Jim McNiel
Jim McNiel is a seasoned technology executive with a proven track record of innovation and leadership. As Chief Growth Officer at TAE Technologies, he is driving the company's mission to develop a commercial fusion solution that delivers carbon-free, non-radioactive baseload energy to the planet.
With over 30 years of experience in the tech industry, Jim has played key roles in the founding and growth of numerous successful technology companies. His expertise spans a wide range of areas, including digital transformation, business strategy, and marketing.
Prior to joining TAE Technologies, Jim served as Chief Strategy Officer and Board Director at ProHawk, a leading provider of video enhancement software. He has also held executive positions at NETSCOUT, Netegrity, OutlookSoft, PrimeGen US, FalconStor Software, and Pequot Capital.
In addition to his corporate experience, Jim is a passionate advocate for the responsible development and use of technology. He has served on the Board of Directors of TAE Technologies for over a decade and was the Executive Producer and co-creator of the documentary "Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World." Jim is a graduate of the Wharton school
Andrew McConnell
Andrew McConnell is the Founder and CEO of Alively.com and the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Get Out of My Head: Creating Modern Clarity with Stoic Wisdom. Prior to this most recent endeavor, Andrew was the founder and CEO of Rented.com, VacationFutures, Inc., and Rented Capital, LLC. Before setting out on his own, Andrew worked with some of the world's largest public and private entities as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, and as a Director, Solutions Design at Axiom Global, Inc. His prior experience also includes putting his law degrees to more immediate use at Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP and Ashe, Rafuse & Hill, as well as time at Merrill Lynch. A former member of the US National Team in Open Water Swimming, Andrew received his A.B. in History from Harvard University, his J.D. from Harvard Law School, and his LL.M. from the University of Cambridge, Trinity Hall.
Glenn Corn
A 34-year veteran of the U.S. Intelligence and Foreign Affairs communities, Prof. Corn served for over 20 years abroad, including tours in Russia, Turkey, Central Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East. He also held senior leadership positions within the Intelligence Community in the U.S. and is a graduate of multiple specialized training programs in the fields of Intelligence, Security, Adult Education and Training and Executive Leadership. He is a founding partner of the Strategic Advisory and Consulting firm “Varyag” and Expert contributor to the “Cipher Brief”.
He has a master’s degree in Russian Language and Literature from American University and a bachelor’s degree in Russian Studies from Hofstra University, and he is also a graduate of the U.S. Army Russian Institute. He speaks Russian and Turkish.
Dr Sanjay Rao
Dr. Sanjay Rao is an accomplished psychiatrist and Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa in Canada. He is also an Additional Professor of Psychiatry at Dalhousie University in Halifax, NovaScotia. Dr. Rao has an extensive background in psychiatry, having worked and trained in India, the UK, and Canada. In 2011, Dr Rao earned his MBA from Durham University.
His specialization is in cognitive behavioural therapies and treating mood and anxiety disorders. His contributions and accomplishments in mental health have been recognized several times. In 2007, he received an honour at the UK Prime Minister's reception, and in 2018, he was awarded a fellowship by the Canadian Association of Cognitive Behavioural Therapies. He is also a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, UK.
Dr. Rao was also an advisor to the Ontario government on the implementation of evidence-based psychological treatments. He developed province-wide training in CBT for the government of Nova Scotia. His experience in the field extends from working with outpatients, in-patients, emergency rooms, community, and university healthcare settings.
Dr. Rao is also the Director of a multidisciplinary clinic, CMAP Health, and the Unified CBT Academy. He has trained and supervised staff in cognitive behavioural therapies and delivered over 500 workshops locally, nationally, and internationally. He has a research team specialising in publishing systematic reviews of evidence in mental health care.
Tiana B. Holt
Tiana is the Principal & Chief Strategist at Faith Popcorn’s BrainReserve, where she brings her intellectual curiosity and passion for innovation to forward-thinking strategies. She prides herself in helping people not only see the future, but also apply it to their lives today.
As a long-standing futurist, she partners with global Fortune 500 companies—including Allergan Pharmaceuticals, American Express, Citibank, The Coca-Cola Company, Comcast, Constellation Brands, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Mars and Investec South Africa—look around the corner to monetize Trends. Her areas of focus span the future of commerce, health, finance, pharma, A.I., brain-to-brain communication, and the planet, to name a few. She has also been a featured speaker at the Harvard Business School & Ad Age.
Previously, Tiana gained experience through WPP’s MBA Marketing Fellowship and roles at THINK New Ideas and Procter & Gamble. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BBA with distinction in Marketing/Information Technology from the University of Michigan, with a minor in African American Studies. A former professional dancer, choreographer, and costume designer, Tiana now resides in Brooklyn with her husband, Michael, and their sons, Maxson and Maddox, where they share love of rooftop hydroponic urban gardening.
Everett Lacey
Everett Lacey is a Senior Systems Software Engineer at NVIDIA, where he leads a dynamic team of engineers focused on accelerating AI applications across distributed systems. With a passion for the intersection of AI technologies and moral philosophy, Everett is dedicated to exploring how advanced systems can serve humanity in ethical and impactful ways.
Beyond his professional expertise, Everett shares a deep personal connection to Bermuda. His father was born on the island, and he proudly traces his family roots through generations of Bermudians, including his grandmother, great-grandmother, and extended family who still reside there. His ties to the island inspire his commitment to leveraging technology in ways that respect heritage, culture, and community well-being.
Susana Martinez-Conde
Susana Martinez-Conde is a neuroscientist, author, and professor at the State University of New York. Her research bridges perceptual, oculomotor, and cognitive neuroscience, and she is best known for her studies on illusions, eye movements and perception, neurological disorders, and attentional misdirection in stage magic. She has published over a hundred articles in prestigious scientific journals, including Nature, Nature Neuroscience, Neuron, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Her discoveries have been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Wired, and many others.
Martinez-Conde is also one of the leading neuroscience communicators in the world, having appeared on numerous shows such as Redesign My Brain on National Geographic Channel, Head Games on Discovery Channel, The world According to Jeff Goldblum on Disney Channel, and NOVA on PBS. She writes frequently for Scientific American as well as other popular science magazines such as New Scientist, American Scientist, and Discover. She organizes the annual Best Illusion of the Year contest, which inspired her most recent book, Champions of Illusion. Her first book, the bestseller Sleights of Mind, received the Prisma award for the best scientific book of the year.
Dale Johnson
Dale Johnson serves as the Senior Business Development Manager for Global Clients at Visa Inc. In this role, he supervises Visa's largest multi-regional clients, accounting for about 16% of Visa's new business activities in FY2023. Before transitioning to the commercial sector, Dale played a key role in designing and implementing automated business intelligence applications aimed at Visa’s small business clientele.
Prior to joining Visa, Dale worked as a software developer within the Fintech industry, with a focus on creating automated business intelligence solutions. His career also features a notable period at Worldline (formerly Ingenico ePayments), where he developed machine learning models designed to optimize merchant "card-not-present" interchange requirements.
Apart from his professional accomplishments, Dale is profoundly passionate about horses, an interest that stems from his family's long-standing equestrian tradition. This enthusiasm drove him to establish EquineChain, a company focused on improving the lives of horses and their owners through a sophisticated system for validating ownership, provenance, and documentation, underpinned by blockchain tokenization.
Dr. Pradipta Ghosh
Dr Ghosh is an Indian-born American physician-scientist, biochemist, and cell biologist with dual expertise in clinical medicine and basic research. As a Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Cellular & Molecular Medicine at the University of California, San Diego, she leads an innovative research group focused on cellular communication networks. Her work has made major strides in understanding how intracellular heterotrimeric G-proteins are regulated by a novel family of guanine-nucleotide exchange modulators (GEMs), independently of traditional G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). This groundbreaking research has uncovered new mechanisms of cell signaling with implications for chronic diseases such as cancer, fibrosis, immunologic and metabolic disorders. Ghosh’s contributions have provided key insights into how intracellular communication is disrupted in disease—a conceptual breakthrough after prior attempts to unravel this network had failed.
Recognizing the need for innovative tools to probe the laws governing cellular function, Ghosh founded the Institute for Network Medicine in 2018. This institute houses four transdisciplinary centers that work synergistically to uncover the unifying principles of cellular behavior, a.k.a invariants: (i) The Center for PreCSN uses computational approaches to mathematically define these invariants; (ii) The HUMANOID™ Center models them using 3D cultures of human organoids and primary cells; (iii) The Agilent Center of Excellence employs advanced cell analysis techniques to measure these invariant features in cells; and (iv) The ConCISE applies systems engineering to build predictive virtual models to understand the emergent properties of these invariant cellular functions.
Through these efforts, Ghosh seeks to not just advance GEM biology, but also test their potential to improve rigor, reproducibility and precision medicine and reduce the translational gap in drug discovery. Her overarching vision is to harness the complexity of cellular networks to improve human health and engineer smarter systems, paving the way for transformative research and medical advancements.
Saskia Wolsak
Saskia Wolsak is a writer, historian and ethnobotanist. She has guest lectured at colleges and universities in botany, human ecology, and ethnobotany. She has also taught classes in certain aspects of wilderness survival, cultivating awareness of self and environment, and learning how to move through the world with greater knowledge and compassion. Saskia’s research on the Bermuda palmetto was seminal in the field of the cultural and environmental history of the island, and she has contributed to the botanical science of Bermuda through extensive herbarium collections. For her doctoral work, she is exploring how 16th Century maritime navigators related to the landscape and documented their perspectives through maps and voyager accounts. Her thesis presents a new interpretation of the 16th Century cartography of the east coast of North America. She is presently a research fellow at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.