The Age of AI: Tech Forum 2023

24 May, 1:30pm - 8:30pm

Banking Hall, 14 Cornhill Street, London EC3V 3ND

Thank you for joining us at Tech Forum 2023. 

See highlights from the event in the gallery

The rapid rise of artificial intelligence and how it is deployed has great potential to reshape and revolutionise our future beyond what we can imagine today. How can we use AI to reshape education, or create enhanced experiences of gaming and entertainment? How can the technology be used as a force for change and a driver of green recovery? And what are the risks and implications of limitless AI? 

Thank you for joining us at Tech Forum 2023, as we brought together the top minds in artificial intelligence – from both Sweden and the UK – and connected the tech ecosystems across the North Sea.

About the forum

Tech Forum is a platform for Swedish-British business leaders, entrepreneurs, policy makers and academics to meet, learn and discuss. Celebrating the best of the latest in technology from across the North Sea, whether it's artificial intelligence, blockchain or virtual reality (and beyond) - the forum features leading experts at global success stories, exciting entrepreneurs and challengers alongside passionate purse-string partners.

See programme from the 2023 edition of Tech Forum

 

Booking options

SCC member price: £55
YP member price: £55
Non-member price: £160

 

Terms & Conditions

Bookings are non-refundable, but at the discretion of the organiser, you can change the name of the person attending. For this, please contact events@scc.org.uk.

This event is sold out

Welcome & Introduction

Hélène Barnekow, Gaia Leadership

Mats Lewan, Futurist, Research Analyst, Author, and Master of Ceremonies

The Rapid Rise of AI - Trends and Overview

Ida Hansson Brusewitz, Editor Di Digital, Dagens industri

Fredrik Heintz, Professor of Computer Science, Linköping University, and President of the Swedish AI Society

Mats Lewan, Futurist, Research Analyst, Author, and Master of Ceremonies

AI as a Force For Change - How Can Institutions Adapt?

Daniel Akenine, National Technology Officer, Microsoft

Theo Blackwell, Chief Digital Officer, Mayor of London's Office

Catherine Breslin, Founder, Kingfisher Labs

Hélène Barnekow, Gaia Leadership

Generative AI and the Future of Work

Carl Benedikt Frey, Director, Future of Work, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford

Reshaping Education

Tim Hesse, VP AI & Analytics, EF Education First

Valentino Pacifici, VP, Sana

Hélène Barnekow, Gaia Leadership

The AI Advantage - How Computer Intelligence is Transforming the Gaming Industry

Anders Holmquist, Chief Technical Officer & Co-founder, Sharkmob

Investing in AI

Akhil Chainwala, Investment Director, Kinnevik

Erik Sprinchorn, Founding Partner, TIN Fonder

Hélène Barnekow, Gaia Leadership

Ethics and Regulations - Limitless AI?

Tess Buckley, AI Ethics Senior Analyst, EthicsGrade

Felicity Burch, Executive Director, Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation

Julie Dawson, Chief Policy and Regulatory Officer, Yoti

Mats Lewan, Futurist, Research Analyst, Author, and Master of Ceremonies

AI as a Driver of Green Recovery

Aidan O'Sullivan, Associate Professor in Energy and Artificial Intelligence, UCL Energy Institute, and Co-Founder, Carbon Re

Mats Lewan, Futurist, Research Analyst, Author, and Master of Ceremonies

Applied Research and Innovation in AI

Malin Larsson, COO Ecosystem and Partner Management, AI Sweden

Jonatan Olofsson, Global Technology Coordinator of AI & Autonomy Initiatives, Saab

Ali Sarrafi, CEO, Combient Mix

Anastasia Varava, Research Lead, SEBx

Mats Lewan, Futurist, Research Analyst, Author, and Master of Ceremonies

Speakers

Daniel Akenine

Daniel Akenine

National Technology Officer, Microsoft

Daniel Akenine is a physicist, lecturer, writer and former neuroscientist at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. He works for the Microsoft Technology Office with tech strategy and policy. In 2015 he was appointed to IASA Fellow and ranked as one of the top IT-architects worldwide. 2022 he was appointed by IDG and TechSverige as one of the 50 most influential in Swedish techindustry and in 2023 he was listed as one of the 10 most influential people in digitalization of the public sector in Sweden. Daniel is one of ten members in the National Digitalisation Council chaired by the Swedish Minister of Digitalisation and is also an established Swedish fiction writer with best-selling novels as well as non-fictions on technology.

Hélène  Barnekow

Hélène Barnekow

Partner

Gaia Leadership

Hélène Barnekow has 30 years of experience from the tech industry. Currently a partner of Gaia Leadership and part of the board of Directors of GN Store Nord A/S , Handelsbanken AB and the chair of Mindler AB and Storytel AB. She is also the Vice Chair of the Swedish Chamber of Commerce for the UK. Hélène has been the CEO of Microsoft Sweden, between 2018 and 2022 and prior to that she was the CEO of Telia Sweden. Before moving to Stockholm she was based in Boston USA and held the position as SVP Global Field & Partner Marketing at EMC. She has also been assigned several leadership roles at Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications. During her career she has been awarded several awards and recognitions for her excellent leadership and her impact across companies and society. In August 2019, Hélène launched her first book, Re:start, about values-based leadership in a ever changing world.” In November 2023, the book had its international launch as the book became available in English under the name “Power with Meaning”.

 

Theo Blackwell

Theo Blackwell

Chief Digital Officer, Mayor of London's Office

Theo Blackwell was appointed in 2017 as London's first Chief Digital Officer and leads on London-wide digital transformation, data as well as smart city initiatives at City Hall. His role involves, amongst others, strategic leadership on the digital transformation agenda for London's public services, across the GLA group and the wider public sector. Theo is further involved in convening on behalf of the Mayor, across London local government to support the take-up of innovative, technology, and data-led approaches to service delivery and public engagement. As London's first Chief Digital Officer, he is also developing and promoting partnership between the public, private and community sectors to enable and support the development of new public service-oriented technology and innovation.”

Catherine Breslin

Catherine Breslin

Founder, Kingfisher Labs

Dr Catherine Breslin is an AI Scientist and Consultant, with a background in both AI research and commercialisation. She founded Kingfisher Labs in 2020 to work with organisations who are building cutting-edge AI technology. Since completing her PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2008, Catherine has worked in varied commercial and academic environments, including Toshiba Research, Cambridge University and Amazon Alexa, focused on voice and language technology. She is most excited by applying research to large-scale speech and language issues in real-world situations.

Tess Buckley

Tess Buckley

AI Ethics Senior Analyst, EthicsGrade

Tess Buckley is an AI Ethics Senior Analyst at EthicsGrade an ESG benchmark company that focuses on AI governance. With an academic background in Philosophy and professional background in strategy, content, and jazz performance she works to distribute and research stories about the only dataset on digital ethics in the world.

Felicity Burch

Felicity Burch

Executive Director, Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation

The CDEI is a government expert body enabling the trustworthy use of data and AI. Felicity’s role is to lead the CDEI’s multidisciplinary team of specialists and its overall strategy to deliver, test and refine trustworthy approaches to data and AI governance, working in partnership with public sector and industry bodies.
Before CDEI, she was the CBI Director of Innovation and Digital, leading the organisation’s policy work to create the conditions that enable businesses to come up with new ideas, invest in research and development (R&D) and adopt new technologies. At CBI, Felicity also worked on technology adoption, public spending on R&D, and labour markets. Felicity’s background is in economic policy, with a focus on business growth.

Akhil Chainwala

Akhil Chainwala

Investment Director, Kinnevik

Akhil is an investment director at Kinnevik and has been with the company since 2014. He holds board positions at Common, HungryPanda, Saltside and TravelPerk, and prior to joining Kinnevik he was employed by Goldman Sachs. 

Julie Dawson

Julie Dawson

Chief Policy and Regulatory Officer, Yoti

Julie is known internationally for driving the ethical framework development at Yoti digital identity platform. Leading regulatory and government relations for Yoti, she develops policy approaches for fraud prevention and safeguarding, liases with national and sectoral trust frameworks, in conjunction with Yoti's internal and external ethics boards.

Julie is an authority in digital identity policy, ethics and governance, representing Yoti at numerous fora such as the World Economic Forum Digital Identity Innovators; techUK Public Sector, Data Ethics and Digital Identity Boards, ADA Citizens Biometric Council Oversight Board, the All Party Parliamentary Group for Digital Identity and the EU SHERPA Stakeholder Board.

Carl Benedikt Frey

Carl Benedikt Frey

Director, Future of Work, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford

Carl Benedikt Frey is the Dieter Schwartz Associate Professor of AI & Work at the Oxford Internet Institute and a Fellow of Mansfield College, University of Oxford (from May 2023). He is also Director of the Future of Work Programme and Oxford Martin Citi Fellow at the Oxford Martin School.

​After studying economics, history, and management at Lund University, Frey completed his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in 2011. He subsequently joined the Oxford Martin School where he founded the programme on the Future of Work. Between 2012 and 2014, he was teaching at the Department of Economic History at Lund University.

​In 2012, Frey became an Economics Associate of Nuffield College and Senior Fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, both University of Oxford. He remains an Associate Fellow of the Department of Economic History at Lund University, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In 2019, he joined the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on the New Economic Agenda, as well as the Bretton Woods Committee. And between 2020 and 2022, he was a member of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) – a multistakeholder initiative to guide the responsible development and use of AI, hosted by the OECD.

​Frey has served as an advisor and consultant to international organisations, think tanks, government, and business, including the G20, the OECD, the European Commission, the United Nations, and several Fortune 500 companies. He is also an op-ed contributor to the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Scientific American, and the Wall Street Journal, where he has written on the economics of artificial intelligence, the history of technology, the future of cities, and remote work.  

Ida Hansson Brusewitz

Ida Hansson Brusewitz

Editor Di Digital, Dagens industri

Ida has been working at the Nordics largest business newspaper since 2006. She’s taken on several key roles mainly at the editorial department where she’s been an editor for over ten years. Since 2019 she’s the boss of Di Digital, the newspapers department covering tech, startups and the digitalization in business. This has been a bit like coming home for her since she developed an interest in computers as a child going into programming and web development in her teens. Before joining Dagens industri she worked with illustration and graphic arts. Ida has a Bachelor of Arts from Mälardalen University.

Fredrik Heintz

Fredrik Heintz

Professor of Computer Science, Linköping University, and President of the Swedish AI Society

Fredrik Heintz is a Professor of Computer Science at Linköping University, where he leads the Division of Artificial Intelligence and Integrated Computer Systems (AIICS) and the Reasoning and Learning lab (ReaL). His research focus is artificial intelligence especially Trustworthy AI and the intersection between machine reasoning and machine learning. Director of the Wallenberg AI and Transformative Technologies Education Development Program (WASP-ED), Director of the Graduate School of the Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program (WASP), Coordinator of the TAILOR ICT-48 network developing the scientific foundations of Trustworthy AI, member of the board of Adra the AI, Data, and Robotics partnership, and President of the Swedish AI Society. Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA).

Tim Hesse

Tim Hesse

VP AI & Analytics, EF Education First

Tim is leading AI efforts for Product at EF Education First, the world's largest private education company. He joined EF in 2019 and has been focusing on driving innovation in language learning as well as evangelizing data-driven thinking across the organisation.

Prior to EF, Tim has worked in a number of tech companies, leading Data efforts at Expedia and carwow.

Anders Holmquist

Anders Holmquist

Chief Technical Officer & Co-founder, Sharkmob

Anders Holmquist is the Chief Technical Officer and Co-founder of the Malmö, Sweden, and London-based game developer Sharkmob.

Anders co-founded Sharkmob 6 years ago, after ten years at Massive entertainment – An Ubisoft Studio. During his time there, he saw through the release of the global blockbuster game Tom Clancy’s The Division. His Technical Direction was instrumental in developing the renowned Snowdrop game engine, which now powers several game titles across Ubisoft studios.

With a computer science background, Anders has participated in and observed many technological leaps in software development throughout his career. He believes AI is here to stay but won’t be progressing quite as quickly as people are expecting.

Malin Larsson

Malin Larsson

COO Ecosystem and Partner Management, AI Sweden

Malin Larsson works with strategic and sustainable AI management and execution at AI Sweden, Sweden´s national centre for applied AI which is owned by the government and partners with the mission to strengthen and accelerate the use of AI for the benefit of the society, competitiveness, and everyone living in Sweden.

She has worked with both digital mature and traditional industries such as eg. Sony and Akzo Nobel as well as in the national innovation system in close collaboration with public and private sector and academia. She possesses a portfolio with several award-winning, and gaming changing industry and business deliveries, which have changed behaviors, mindsets, business, and society, 

With +25 years’ experience from several strategical and operational leading positions within innovation, product, business, and organizational transformation with emerging technologies, she has a long and extensive experience of how to drive sustainable innovation / change management, how to tackle challenges and opportunities with emerging technologies, data management and AI for a sustainable and respectful implementation and use, to create better business and society. 

Mats Lewan

Mats Lewan

Futurist, Research Analyst, Author, and Master of Ceremonies

Mats Lewan is an accomplished author, international keynote speaker, futurist, and research analyst focused on the intersection of technology and humanity. With over two decades of experience as a technology reporter for leading publications including Swedish Ny Teknik and CBS CNET News, as well as a Master of Science degree in Engineering Physics from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, Mats is a respected thought leader in the fields of innovation, technology, and society. Additionally, he is a skilled moderator with a broad range of interests spanning philosophy, leadership, and psychology, and is fluent in Swedish, English, and Italian. See more of Mats here https://matslewan.se

Jonatan Olofsson

Jonatan Olofsson

Global Technology Coordinator of AI & Autonomy Initiatives, Saab

Jonatan Olofsson is a global technology coordinator of AI & Autonomy initiatives at Saab, and a technical specialist in autonomous functions at Saab Dynamics. He received his PhD in Engineering Cybernetics from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 2019 and awarded a postdoc in autonomous systems at Linköping University, Sweden. In 2020, he joined Saab to strengthen the technology drive within AI & Autonomy. Jonatan has a great interest in applying cutting-edge research in adversarial real-world environments, as well as the societal, legal and ethical implications of technology use.

Aidan O'Sullivan

Aidan O'Sullivan

Associate Professor in Energy and Artificial Intelligence, UCL Energy Institute, and Co-Founder, Carbon Re

Aidan O’Sullivan is Associate Professor in Energy and Artificial Intelligence at UCL Energy Institute. He is also CTO and Co-Founder of Carbon Re a climate tech start-up using AI to decarbonise the manufacture of energy intensive materials such as cement and steel. This is the first start-up to be joint funded by both UCL Technology Fund and Cambridge Enterprise and has raised over £5.2million from investors.

Aidan holds a Bachelor’s in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from University College Cork, Ireland and a PhD from the department of Mathematics in Imperial College London. Prior to joining UCL he worked as a machine learning researcher in the Civil Engineering Department of MIT. He is the UK’s representative to the European Energy Research Alliance for the joint programme on digitalisation and programme chair for the AI and Climate initiative at the UNESCO International Research Centre on AI, (IRCAI) and a Turing Fellow. Aidan was recently awarded a Turing Fellowship from the Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s leading centre for AI and data science research. In media his work has been featured in Forbes, Times and the world Economic forum and he has authored articles for World Energy Magazine.

Valentino Pacifici

Valentino Pacifici

VP, Sana

Valentino is responsible of all the implementations and partners of Sana, of the insights collected from data and how data drives the product development. He is currently leading cross-functional teams from business development to data science and product engineering.

Previously, he has been a part of BCG X, a team of management consultants and data scientists designing and building powerful data science solutions tailored to help enterprises tackle their most pressing business problems with AI and ML. Valentino has a PhD in Distributed Algorithms and Game Theory.

Ali Sarrafi

Ali Sarrafi

CEO, Combient Mix

Ali Sarrafi works with data to make a difference at Combient Mix, a company of 40+ AI experts driving the next phase of value creation. In his previous adventures, he has worked with the full stack of business, pivoted business models or product strategies. He has overseen multiple products from inception to their launch in different industries and setups.

Erik Sprinchorn

Erik Sprinchorn

Founding Partner, TIN Fonder

Erik founded TIN Fonder together with Carl Armfelt in 2019, and manages the funds "TIN ny Teknik" as well as "TIN World Tech". Prior to TIN Fonder, Erik worked for Swedbank Robur as an asset manager focusing on SME funds such as Swedbank Robur Ny Teknik. Erik has been active in asset management since 1995, working for a wide range of institutions from Swedbank Robur and SEB Enskilda, to Alecta and Brummer & Partners. TIN Ny Teknik invests mainly in mid- or small-sized innovative Nordic companies with an emphasis on software, Medtech, and digital brands. 

 

Anastasia Varava

Anastasia Varava

Research Lead, SEBx

Anastasia Varava is currently a Research Lead at SEBx, an innovation studio at SEB, where she is working towards bringing state-of-the-art AI to real applications. She is also responsible for coordinating the Language track of WARA Media and Language, aiming to bridge the gap between academic research and industry, and contribute to the development and adoption of NLP tools and methods in Sweden. Prior to joining SEB, Anastasia has completed her PhD in Computer Science at KTH, Stockholm, and worked as a researcher there afterwards. The area of her scientific interests includes AI with the focus on representation learning, and she continues contributing to research articles and mentoring PhD students working on these topics.

See highlights from Tech Forum 2023

On 24 May, the Chamber invited some 200 delegates and 20+ speakers to discuss "The Age of AI" at Tech Forum 2023. Relive some of the highlights as we're looking forward to inviting you to the 2024 edition of Tech Forum. 

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