Innovation Speakers

Dr. Sugata Mitra is a TED Prize winner and an influential expert in Educational Technology, renowned for his foundational Hole in the Wall experiment and the subsequent creation of Self-Organized Learning Environments (SOLEs). His research demonstrates that children's innate sense of learning is magnified when they are given the freedom to explore online in small groups. His work has led to the creation of The School in the Cloud and the “Granny Cloud,” which utilizes remote retired teachers to provide adult encouragement, ensuring learning is a self-organizing and effective process.

Nikhil Kamath is one of India's youngest billionaires, Co-founder of Zerodha (India's largest retail brokerage), and a signatory of The Giving Pledge. He is the founder of the WTFund, which provides non-dilutive grants to young entrepreneurs under 25, aiming to harness India's vast youth potential. His keynotes offer candid insights on entrepreneurship, sustainability, and risk from the perspective of an executive who built a massive, democratizing fintech platform.

Dr. Daniel Kraft is a physician, inventor, and entrepreneur who is the Founder of NextMed Health and the Faculty Chair for Medicine at Singularity University. He is a leading expert on exponential technologies in biomedicine and healthcare. With over 25 years of experience and degrees from Stanford and Harvard Medical School, his insights are vital for predicting the future of health, medicine, and technology. His talks, including four TED appearances, provide a compelling vision for personalized, data-driven medicine, improved healthspan, and the democratization of health.

Vishen Lakhiani is the founder and CEO of Mindvalley, a global personal growth platform. He is a New York Times bestselling author and one of the world's most influential spiritual teachers, leading a movement of growth-seekers spanning 195 countries. His books, including The Code of the Extraordinary Mind and the Wall Street Journal bestseller The Buddha and the Badass, teach practical strategies for self-mastery and entrepreneurial success. His keynotes inspire audiences to achieve work-life integration, dream big, and use meditation and intuition as core business drivers.

Dr. David Hanson is the Founder and CEO of Hanson Robotics and the creator of Sophia the Robot. He is a leading expert in the development of human-like robots with the ultimate goal of achieving safe and benign superintelligent AI. His Ph.D. dissertation, "Humanizing Robots," outlines his mission to bring robots to life through artistic and scientific research. His keynotes inspire audiences to learn about the future of AI, robotics, and innovation, and how to safely navigate the ethical implications of creating truly aware and conscious machines.

Erik Qualman is a 5x #1 Bestselling Author and a leading expert on Digital Leadership and Socialnomics. His work is taught in over 500 universities and has reached 50 million people worldwide, including major clients like Disney and NASA. As a dynamic keynote speaker, Qualman has performed in over 55 countries, sharing practical insights on the future of business and leadership. His presentations offer actionable strategies for thriving in the digital age, drawing on his expertise as a former MIT professor and the leader of an animation studio that works with brands like Chase and Cartier.

Deepinder Goyal is the founder and CEO of Zomato, one of the world's largest food aggregators, with over 70 million monthly users and operations in 23 countries. An alumnus of IIT Delhi and a former management consultant at Bain & Company, his talks focus on scaling startups, resilience, and product development in the food-tech industry. He inspires audiences with his vision of "better food for more people" and his commitment to tackling hunger and food wastage.

Tim Urban is the co-founder of the widely popular blog Wait But Why and a renowned speaker known for simplifying complex subjects like AI, technology, and the human experience through his unique long-form writing and illustrations. His TED Talk on procrastination is one of the most-watched of all time. His bestselling book, What’s Our Problem?, introduces a groundbreaking framework for understanding societal challenges by analyzing how we think rather than what we think.

Steven Kotler is a New York Times-bestselling author and the Founder of the Flow Research Collective, recognized as one of the world's leading experts in ultimate human performance and flow states. His books, including Stealing Fire and The Art of Impossible, are bestsellers that are foundational to the field of performance neuroscience. As a speaker, Kotler is highly sought after by Fortune 500 companies and elite organizations, providing research-backed strategies for unlocking creativity, driving innovation, and achieving peak performance.

Ravi Venkatesan is a key thought leader in technology and business management. Having served as Chairman of Microsoft India, he plays a significant role in advocating for ethical digital transformation. Ravi's work focuses on utilizing technology as a tool for fostering sustainable, inclusive development across global communities.

Dr. Yves Pigneur is the co-creator of the Business Model Canvas and a recognized Top Management Thinker by Thinkers50. He is an expert in business model innovation and strategy. The co-author of the global bestseller Business Model Generation, he helps businesses thrive by providing powerful strategic tools to reinvent old models. His keynotes focus on information systems, design, and innovation, empowering organizations to gain a competitive edge by creating strong value propositions.

Nina Schick is a leading global expert on AI and geopolitics, and a highly sought-after speaker at forums like Davos and CES. She was one of the first to predict the societal impact of Deepfakes. Her expertise, which includes advising NATO and President Biden, is focused on how AI is reshaping global dominance—in military strategy, economic infrastructure, and state power. She provides organizations with a strategic roadmap for what it means to lead in the Age of AI.

Jim McKelvey is the Co-founder of Square and a serial entrepreneur. He is the author of The Innovation Stack and a recognized expert in digital payment disruption and scalable business models. He is the co-founder of LaunchCode, a non-profit that creates pathways for aspiring professionals to find work in the tech sector. His keynotes share insights from his successful career, providing a practical blueprint for how companies can build stable organizational structures on the principles of entrepreneurship and relentless innovation.

Dr. Jürgen Schmidhuber is a pioneering expert in AI and deep learning, serving as the Scientific Director of the Swiss AI Lab, IDSIA. His groundbreaking work has significantly advanced neural network technology. The recipient of the Neural Networks Pioneer Award and the Godel Prize, he is the author of influential books on AI and deep learning. As a highly sought-after speaker, he shares authoritative insights on neural networks, their impact on society, and the accelerating progress toward advanced artificial intelligence.

Daniel Susskind is an economist, Fellow in Economics at Oxford University, and a leading expert on AI and the future of work. He is the co-author of The Future of the Professions. His books, including the acclaimed A World Without Work, have been widely recognized, with his most recent work, Growth – A Reckoning, shortlisted for the Financial Times & Schroders Business Book of the Year 2024. His talks provide crucial analysis on automation, the future of the professions, and how to distribute wealth in a world with less work.

Cynthia "Cynt" Marshall is the CEO of the Dallas Mavericks and a global expert in culture transformation and diversity. She is a highly-respected former Senior VP and Chief Diversity Officer at AT&T, where her world-class D&I initiatives were globally recognized. Her highly inspiring talks, such as Leading with Heart, provide a strategy for values-based leadership and navigating life's most difficult challenges. She encourages audiences to recognize their unique equipment for success, sharing her firsthand experience in driving positive change in high-stakes corporate and athletic environments.

Dr. Pramod Varma is the visionary Chief Architect of Aadhaar and UPI. He is the CTO of the EkStep Foundation and a leading global expert on Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). He is the co-creator of the Beckn Protocol, the open-source base for India's ONDC e-commerce initiative. His keynotes provide senior leaders and global policymakers with a strategic blueprint for designing and deploying scalable, inclusive, and equitable digital public infrastructure (DPI) systems.

Tom Bilyeu is a unicorn entrepreneur who co-founded Quest Nutrition and grew it into a billion-dollar business in just five years. He is the Co-founder and CEO of Impact Theory, a media studio dedicated to empowering people globally. Bilyeu's current mission is to solve the "poverty of poor mindset" by creating content that empowers people. As a keynote speaker, he draws on his extreme success to teach practical, science-backed strategies for mindset shifts, building discipline, and creating actionable plans to achieve seemingly impossible goals.