. He speaks at international conferences on local first apps, testing, and building better developer experiences.

Alexander Opalic is a Senior Full Stack Developer from Germany. He writes at alexop.dev about Vue, TypeScript, and AI in software. He speaks at international conferences on local first apps, testing, and building better developer experiences. Show more

En 25 ans de travail dans l'IT, j'ai rapidement migré du DEV COBOL (reconversion en 1999, après Master 2 en Océanologie Biologique) vers la collaboration avec le client, en tant que BA et MOA puis PO. Quelques missions en analyse fonctionnelle, audit organisation et pas mal de conduite du changement. En 2021, retour en agilité avec le rôle de PO et actuellement en analyse fonctionnelle pour modélisation BPM / workflow.

En 25 ans de travail dans l'IT, j'ai rapidement migré du DEV COBOL (reconversion en 1999, après Master 2 en Océanologie Biologique) vers la collaboration avec le client, en tant que BA et MOA puis PO. Quelques missions en analyse fonctionnelle, audit... Show more

Sebastian es Ingeniero de Sistemas, desarrollador Fullstack y actual CTO en Taya, una startup enfocada en conectar tecnología con impacto social. Con experiencia en Flutter, Firebase y Node.js, lidera el desarrollo de productos digitales que buscan resolver problemas reales. Además, organiza comunidades como GDG Sucre y Flutter Sucre, donde promueve el aprendizaje colaborativo y la innovación.

Sebastian es Ingeniero de Sistemas, desarrollador Fullstack y actual CTO en Taya, una startup enfocada en conectar tecnología con impacto social. Con experiencia en Flutter, Firebase y Node.js, lidera el desarrollo de productos digitales que buscan r... Show more

AWS Community Builder & Cloud Captain. Arquitecto cloud con 6 años de experiencia. Apasionado por la AI y divulgar conocimiento.

AWS Community Builder & Cloud Captain. Arquitecto cloud con 6 años de experiencia. Apasionado por la AI y divulgar conocimiento. Show more

Jeremy Doran helps seemingly incompatible people talk to each other. With degrees in mechanical engineering and psychology, he brings a rare perspective to one of the oldest problems in any workplace — people who think differently struggling to communicate with each other.

His work sits at the intersection of neuroscience and leadership communication. He speaks frequently to engineering, finance, and HR audiences, having delivered over 50 talks for organizations including Electric Boat, APWA, SHRM, and SAE. He was named one of the top 50 leadership speakers for manufacturing in 2026.

Before launching NeuroConversant Leadership, Jeremy spent a decade as a financial advisor — giving him firsthand experience with the communication challenges that come with managing both clients and teams across very different thinking styles.

Jeremy is also the host of the NeuroConversant Leadership podcast and has a particular focus on engineers who get promoted into leadership and suddenly have to manage people — something he knows from personal experience.

Jeremy Doran helps seemingly incompatible people talk to each other. With degrees in mechanical engineering and psychology, he brings a rare perspective to one of the oldest problems in any workplace — people who think differently struggling to commu... Show more

Vadim discovered his passion for business analysis at the intersection of his training as psychologist and his deep interest in information technology. With years of business and IT experience in his backpack, he now focusses on training & coaching best practices to the analysts at Colruyt Group IT, and on building a thriving BA community where knowledge sharing is second nature.

Vadim discovered his passion for business analysis at the intersection of his training as psychologist and his deep interest in information technology. With years of business and IT experience in his backpack, he now focusses on training & coaching b... Show more

Kashif Khan is a co-chair of CNCF TAG Infrastructure and maintainer of the CNCF project Metal3.io for 6 years. He works as an open source Architect for Ericsson Software Technology, Finland. He holds a PhD in Computer Science. Kashif is a research and open source enthusiast and his current area of interest is kubernetes deployments on baremetal systems in distributed cloud scenarios.

Kashif Khan is a co-chair of CNCF TAG Infrastructure and maintainer of the CNCF project Metal3.io for 6 years. He works as an open source Architect for Ericsson Software Technology, Finland. He holds a PhD in Computer Science. Kashif is a research an... Show more

Stephanie Colores Bueno is a former Fortune 100 HR executive with over 23 years at Procter & Gamble, where she led global leadership development, culture transformation, and enterprise change initiatives. In her final years, she played a key role in shaping the growth and restructuring of the Information Technology function, supporting enterprise digital transformation and the adoption of AI. She is the Founder of Strategic Connexus, a boutique advisory firm focused on strategy, transformation, and leadership development, helping founders and mid-sized organizations connect strategy, people, and technology to drive adoption, transformation, and growth. She is currently completing the Chief Human Resources Officer Executive Program at Wharton, University of Pennsylvania.
Stephanie is a sought-after speaker, facilitator, and executive coach who equips leaders and teams to navigate complexity, lead through transformation, and build high-performing, human-centered cultures. Drawing from over two decades of global experience across three countries, she brings a practical, business-driven perspective grounded in real enterprise transformation. Her sessions combine leadership, change management, and storytelling to create engaging, actionable experiences that resonate from emerging leaders to C-suite executives. Known for translating strategy into people-centered execution, she helps organizations close the gap between vision and results in today’s fast-evolving digital environment. Her work focuses on enabling founders and leaders of growing, mid-sized organizations to lead at the pace of transformation—aligning strategy, people, and technology to accelerate adoption, strengthen execution, and deliver measurable business results.

Stephanie Colores Bueno is a former Fortune 100 HR executive with over 23 years at Procter & Gamble, where she led global leadership development, culture transformation, and enterprise change initiatives. In her final years, she played a key role in ... Show more

Suresh Kumar Ganapathy is a Director of Software Engineering and Security Architect with 18+ years of experience at the intersection of identity, security, and AI. He specializes in CIAM, identity governance, and secure API-driven architectures. Suresh designs platforms that apply AI and machine learning to adaptive authentication and identity intelligence, with a strong focus on MCP security, RAG model protection, and secure AI pipelines. His work emphasizes privacy-aware, scalable, and standards-based identity systems.

Suresh Kumar Ganapathy is a Director of Software Engineering and Security Architect with 18+ years of experience at the intersection of identity, security, and AI. He specializes in CIAM, identity governance, and secure API-driven architectures. Sure... Show more

Shrikant Chikhalkar is a senior engineering leader with over two decades of experience designing and delivering high-performance software for regulated healthcare, neuromodulation, and medical imaging systems. His work spans safety-critical medical devices, PET/MR reconstruction platforms, and cloud-native, AI-enabled software architectures developed under IEC 62304 and FDA 510(k) regulatory frameworks.
Currently a Senior Staff Software Engineer, Shrikant leads backend and platform initiatives supporting clinician and patient applications, including consent management systems, dynamic configuration platforms, secure telemetry pipelines, and cross-platform MAUI architectures spanning iOS, Android, and Windows. He has played a key role in enabling global neuromodulation therapy launches across 27 European countries while ensuring GDPR, HIPAA, and regional data-sovereignty compliance. His work includes regulated SDLC execution, microservice modernization, DevOps automation, and the application of generative AI to improve engineering productivity and regulatory documentation workflows.
Previously, Shrikant spent a decade at GE Healthcare as a Staff Software Architect, where he led PET/MR reconstruction and acquisition software for clinical imaging systems. He was responsible for productizing advanced MR attenuation correction (MRAC) algorithms, motion-corrected PET/MR reconstruction pipelines, fault-tolerant imaging systems, and GPU-accelerated reconstruction frameworks that achieved up to 200× performance gains. His contributions supported FDA 510(k) submissions and were validated through phantom and clinical image-quality studies.
Earlier in his career, Shrikant held technical leadership and engineering roles at IGATE, Persistent Systems, Accenture, Manchitra, and a computational research lab, working on legacy modernization, distributed graph mining, seismic simulation, GIS rendering engines, and large-scale HPC systems using MPI, OpenMP, and GPU computing.
Shrikant holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Pune and has completed graduate-level coursework in artificial intelligence, deep learning, cloud computing, and algorithm analysis at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He has earned certifications in Generative AI with Large Language Models, SAFe, and project management, and has submitted intellectual property related to AI-assisted code analysis. He has also presented at international conferences, including ISMRM, and has served as an architecture lead and mentor across global engineering teams.

Shrikant Chikhalkar is a senior engineering leader with over two decades of experience designing and delivering high-performance software for regulated healthcare, neuromodulation, and medical imaging systems. His work spans safety-critical medical d... Show more

I am a former physician with clinical background in divergent cognition: how thinking processes work under different conditions. For the past year I have applied that lens to large language models, conducting systematic empirical research across multiple architectures. My studies challenge several widely held assumptions about LLM behaviour, including the effectiveness of structured prompt engineering, the nature of hallucinations, and the conditions under which reasoning capacity is suppressed or expressed. I do not approach these systems as an engineer, but by using my training to observe how minds actually behave, which sometimes means seeing things that standard benchmarks miss.

I am a former physician with clinical background in divergent cognition: how thinking processes work under different conditions. For the past year I have applied that lens to large language models, conducting systematic empirical research across mult... Show more

Hello everyone, my name is Sophia Solomon and I am a Developer Advocate at Elastic.

Hello everyone, my name is Sophia Solomon and I am a Developer Advocate at Elastic. Show more

Josephine Eskaline Joyce is a cloud architect at IBM India Software Labs. With over two decades of invaluable experience and the esteemed title of IBM Master Inventor, she possesses an extensive background in application architectures, cloud security, and the design and development of numerous IBM products. Additionally, she is actively engaged as a research scholar, focusing on container performance management. She has several patents and research papers to her credit. 

Josephine Eskaline Joyce is a cloud architect at IBM India Software Labs. With over two decades of invaluable experience and the esteemed title of IBM Master Inventor, she possesses an extensive background in application architectures, cloud security... Show more

Apoorva Kashyap is a systems engineer and researcher who loves building things close to the metal. At IIT Delhi, he is currently working on scalable storage systems for temporal geospatial data. He enjoys blending cloud-native tools and ML infrastructure to solve hard, real-world problems.

Apoorva Kashyap is a systems engineer and researcher who loves building things close to the metal. At IIT Delhi, he is currently working on scalable storage systems for temporal geospatial data. He enjoys blending cloud-native tools and ML infrastruc... Show more

Greg Beaumont is a data architect at Microsoft, where he enjoys identifying and solving complex problems backed by his experience in data architecture and a passion for innovation. Focusing on the healthcare industry, Greg works closely with customers to plan enterprise analytics strategies, evaluate new tools and products, conduct training sessions and hackathons, and architect solutions that improve the quality of care and reduce costs. He strives to be a trusted advisor to his customers and is always seeking new ways to drive progress and help organizations thrive. Based in Minnesota, he is a veteran of the Microsoft data speaker network and has worked with hundreds of customers on their data management and analytics strategies.

Greg Beaumont is a data architect at Microsoft, where he enjoys identifying and solving complex problems backed by his experience in data architecture and a passion for innovation. Focusing on the healthcare industry, Greg works closely with customer... Show more

Francesco Panico is a Senior IT Consultant at Imola Informatica with 16+ years of experience in enterprise architecture, application integration, and IT process automation.
His work focuses on DevOps, API governance, and security within large-scale banking and insurance ecosystems.

Francesco is currently researching how LLMs can automate and standardize the API lifecycle, improving consistency, cost-efficiency, and policy enforcement.

He likes speaking about AI-driven innovation in enterprise IT, with a focus on practical applications and real-world adoption.

Francesco Panico is a Senior IT Consultant at Imola Informatica with 16+ years of experience in enterprise architecture, application integration, and IT process automation. His work focuses on DevOps, API governance, and security within large-scale ... Show more

Christian Del Monte is a software architect and engineer with many years of experience. In the course of his various projects in the B2B and B2C area, he has worked with a variety of software architectures implemented with different IT technologies and frameworks. He is particularly interested in data lakes as well as highly available, near real-time software systems and their implementation using means such as cloud, microservices and event-driven architectures. Currently he is working for adesso SE.

Christian Del Monte is a software architect and engineer with many years of experience. In the course of his various projects in the B2B and B2C area, he has worked with a variety of software architectures implemented with different IT technologies a... Show more

Jack is the Lead Software Architect at Layer, where he builds the technical foundation for a platform that connects building data to Building Information Models (BIM). A Nebraska native and graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Raikes School, Jack combines a lifelong passion for solving complex problems with deep technical expertise to help the architecture, engineering, and construction industries work smarter.

Jack is the Lead Software Architect at Layer, where he builds the technical foundation for a platform that connects building data to Building Information Models (BIM). A Nebraska native and graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Raikes Scho... Show more

Passionate about maps, data and technology with extensive experience in working with BI class systems as well as ERP, BPM and CRM. He started his adventure with data over a quarter of a century ago. Connected with Krakow in Poland - always and rather forever. Born with the option of analyzing data and topographical space. Thanks to his extensive knowledge and experience, he helps to save hundreds of hours needed to successfully implement the planned project within the given time and budget. He loves demanding implementations, if there is such a need, he trains and broadens horizons - his own and clients', obtaining their satisfaction and contentment. By the way, he enjoys observing and disseminating IT knowledge. Actually he is Microsoft Certified Trainer and leader of Cracow Power BI & Fabric User Group (#KRPBIFUG). He helps attendees take the first step to becoming a speaker, shares his experience during few user group meetings and sometimes conferences (SQLDay or Global Power BI and Fabric Summit). Seasonally, in his free time, he rides a bike and skis, and throughout the year he plays football and raises three of his children.

Passionate about maps, data and technology with extensive experience in working with BI class systems as well as ERP, BPM and CRM. He started his adventure with data over a quarter of a century ago. Connected with Krakow in Poland - always and rather... Show more

Deniz "Den" Mutlu is a Senior Cyber Security Engineer, Microsoft Security MVP and Director, member of the ext-board at Swiss Post cybersecurity in Switzerland. He specializes in Blue Teaming strategies, SOC implementation, SIEM architectures, and deploying Microsoft Security solutions.

Previously, Deniz worked as a System & Network Engineer, managing various projects with Microsoft Solutions for 10 years. For nearly a decade, he has specialized in cybersecurity, consulting to improve clients' security posture and implement robust security solutions.

In 2020, Deniz joined Hacknowledge, establishing its first Microsoft Team. He is passionate about Microsoft security solutions, particularly Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Sentinel. Deniz supports clients with a practical, threat-based approach, helping them audit, configure, and improve their security environments.

Additionally, Deniz enjoys sharing his cybersecurity and Microsoft solutions expertise as a lecturer at various universities and schools.

Deniz "Den" Mutlu is a Senior Cyber Security Engineer, Microsoft Security MVP and Director, member of the ext-board at Swiss Post cybersecurity in Switzerland. He specializes in Blue Teaming strategies, SOC implementation, SIEM architectures, and dep... Show more

I’m driven by curiosity and a passion for building better systems. With experience across DevOps, DevSecOps and FinOps, I integrate security, automation and efficiency from day one. I help organizations tame complexity and turn technology into a competitive advantage. I believe in knowledge sharing and lifting teams to their full potential. My focus: stable foundations, faster delivery, and smarter spend.

I’m driven by curiosity and a passion for building better systems. With experience across DevOps, DevSecOps and FinOps, I integrate security, automation and efficiency from day one. I help organizations tame complexity and turn technology into a comp... Show more

Hi colleagues!

I’m Vladimir Afanasev, a database professional with over 10 years of experience in database development, performance optimization, and team leadership. Currently, I lead a team of DB experts at Barclays. I thrive on solving complex challenges like enhancing performance monitoring, optimizing workflows, and mitigating risks, while also fostering a collaborative and motivated team environment.

Sharing knowledge is something I’m deeply passionate about. With my expertise in SQL Server, Oracle, and cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure and GCP, I love exploring advanced topics and making them accessible and actionable for others.

I’m excited about the opportunity to be a speaker at your event. I enjoy engaging with like-minded professionals and delivering sessions that combine real-world insights with technical depth. I look forward to contributing to the learning experience and sparking great discussions about SQL Server’s advanced capabilities.

Hi colleagues! I’m Vladimir Afanasev, a database professional with over 10 years of experience in database development, performance optimization, and team leadership. Currently, I lead a team of DB experts at Barclays. I thrive on solving complex ... Show more