John Canning, Director Developer Relations - Creators, AMD. John Canning, a leading expert in all "Media, Technology and Platform Issues" has recently joined AMD. For the past few years, he had been with Digital Domain, - renown for creative visual effects for feature films, including the recent Avengers Infinity War movie. They also create visuals for advertising, games, training, and immersive content, including their own original content. Prior to Digital Domain, John was the VP of Interactive Experiences for NBCUniversal, creating VR and other digital experiences for The Voice, Million Second Quiz, The Blacklist, and others. In the past, he’s also spent several years at both Microsoft and Disney. On the side, he’s the Chairman of the New Media Council at the Producers Guild of America. He’s also an independent producer, cinematographer, and photographer for good causes.

Misha Sra is the John and Eileen Gerngross Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara where she directs the Human-AI Integration Lab in the Computer Science department at UCSB. Misha received her PhD from the MIT Media Lab in 2018, advised by Prof. Pattie Maes in the Fluid Interfaces Group. She has published at the most selective HCI, VR, and machine learning venues such as CHI, UIST, VRST, EMNLP and CVPR where she received four best paper awards and honorable mentions. MIT selected her as an EECS Rising Star in 2018. In 2023, she was awarded an NSF CAREER Award for her work in Human-AI Interaction design. Her research has received extensive coverage from leading media outlets (e.g., from Engadget, UploadVR, MIT Tech Review) and has drawn the attention of industry research, such as Toyota Research, Samsung Research, and Unity 3D. Her current research broadly focuses on shaping the future of human-AI collaboration.

Harinderpal Bajwa, Group Creative Director, Huge: Hari’s career has been uncomfortable by design. He actively seeks roles, experiences and ways of working that go against what he knows. A Group Creative Director at Huge and a writer by trade, Hari began in advertising. He moved into design, switched to digital and today, he guides teams and clients through future innovations. During his career he’s delivered everything from TV spots to outdoor to radio. From packaging to branding to annual reports. From Xbox games to music tracks to AI experiences. Beyond work Hari dedicates his time to DE&I programs, student growth initiatives and fundraising through creativity.

Ben Relles, Content Strategy, Office of Reid Hoffman: Ben Relles has spent his career creating breakthrough ideas and formats at the intersection of video and technology. Ben currently works with Reid Hoffman across his venture investment portfolio, with a focus on leveraging AI in the creative process. Prior to this role, Ben spent a decade at YouTube as its Head of Innovation as well as Head of Unscripted Programming for YouTube Originals, collaborating with the platform’s most inventive creators and channels. Ben developed his YouTube chops as a creator, founding the Key of Awesome comedy channel (3 billion views) and co-founding Vsauce (4 billion views). Ben is also the founder of Good to Vote, a non-partisan voter registration campaign. Launched in 2020, in partnership with HeadCount.org, Good to Vote partners with music artists and creators, and has registered over 300,000 new voters to date. Ben is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, and the Wharton School of Business.

Jason Mars is a professor of computer science at University of Michigan, President of Jaseci Labs, and co-founder of Myca.ai. Jason Mars’ work is at the intersection of science, technology, and entrepreneurship with the mission to have meaningful impact in the world. This commitment is demonstrated by a long list of intellectual and technical contributions. As a professor of computer science at the University of Michigan, he directs Clarity Lab, one of the world’s most productive research labs in topics spanning artificial intelligence, large scale computing systems, and programming languages. Among numerous contributions, Jason Mars has pioneered Jaseci, a cutting edge novel technology stack, and Jac, a programming language, that together raises the level of abstraction for the creation of sophisticated software powered by Generative AI. Within its first three years of development, it has already been adopted to power a half-dozen production platforms including Myca.ai, Tobu Life, and ZeroShotBot. Jason Mars also founded a number of companies including most recently Jaseci Labs, a company dedicated to leveraging the open source innovations in Jaseci to help companies build world class AI technologies. His prior companies has had significant impacts bringing cutting edge AI solutions to over 20 million users in the Banking, Healthcare, Automotiveand Food Service industries. Mars track record includes raising over 62 million of venture capital dollars, and has grown business to $200m+ valuations. Mars was named Bank Innovations #2 Most Innovative CEO in Banking 2017, #4 in Top 11 Technologists in Voice AI 2019, Crain’s Detroit Business’ 2019 40 under 40 He has also been recognized with a CARAH Award in 2021 putting alongside Eric Holder, Andrew Young and Usain Bolt as prior winners. Jason Mars is also the bestselling author of “Breaking Bots: Inventing A New Voice In The AI Revolution” where he expresses controversial insights on the surprising progress in AI and what the future holds while deconstructing the DNA that underlies true AI innovation and disruption. The book also serves to inspire aspiring leaders to build something that can change the world and tells Jason’s personal story of comeuppance.