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Largest tech conference in Caucasus Region

TOUCH23

2 days of talks, workshops, panel discussions, inspiration, unique experiences, fun and after-parties

TOUCH23 Dates will be announced soon.


Get the pass

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Speakers 2022

UK

Jon Vieira

Product Designer (AR/VR)

Meta

Designer based in London, with 15+ years of experience across many design disciplines, focused on Product Design (Interaction, Prototyping and Motion). Passionate about new technologies and how people interact with them, Jon designed for many different experiences in desktop, mobile, automotive and VR/AR/MR. Jon is currently leading the design of digital products for emerging technologies at Meta Reality Labs.
DE

Vitaly Friedman

Creative Lead, UX Designer

Smashing Media

Vitaly loves beautiful content and does not give up easily. Born in Minsk, Belarus, he studied computer science and mathematics in Germany. While writing algebra proofs and preparing for software engineering at nights in the kitchen, at the same time he discovered passion for typography, interface design and writing. After working as a freelance designer and developer for 6 years, he co-founded Smashing Magazine back in 2006, a leading online magazine for designers and developers. His curiosity drove him from interface design to front-end to performance optimization to accessibility and back to user experience over all the years. Vitaly is the author, co-author and editor of all Smashing books (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/books), and a curator of all Smashing Conferences (https://www.smashingconf.com). He currently works as creative lead of Smashing Magazine (www.smashingmagazine.com) and front-end/UX consultant in Europe and abroad, working with European Parliament, Haufe-Lexware, Axel-Springer and a few other companies.
JO

Reema Diab

Senior Consultant

Tesla

She currently holds the position as Senior Consultant with TESLA and CEO of Galaxy for Technology, USA has ranked Reema as one of the world’s top 100 Techwomen influencers. She helps organisations improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, blockchains, and the Internet of Things. Reema is AI Expert ,Youth Influencer ,Popular keynote Speaker, Futurist and Strategic Business in Technology. Reema has more than ten years of experience in entrepreneurship and worked in Telecom companies and with the UN and she is a member of many global youth and women's bodies and has many voluntary initiatives to serve society in the field of technology.
DE

George Mamaladze

Senior Software Architect / CTO

Siemens AG

Senior Software Architect at Siemens Digital Factory, Advisor, Speaker. Expert in cloud-based distributed architectures for industrial automation and energy management.
UK

Daniel Bennet

Consulting Partner & UK Lead, Behavioural Science

Ogilvy Consulting UK

Dan leads the behavioural science practice within Ogilvy Consulting London looking after clients from the public and private sectors. He is a Practitioner, Speaker and Writer on the creative application of behavioural science to the world's stickiest challenges. Joining the practice at its commencement in 2012, he has worked on over 80 of the world’s major brands & organisations.
NL

José Subero

Global Lead Workplace Design & Innovation

MIRO

The Living Lab, Miro's first approach to physical offices, is the result of José Subero's leadership in workplace design and innovation. He is accountable for combining creative and technological principles into a unified experience. Numerous international organisations have acknowledged his work. José is very passionate about design and has worked with the ING Bank and Starbucks Design EMEA in the past.
LT

Andrius Biceika

Partner

Revolut

Andrius has been with Revolut from the very beginning and was part of growing it from a few thousand users into almost 25 million.
PL

Mariusz Gasiewski

CEE Mobile Gaming Lead

Google

Mariusz Gasiewski has been with Google since 2007. He is leading mobile gaming and apps initiatives at Google for Startups Campus in Warsaw, supporting growth of mobile gaming and apps ecosystem in in the CEE region. During most of his career was helping some of Google’s biggest clients in Central and Eastern Europe in preparation and implementation of mobile measurement strategies. He is a frequent speaker at gaming and mobile conferences and a founder of GameCamp (www.gamecamp.io), one of the biggest mobile gaming and apps specialists communities in Europe.
DE

Cyril Cermak

iOS System Architect

Porsche

Hi my name is Cyril, I have been doing iOS past ~8 years. I did couple of live speaking sessions and workshops about iOS security, modular architecture and reverse engineering of iOS apps.
UA

Viacheslav Shestopalov

Product Design Manager, Driver Experience

Bolt

Slava is a design leader from Ukraine, based in Berlin. He works as a Design Manager at Bolt, a product company that strives to improve city mobility. He curates courses on design at Projector Institute, is a visiting lecturer at German and Ukrainian universities, and writes a design blog on Medium.
US

Lysandre Follet

Director of Generative Design

Nike

I’m a musician, designer and innovator living and working in Portland, Oregon. During the day I’m the Director of Generative Design in Nike’s Innovation Department. I lead a team of cutting-edge multidisciplinary creatives who use Generative Design to create the cutting-edge performance products like those introduced at the 2016 Olympics.
AM

Sona Tovmasyan

Sr. Product Designer

Adobe

After 5 years of working in a publishing and advertisement agencies my curiosity observing people's behavior, body language and understanding the reasons behind their actions brought me to the field of User Experience Design. First interaction with UX design was in 2014 when I joined PicsArt as a web designer. Next step in my career was Workfront (acquired by Adobe) where I had a chance to work with multiple product teams on deep UX problems and continuously improve the product based on research and data. Being a member of multiple communities and seeing the value of bringing people with the same interests inspired me to start a UX Design community in Yerevan, Armenia called UXEVN. The first big event of our community was organized in 2015 with Vitaly Friedman, the founder of Smashing magazine. Since then UXEVN has organized more than 10 meetups, 2 conferences with international speakers, 5 online sessions, 2 workshops and co-organized event with ManyChat. I have an honor to be invited as a guest lecturer in Product Academy in Armenia, being a speaker in a local and international conferences such as Krupynka Conference and HeyGrowth Summit.
NL

Pierre Nelwan

Managing Director

Media.Monks

From Animation Intern to Global Head of Animation to Managing Director: Pierre lives and breathes pure craftsmanship and possesses outstanding people skills. At Media.Monks for 15 years and counting, he has stood on every step of the ladder, becoming MD at the start of 2022. Throughout this journey, Pierre has cared deeply about pushing people and projects forward. He previously headed the company’s global Animation & Motion Graphics department that produces award-winning work for clients like Amazon, Google and VICE. As Managing Director of Media.Monks’ founding office in Hilversum, Pierre strives for perfection in digital craft and to help lift the company’s Cannes Lions count to 200. He is also doubling down on culture and collaboration—in line with the company’s mission to not only deliver the best work but also be the best place to work.
IT

Lorenzo Foffani

Head of Strategy

AKQA

Lorenzo’s mantra, that doubt is the supreme knowledge and simplicity the ultimate sophistication, has driven him to learn new things in new places, working in London, Madrid and Milan in some of the world's most renowned agencies. Now he leads strategy at AKQA Italy and continues to stimulate innovation through the power of creativity and imagination. He also lectures at universities to pass on his knowledge and push others to build on his ideas, methods and mistakes.
UK

Givi Chkhartishvili

Founder & Managing Partner

Noxtton

Founder & Managing Partner of Noxtton - international tech, consulting organisation and a venture studio. Experience and portfolio crosses industries and borders, comprising more than 350+ completed digital and tech projects with top notch clients, brands and partners.
GE

Tinatin Stambolishvili

Founder and CEO

BISC Partners

Tinatin is a Behavior Designer with proven track record of planning and executing behavior interventions program in private as well as public settings. Expert in strategic communications with 20 years of working experience at an executive level in local and multinational companies of various industries, including insurance, energy and media with an emphasis on government relations, CSR management, large scale IMC campaign planning and execution, employer branding, advocacy campaigns. She is consulting companies and organizations in developing behavior design projects, innovation management, marketing agile teams’ management and various other fields.
NL

Monika Matuszewska

Professional Coach

LaMatu

Monika is a life and career certified coach at LaMatu, currently working and living in Amsterdam. She is an accomplished business professional, and over 16 years she had built a career in international corporate organisations including IBM, Philips, IKEA, Nikon and L’Oréal. She travelled to 57 counties (Georgia being #58 on her list), lived in 6 different European cities, and mastered 5 languages along the way.
UK

Eleni Beveratou

Creative Director

Dalton Maag

Eleni Beveratou is Creative Director at Dalton Maag holding a BA and MA in Communication Design from Vakalo Art & Design College, and an MA in Typeface Design from the University of Reading. During her time at Dalton Maag, Eleni has been involved amongst others in the design of typefaces for Airbnb, Oracle, and Maker’s Mark. Eleni has a particular interest in the science of reading, and its impact on type design. Her findings have been featured in Digital Fonts and Reading by World Scientific.
EE

Dima Sarle

Founder

Earthians

Dima explores humanity through entrepreneurship. Having founded five companies, invested in a dozen startups, exited a business, and bankrupted a couple - he is keenly exploring what “work” means in our society and what it is going to mean in the future. He is a philosopher, a father, a mentor, tea drinker and a martial artist.
IR

Paula Marie Kilgarriff

Web3 & Metaverse Activation Strategist & Fashion Retail Innovation Lecturer at TUDublin

Phygital Twin

Paula Marie is a Web3 & Metaverse Brand Activation Consultant & Retail Innovation lecturer in the Luxury & Fashion Industries. She is developing Web 3 and Metaverse ecosystems for luxury fashion brands to create omniversal fashion experiences using IOTs, AR/VR/XR AI/ML & Blockchain Development in building new and sustainable innovative solutions with circularity and social entrepreneurism as the focus.
IT

Mauro Mazzei

Head of Creative Technology

Publicis Italy / LePub

I'm a musician, a developer and an open minded technologist. I spent 15 years working on the tech side of the advertising industry, coding and experimenting tons of different technologies closely to the creatives for an uncountable amount of projects. Now i'm leading the Creative Technology side in Publicis Italy // LePub pushing innovation in global ad campaigns. Enthusiastic by the intersection between best class creativity and cutting edge technologies.
TR

Mine Dedekoca

Chief Happiness Officer

Happy Work Studio

Being a Workplace Culture Curator, I was the first Future of Work expert in Turkey to bring together people and communities by organizing events to create awareness about flexible work. With my Happy Work Studio brand, I guide organizations to create a “Happy Workplace” with happy, fulfilled, and self-aware employees by blending my own remote working experience with global practices. Being a certified Happiness Coach I have been leveraging my knowledge and expertise about “The Future of Work”, “Agile Workforce” and “Workplace Culture Transformation” to provide consultancy to more than 100 people and organizations, including Diageo, Danone, Nutricia to foster a flexible and happy work life.
GE

Levan Khomeriki

Co-Founder & Chief Innovation Officer

Two Point Zero

A physicist and a cryptonomist exploring the possibilities of the on-chain world
GE

Temo Gabechava

Client Partner

Slick Studio

In charge of helping startups to drive growth with the help of top notch UX solutions. I'm addressing problems that founders have on a daily basis.
IR

Nilendra Singh

Data and AI Architect

Microsoft

Nilendra is Data and AI lead at Microsoft Technology Centre Dublin, where he help customers to enable their digital transformation journey.
GE

Mikheil Kapanadze

Open Banking Project CEO

Banking Association of Georgia

Mikheil has a broad cross-sector experience including government and banking. He worked in various positions ranging from software developer and a lecturer to the provisional chairman of the large governmental entity and was actively involved in Georgian e-Government development. All of these helped him to become one of the key contributors to Georgian Open Banking.
DE

Roozbeh Farahbod

Engineering Lead & Technology Advisor

Roozbeh.ca

Roozbeh has been in the software business for more than 25 years. He is currently serving a number of startups as a Technical Advisor, interim VP Engineering, part-time CTO, and a leadership mentor. In his spare time, he plays bass, builds IoT devices, and contemplates the future of our minds beyond our bodies.
GE

Archil Varshanidze

Senior Software Engineering Manager

EPAM Georgia

Expert in software engineering with 15+ years of experience, co-founder of one of the most successful software development companies in Georgia. Currently delivering large scale projects for EPAM customers and leading EPAM Georgia .NET practice.
GE

Irakli Mirzikashvili

CEO

Ekimo

Irakli Mirzikashvili is CEO of Ekimo, the biggest health-tech company in Georgia and the region of Caucasus. Irakli's core field of expertise are technology-intensive products and scalable technologies.
GE

Ana Robakidze

Founder & CEO

Theneo

IL

Ravid Kuperberg

Partner & Trainer

Mindscapes

An experienced trainer in the field of structured creative thinking and a former advertising professional with a rich background of strategic planning and creative direction roles. Ravid is a frequent speaker at international marketing conferences and advertising festivals, including multiple appearances at the prestigious Cannes Lions festival.
GE

Nika Jorjoliani

Head of Engineering

RedBerry

Nika is a Head of Engineering at Redberry, an official Laravel and Vue partner agency from Georgia. Driven by curiosity and passion for tech, he’s been solving complex business challenges with code for the past 9 years. Nika, A.K.A Jora, is a real swiss-army-knife leader of a multifaceted team - architecting, building and troubleshooting solutions that drive clients’ products forward
AZE

Ana Nakashidze

CEO

Azertelecom

Ana is an experienced executive in telecoms industry with leadership positions in both in public and private sectors. She is passionate about future of internet, bridging digital disparities by connecting counties and regions to digital infrastructure, net zero carbon emissions in telecoms and empowering women in engineering careers.
GE

Tamar Nozadze

Youth Segment Brand Manager

Bank of Georgia

Being passionate of observing the lifestyle and hearing the loud changes that young generations make together with technologies. After 4 years of banking competence being part of youngsters’ everyday life and hearing their needs inspires me a lot.
GE

David Birman

Managing Partner

Experia.net

David, UXMC, helps companies to develop digital and physical experiences, as a senior executive or a consultant – bringing over 20 years of experience leading Product Development, UX, Marketing, Branding, and everything Digital. The most notable past roles include CPO of Silknet, CXO of Yelo Bank Azerbaijan and CDO of Bank of Georgia.
GE

David Chechelashvili

CSO

XPAND

Strategy oriented tech entrepreneur, 5x founder. Last 18 yrs operates at the intersection of technology and entertainment.
GE

Gio Kakhiani

Bubble developer

Maker

Among my peers I was known as the idea guy. That has changed since I’ve discovered Bubble. It has turned me into a maker, building web apps without any coding skills.
DE

Rezi Chikviladze

Co-Founder & COO

Syniotec

GE

Giorgi Kapanadze

React Chapter Lead

Omedia

Engineering complex web applications for all parts of the industry including booking, financial market, transportation, e-commerce and energy management. Last couple of years trying to share my knowledge and experience by educating a new generation of engineers.
GE

Ani Samkharadze

Senior Sales & Trading Analyst

Galt & Taggart

Ani Samkahradze is a Senior Sales & Trading Analyst at Galt & Taggart - the leading investment bank in Georgia. After graduating from Providence College in Rhode Island, USA, Ani joined the Galt & Taggart Brokerage team. Throughout her working years, Ani has helped hundreds of investors make sound investment decisions by implementing different investment strategies, analyzing market trends and identifying new opportunities for investment.
UAE/SG

Amirsan Roberto

Investor and Co-Founder

SINOFY

Amir is a serial entrepreneur & WEB 3.0 enthusiast, proudly helps, engages, makes pre-seed/seed investments, joins forces with promising teams, and always open to challenging the status quo.
GE

Luka Janjgava

Industrial Design Team Leader

Meama

Story of creating a Georgian hardware device. Meama’s Dropper is the first Georgian project, incorporating Hardware, Software, and Mechanical engineering fields.
GE

Archil Piriashvili

CEO

VELI.store

Archil is the CEO of VELI.store. He oversees VELI.store's mission to save peoples time in everyday shopping by creating seamless user experience in all touch-points.
GE

Lela Gabelaia

Head of Software Testing Department

Flat Rock Technology

Lela has 15 years of experience in the IT field. Right now, she is leading the software testing department in Flat Rock Technology in two countries Georgia and Bulgaria. Except for her managerial skills she has professional technical expertise as a software tester in diverse projects such are Social Networks, eCommerce Platforms, Gambling Industry, ERP Systems, Digital Banking, etc. Simultaneously she is giving lectures and masterclasses about software testing for more than six years at different universities and academies to grow awareness and popularize the software testing profession in Georgia. Her most success and achievement is that after finishing her courses the students are starting working as software testers not only in local Georgian companies but in international ones as well.
GE

Makho Kituashvili

CEO - Co-founder

OMOFOX

Makho Kituashvili is the co-founder and CEO of OMOFOX, a logistical tech startup which creates solutions to assist clients in overcoming the difficulties they encounter in the modern logistics sector.
GE

Giorgi Avaliani

Co-founder / Creative Director

Holy Motors

One of the loudest voices of the flourishing Georgian creative industry, Giorgi began his career at Leavingstone, Tbilisi with focus on social media, viral stories, digital experiences, and fun in all forms and sizes. After scoring a wave of “firsts” for the agency and the country - the first Cannes Lion, the first Webby Award, the first Awwwards SOTD, the first Eurobest Young Creatives Gold Medal, and the very first spot for Georgia on the Cannes Lions jury, he moved on to launch his own holistic design studio Holy Motors with Nick Kumbari, acclaimed Georgian designer - diving deeper into creating memorable brands from scratch.
GE

David Chechelashvili

CSO

XPAND

Strategy oriented tech entrepreneur, 5x founder. Last 18 yrs operates at the intersection of technology and entertainment.
Georgia

Levan Ambokadze

User Experience Designer

Bank of Georgia

PS

Ahmad Bamieh

SDE @Elastic

Elastic

Ahmad has over 9 years of experience in software development & data solutions for companies across the globe. He is a huge OSS advocate, having been a member of NodeJS, the Linux Foundation, and a maintainer over a few popular libraries.
KR/TR

Kema Bae

Co-Founder & Managing Partner

SINOFY

Kema is a Web 3.0 consultant with extensive experience in Blockchain Gaming, FinTech, Asia-centric digital infrastructure, and strong passion for women's leadership in technology.
GE

Nika Jinchveladze

Head of Digital Department

Leavingstone

Working in digital with creativity is more fun
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Speakers 2020

Denmark

Emil Asmussen

Creative Director, Northern Europe

VIRTUE, The Creative Agency by VICE

Emil Asmussen is a Creative Director at VIRTUE, The Creative Agency by VICE. His work has won numerous international awards at Cannes Lions, D&AD, and The Webby Awards. He is also one of the creators behind Q, The Genderless Voice, a project that contributed to a research report by The United Nations and was exhibited at the London Design Museum and Philadelphia Museum of Art.
USA

Eric Aguilar

CEO

OMNITRON SENSORS, Tesla, Google [X] Project Wing

Eric started his career by building sensors for drones at US Navy research labs. During his time at the Navy, he joined a company that was working on commercializing a sensor that his team worked on. That led to a startup that built a motion sensor that was later acquired by Google. He then transitioned to developing autonomous systems. He was the avionics lead at Google[x] Wing and enabled autonomous flight for their commercial delivery drones. He then worked for Elon Musk on the sensor integration efforts for Model 3 that allowed for autopilot. And was most recently at Argo AI and lead the sensor integration efforts for their fleet of robo-taxis.
USA

Patrick Lee

Co-Founder and founding CEO

Rotten Tomatoes

Patrick Lee is a serial entrepreneur best known for being a co-founder and founding CEO of Rotten Tomatoes (rottentomatoes.com), a leading entertainment website focused on movie reviews and news. He is a founding team member of Gold House and an advisor to a number of startups including Athena Pay, Casetify, ChargeSPOT, Tales, Instaread, Kiwibot, Oishii, and WePloy. He has also mentored and/or supported organizations including SOSV, Berkeley SkyDeck, Mozilla Builders, Blue Startups, Wefunder, Founder Institute, and Rock The Boat Podcast. Patrick holds a BA in Cognitive Science from the University of California at Berkeley.
USA

Meredith Howard

Social and Digital Media Lead

Deloitte

Meredith is a global social media leader and content strategist. Over the last ten years, she's worked on award-winning digital content strategies for Fortune 500 brands such as Wells Fargo, Western Union, Morningstar Inc., and now at Deloitte. As a budding journalist, Meredith already understood social media’s benefit to publishers and reporters, but quickly realized its immense potential to help brands better connect with audiences. As a result, she traded in the traditional journalism track to pursue a career in social media and digital storytelling. In addition to her work at Deloitte, she serves as an Adjunct Marketing Professor at St. Edward’s and sat on the Board of Advisors for the University’s newly established MS Digital Marketing and Analytics program. She is passionate about continued learning and has worked with the global education organization, General Assembly, to build and teach technology and digital marketing-focused workshops for students considering a career change. She also volunteers her time supporting local women’s organizations and considers herself an advocate and steward of women’s issues and gender equality. Meredith is also the creator and writer of a career blog for women navigating their twenties, joboffersbadboyfriends.com.
USA

Adam Fry-Pierce

Director, Customer Experience Programs

InVision

Top connector of design leaders in the world. CX, product, design, and community pro. Recovering restauranteur.
USA

Samira Khan

Senior Manager, Global Impact Engagement

Salesforce

Samira Khan works at the intersection of social innovation/impact + tech at Salesforce.org. Samira has worked across corporations, governments, and the social sector for over thirteen years on innovative solutions to solving some of society’s greatest challenges. She is especially interested in business model innovations for good especially for tech.
Germany

Sarah Lorenz

Director Business Development

German Entrepreneurship GmbH

Sarah is director of business development and project lead for corporate innovation projects at the German Entrepreneurship GmbH with more than 70 clients and two accelerator programs. The accelerator at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, the top ranked university in Germany, has spawned over 300 companies in 13 years and the German Accelerator, a project of the German government, has graduated over 250 companies. Sarah has various years of experience in the conception, building and management of corporate innovation units and in the implementation of entrepreneurial coaching programs as well as the establishment of strong communities – connecting start-ups, universities and corporates.
Australia

Mark Lamb

Staff UX designer

ex-Google, Uber, Adobe

Mark is a product designer with nearly 20 years of experience building digital products and leading design teams. Currently, he partners with startups and enterprise design teams to take their products and processes to the next level as an independent product design consultant. Previously, he served in lead roles at Google, Uber, and Adobe.
Poland

Zoya Andreeva

CEO and Co-Founder

E-Contenta

Zoya was 16 when she was at the school of journalism and got her first job - a host for a live radio show. She graduated from Public Relations faculty at St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University and proceeded to work as PR, marketing, and business development manager for companies like Castorama, Mazda, Veeam Software and others. Always passionate about media, storytelling, and innovation, the move to the startup world was a natural fit when she started E-Contenta in 2016. E-Contenta is the first content performance platform that converts traffic into paying customers.
Ireland

Kateryna Kladkova

Sales Team Lead (CEE&Nordics)

HubSpot

Joined HubSpot as AE in Feb 2019 and was promoted to Sales Team Lead in 13 months. Consistent top performer: qualified for Presidents Club 2020 in early October. Before HubSpot, she used to work for Creatio in global sales department - complex and long Enterprise sales (logistics, banks etc). Main expertise: B2B tech sales.
Netherlands

Joshua Hoffman

CTO

Blendle BV

Joshua Hoffman, an experienced engineer and technical leader, has been helping Amsterdam startups to build and scale their tech teams and production since 2015. As an early Red Hat engineer, Joshua consulted for organizations across North America, Europe, and Asia, and created Red Hat's award winning Virtual Training platform. Next he served as Director of Infrastructure for Tumblr, leading the team that built Tumblr's open source data center automation tool Collins. At SoundCloud, Joshua served as Technical Director, leading the team that created the popular open source metrics platform Prometheus.
USA

Paul Campillo

Director of Brand

Typeform.com

After over 13 years in social work, Paul joined Typeform in 2015 as their first marketing hire. Now, as director of brand, Paul brings a unique blend of strategy and storytelling to create something meaningful in the tech industry.
USA

Rebecca Barkin

Vice President, Immersive Experience & Platform Design

Magic Leap

As Vice President of Platform Design at Magic Leap, I lead a team of designers, technologists, and researchers in delivering a highly-performant and beautifully-crafted augmented reality platform, OS and interaction model. Since graduating from Carnegie Mellon and starting my career at EMI-Capitol Records 18 years ago, I’ve introduced the power of new, transformative technologies to beloved brands, businesses and artists.
Israel

Liraz Margalit

Founder, Chief Behavioral Scientist

ConverCX

Liraz Margalit, PhD, is a Social Psychologist who specializes in Behavioral Design and Decision Making. She integrates Neuropsychology and Behavioral Economics perspectives to analyse User behavior and deliver actionable insights for business stakeholders.
Switzerland

Deepti Pahwa

Chief Innovation Officer

Contakt World

Deepti is an experienced human-centred design, innovation & brand strategist with 18 years of shaping and building multi-national lifestyle brands, products & platforms for consumers in 80+ countries. Her most recent work is in strategic innovation, consumer experience design & communications strategy includes MIT Safe Paths since the start of COVID19, as a way to have a meaningful impact on containing the pandemic, MIT Africa conference and various other strategic independent Consulting assignments in Digital Health & Future Technology Innovations in Europe. She is a thought-leader on use of Design-centric practices on Building architecture of trust in Data ecosystems, Empathy design in the Future Digital Health, Privacy and ethics in AI, data interoperability for digital health, and understanding Usefulness of data to Public Health for Reducing Disease Transmission. She is dedicated to leverage her expertise to advance technology for the benefit of humanity, and is committed to designing for privacy-first, inclusive, responsible & innovative use of data & digital technologies. Her current work projects focus on making public health equitable & accessible, with a focus on for health systems, government regulators, technologists, and communities.She is also a well-recognised Stanford GSB LEAD alum and Founding partner of several Stanford student/alumni entrepreneurship & innovation clubs, Swiss GSB LEAD chapter, and co-leading regional European chapter. Her expertise spans a rare combination of cross-industry intelligence with a diverse skillset ranging from designing culture, strategies and teams for innovation, design thinking, to emotional brand strategy, behavioural science, consumer experience design using neuroscience perspectives and inter-cultural competence across functions & geographies.
United States

Katherine Luchaninova

Head of Business Development

Aligned Research Group

Katherine is responsible for driving the company to success. Scouting the technological world for new possible application of Aligned Research Group’s team talents, she is responsible for expansion, marketing and relationship with clients.
Estonia

Tanya Vasileva

Product Manager

Pipedrive

Tanya Vasileva is a Product Manager at Pipedrive, focusing on Customer Engagement, developing AI-based tools and mapping the customer journey. With 10 years of experience in Product and Marketing roles in leading international companies, Tanya is an expert on both topics, bringing them together to help drive business growth through customer engagement in products and features. Tanya is experienced in B2B & B2C businesses, in both US and global markets - before Pipedrive, she worked at SEMrush, St Petersburg International Culture Forum, and PMI Corporation, and built eCommerce for Pentik.
United States

Adam Hofmann

Founder

Hofmann Ventures

Adam is a human first, growth and innovation leader. He loves empowering people, teams, and organizations with the best practices and strategies to drive sustainable growth.
United States

Lewis Williams

EVP, Chief Creative Officer

Burrell Communications Group

Recognized as one of Adweek’s 2018 Top Creative 100. Lewis is a passionate creative leader who has created award winning work for such brands as McDonald's, Walmart, Toyota, Google, American Airlines, Budweiser, Hallmark, US Army, Walt Disney World and Allstate. After spending much of his successful career at Leo Burnett/Chicago he is presently Chief Creative Officer of Burrell Communications Group in Chicago, USA.
Georgia

Kati Shanti

Yoga Teacher & CEO Tbilisi Yoga Loft

Tbilisi Yoga Loft

I've been travelling around the world for almost 10 years, switching country every 6 month. Now set up in Georgia and enjoying this beautiful country.
UAE

Vera Futorjanski

CEO & Founder

VERITAS VENTURES

CEO & Founder of VeritasVentures. A former professional dancer turned into an entrepreneur, moved to the Middle East to build a technology startup for Rocket Internet, then joined Dubai Government to build the largest government accelerator, then joined 500Startups to run Middle East and Russia.
Global

Benjamin Cole

Director of Global Partnerships

AppsFlyer

Benjamin is the Global Director of Partnerships at AppsFlyer, the world's leading attribution platform. Before joining AppsFlyer, he spent four years at Facebook growing Consumer Technology and eCommerce companies. With extensive experience working with digital brands globally, Benjamin has a unique perspective on the mobile marketing arena.
United States

Parneet Pal

Chief Science Officer

Wisdom Labs

Parneet Pal, MBBS, MS is the Chief Science Officer at Wisdom Labs, a San Francisco-based company solving for stress, burnout, and loneliness in the workplace. A Harvard-trained physician, she focuses on the intersection of lifestyle medicine, behavior change and technology and building wiser workplaces using the science of mindfulness, resilience and compassion. She has written for the Harvard Business Review, is a TEDMED scholar and has been featured on the cover of Mindful magazine.
Russia

Ksenia Slavnikova

Founder

AWSM SMM

From designer to startup founder to SMM agency owner
Georgia

Natalia Khizanishvili

General Manager

Wolt

Georgia

Dimitri Safonov

Co-Founder

Living Vino

Digital Marketing, Nutrition & Wine Expert
UAE - Ireland

Craig C D'Silva

Co-Founder & Managing Partner

STR8FWD

Craig is a seasoned Marketing Communications veteran with over 15 years of experience across Europe, Middle East & Africa. A self-professed petrol head he has been privileged to work with some of the world's largest automotive brands that include; Renault Automobiles, Renault F1, Infiniti Motor Company Ltd, Red Bull Racing F1, Ferrari, BMW, MINI & Rolls-Royce. He also has a passion for all things digital + tech and has consulted with numerous start-ups that formed the basis for launching STR8FWD.
United Kingdom, Georgia

Helena Bedwell

Reporter, writer

Georgian Flavours from Helena

Helena Bedwell is a veteran journalist of 25 years.She lives in Norfolk (UK) and Tbilisi Georgia.This is her second cookery book after a successful launch of the 'GeorgianFlavours from Helena'. Her career has been varied because she has lived inseveral countries. During this period, she has applied her skills as a TV reporterin addition to her written journalistic accomplishments. After leaving Georgiain 1998 with her British husband, they travelled the world with their children,but Helena never stopped her career, and also, developed an interest in cookingGeorgian food and promoting it. Now she works for Bloomberg News, a worldwidefinancial news company, where she has successfully worked for the last 11 years.Her stories have appeared live on Bloomberg TV programmes, and shehas mostly reported on financial stories, concen trating on the government, theeconomy, lifestyle and banking in Georgia. Helena also holds childdevelopment and psychology diplomas and is a certifiedtranslator and interpreter
Georgia

Nutsa Surguladze

Chef

21 years Old Chef from Georgia, studied in France worked For Gordon Ramsay. Winner of Masterchef Georgia
RF

Arseniy Afanasenko

Ph. D. / Head of Machine Learning Department

Aligned Research Group

In 2004 graduated from Saint Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation, department of television and rdio transmission equipment. Mastered my Ph.D. thesis in 2009. 16 years of experience in image/signal processing, data mining, machine learning, and teaching activities.
Russia

Nikolay Markov

Principal Architect

Aligned Research Group

A professional Infrastructure Engineer with about 10 years of experience in software development for web, networking, cloud and distributed environments using various programming languages. Author of a number of articles about programming, Python, concurrency, algorithms, Linux etc. Active speaker at a number of English-speaking and Russian-speaking conferences, like DevOpsPro Europe, PyCon and DataFest. Co-organizer of PyData events in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.Teaching several courses, both self-created as invited expert. This includes Big Data and Data Engineering specialties by NewProLab, evening Python school for people to learn programming from scratch and internal corporate courses for employees in Luxembourg, Hamburg and Moscow.
Cyprus

Žiga Vavpotič

Non executive director (past chairman)

Outfit7 (Talking Tom)

Experienced international manager and leader with a demonstrated history of successful projects, organizations and companies. Former Chairman of Outfit7 Limited (Talking Tom and Friends), one of the fastest-growing multinational family entertainment companies (350 million monthly active users, more than 9 billion downloads, acquired for 1 billion USD by Chinese owner). Passionately connecting knowledge from business and non-profit, expertise on empowering best talents, cross-cultural cooperation (focus on China-Europe), digital transformation and creating projects and organizations for social changes. Responsible, goal oriented change maker.
Latvia

Kristine Kornilova

Communication Project Manager

Printful

Passion investor. Globally thinking Latvian. Aiming at changing the business as usual in the fashion & retail industries. Currently working focusing on Printful's sustainability strategy & execution, as well as global PR projects and online events.
UK

Kostas Koukoravas

Founder and CEO

Intelistyle

Kostas Koukoravas, Founder & CEO of Intelistyle, is on a mission to help fashion retailers address the needs of customers looking for styling advice. Intelistyle’s A.I. helps them find the right clothes regardless of their style and body type. He has a background on software engineering and A.I., previously leading product teams at Skype, Microsoft and the BBC.
Netherlands

Liva Grinberga

Associate Design Director

AnalogFolk

United Kingdom

Riccardo De Franceschi

Creative Director

Dalton Maag

Riccardo De Franceschi is Creative Director at Dalton Maag, a London-based typeface design studio founded in 1991, with a portfolio of global brands such as Airbnb and the BBC. Riccardo and the team at Dalton Maag work closely with brands to help them solve typographic challenges, through the creation of high quality typefaces and logos.
USA

Constantine Bychenkov

CEO

Aligned Research Group

I'm driving the team of Aligned Research Group to build powerful solutions for our clients by introducing innovative approaches into their operations. Specialties: Innovative product design, recruiting great teams and bridging the gap between technologists and market visionaries.
USA

Matthew Stephens

VP of Design

The Zebra, DeviantArt

Matthew Stephens is the former VP of Design at The Zebra and Co-Founder of DeviantArt. He's an experienced leader focused on the business value of design, with an emphasis on ethics, accessibility, education, & diversity.
Germany - Spain

Marta Ortega Quesada

CEO

Dopeness Agency

Marta Ortega is a Marketing Expert and the Founder of Dopeness Agency where they create kick-ass marketing initiatives for tech startups. She also shares her expertise through lecturing at prestigious business universities, such as Pompeu Fabra where she leads a curriculum on the future of marketing, and The Valley University, where she contributes with specialised master classes in marketing.
USA

Brian Morrissey

Founder

The Rebooting

From 2011 to 2020, Brian was the president and editor-in-chief of Digiday Media, a vertical media company with brands focused on media and marketing (Digiday), fashion and beauty (Glossy) and retail (Modern Retail). Brian has spent over two decades as a reporter and editor. The Rebooting is a weekly email newsletter focused on building sustainable media businesses.
Netherlands

Sebastien Toupy

Head of Startup Relations

The Next Web

Entrepreneur, community builder & people-connector. I have a real passion for startups, technology, and social impact. I currently dedicate my time to designing and running programs that help startup founders to build successful & sustainable ventures.
Israel

Alan Hofman

Latin America & Euro-Asia Collaborations Director

Israel Innovation Authority

I am leading Israel Innovation Authority's initiatives and partnerships in Latin America and Euro-Asia, being involved in negotiations, planning and design of innovative and technological partnerships and co-investment with public agencies and large corporations for R&D collaborations.
UK

Vlad Bazikalov

Regional Director

Cision Group Limited

Vlad has over 20 years' experience in business development and management with international companies such as Avis Car Rental, Marlow Hunter Sailing, Clarion Events and PR Newswire/Cision. Currently manages business development teams in CEE, ME&Israel and India. Passionate about technology and comms.
Georgia

Nodari Ivanidze

CEO and Co-Founder

WiFisher

A serial Entrepreneur with 10+ years of experience in Software based Startups. Big experience in Direct Sales and Building companies from Scratch.
Netherlands

Eliza Casapopol

AI Engineer

MIcompany

Eliza Casapopol is the co-founder of Romanian Science Festival, the first national science festival in Romania, with more than 20000 participants. She has graduated from a Master in Mathematics at University of Oxford and is working now in Amsterdam as an AI Engineer for MIcompany, a leading consultancy company creating sustainable business impact with artificial intelligence. Eliza has a passion for science and tech and aims to inspire thousands of people every year to achive their potential and dreams.
USA

Alain Sylvain

Founder & CEO

Sylvain Labs

Alain is the Founder and CEO of Sylvain Labs, a strategy and design consultancy that provokes progress for companies, people and society at large. Clients include Google, American Express, Airbnb, Spotify, BlackRock, Samsung, Pepsico, Diageo, Hilton, AB InBev, IKEA, GM, Sonos, the NBA and others. Founded in 2010, the company is headquartered in NYC, with offices in Amsterdam and Richmond, VA, and is a Certified B-Corporation.
Lithuania / Singapore

Lukas Zajancauskas

Director of Strategy & Business Development

Content Arena

Lukas has spent over 7 years working in the sports media industry – he is currently part of the management team at Content Arena, a software start-up developing innovative and market-leading solutions for sports organisations. A huge basketball fan, Lukas previously worked for the NBA, where he was part of the EMEA team, working on strategic initiatives to grow the game and fanbase across the region.
USA

Joe Sabia

Founder

Sabia Studio

Digital video artist, creative consultant, voice and creator of 73 Questions, ex-SVP of Creative Development for Conde Nast Entertainment.
Germany

Dmytro Boguslavskyy

Founder / CEO

Dive

Hustlin', bustlin' and making things talk. 24/7 is just a number. Stay true to yourself. Serial entrepreneur born in Ukraine, exported to Germany, built products, scaled companies. Founder of Dive (it's a secret), Co-Founder of Circ (acquired by Bird), ex Quandoo.
Ireland

Ed Giansante

Founder and Content Creator

E-Dublin

Ed Giansante is the founder and CEO of E-Dublin - the largest channel of information for Brazilian expats based in Europe. Since its launch in 2008, E-Dublin has helped millions of Brazilians searching for information about studies abroad. Ed's work has been recognised many times globally, including being awarded 4x as the Best Blog Abroad. While building his side hustle, Ed has worked for many multinational companies including Intel, Zynga and Dropbox, where he led global community operations and ambassadors programs. He was also elected the Community Professional of the Year by CMX.
United Arab Emirates

Richard McKeon

Co-founder and Managing Partner

STR8FWD

Richard McKeon is the co-founder and managing partner of Dubai based communications and digital agency STR8FWD, and the CEO and editor-in-chief of the B2B beauty industry publication Beauty Business Journal. Richard began his career in sales which developed his understanding of people's motivations and what drives them in their decision making process. He now uses that experience, combined with his current marketing knowledge to build desirable brands and develop impactful marketing campaigns.
FRANCE / SWITZERLAND

Melanie Lesaulnier

Mel Yogi

Melanie has been a certified yoga instructor for 2 years, practicing and teaching in different countries like India, Thailand, France or Cambodia.She teaches a unique style of yoga based on meditation in motion. Her aim is to bring her students to a deep state of relaxation so they can express fully their true potential.
Slovakia

Lujza Bubanova

CEO

MAIA MD

Background ranging from pro athlete to technology, her motto has always been to always stay out of comfort zone as nothing special happens while init. While studying in San Francisco, Lujza co-founded a startup conference Startupism. Now at number 4 mediaTech company - Youfirst, an emotion AI that aims to drive monetization of creative content. Implemented in entertainment, politics or even art, Lujza believes that the new vertical comes in mental health.
Georgia

Kati Shanti

Yoga Teacher & CEO Tbilisi Yoga Loft

Tbilisi Yoga Loft

I've been travelling around the world for almost 10 years, switching country every 6 month. Now set up in Georgia and enjoying this beautiful country.
United States

Merritt Fletcher

Founder

Meet

Hi, I am Merritt Fletcher, the Founder of Meet and MeetGreet both are Video Chat app platforms that allow YOU to get paid for your own video chat time down to the minute. You can name your own price around your own schedule or simply accept meet request to start earning today! Meet makes mobile business possible for everyone, anywhere.
Georgia

Erik Sarkisian

Chef de cuisine

Republic Restaurant

The most interesting and amazing thing that happened to me lately, is our team's and country's very first participation at the Bocuse D'or competition and this event was a great success for me as a young chef.
Georgia

Dima Guryev

Yoga Teacher

Tbilisi Yoga Loft

Yoga Teacher
Ukraine

Oksana Kononova

CEO & CoFounder

LOOQME

7 years as Entrepreneur 15 years as Projects and Teams Lead 15 years as Customer Service professional
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Speakers 2019

Georgia

Levan Berulava

Managing Director

Adjara Group

Ukraine

Igor Karpets

Head of Enterprise Sales

Grammarly

Czech Republic

Pavel Vydra

Growth Manager & Community Leader

Toptal

Georgia

Avtandil Kasradze

Chairman

Georgia’s Innovation and Technology Agency

Turkey

Günce Önür

Startup Fundraising Advisor

StartersHub

Saudi Arabia

Abdulrahman Al Qahtani

CEO

DAAL

Georgia

Konstantine Chatidi

CEO

Holmes & Watson

Georgia

Gaga Darsalia

CEO

Redberry

England

Tamuna Papava

Senior Program Manager, Amazon Devices

Amazon

Georgia

Giorgi Vashakidze

Digital Products and Innovations

Bank of Georgia

Latvia

Egita Polanska

Partnerships

Startup Wise Guys

Georgia

Nikoloz Jinchveladze

Head of AI Department

Leavingstone

Georgia

Giorgi Jvaridze

CEO

MaxinAI

Latvia

Keti Meparishvili

Regional Manager of Asia

TWINO

Georgia

Koba Kurdadze

Founder and CEO

UniPAY.com

US

Salome Urotadze

AI Developer

Partnership with SpaceX & Neuralink

Georgia

Zaal Gachechilade

CTO

Pulsar AI

US

Katherine Luchaninova

Head of Business Development, Marketing and Sales

Aligned Research Group

Sweden

Oskar Wahlbäck

Head of Global Operations

Beetroot Academy

Turkey

Neşen Yücel

Co-founder

Stage-Co

Sweden

Mike Wittrup

Founder and Creative Director

Barkas

France

Guillaume Moubeche

Founder & CEO

Lemlist

Romania

Wiliam Bognar

Product Manager

UiPath

Romania

Vlad Calus

Co-Founder

Planable

Czech Republic

Daniel Hastik

Partner

Nextech Ventures

Georgia

Gigi Janelidze

Design Director

Turkey

Barkin Lacin Ozdemir

Storyteller

Freelance

Georgia

George Avaliani

Founder & Creative Director

Holy Motors

DE

Vitaly Friedman

Creative Lead, UX Designer

Smashing Media

Vitaly loves beautiful content and does not give up easily. Born in Minsk, Belarus, he studied computer science and mathematics in Germany. While writing algebra proofs and preparing for software engineering at nights in the kitchen, at the same time he discovered passion for typography, interface design and writing. After working as a freelance designer and developer for 6 years, he co-founded Smashing Magazine back in 2006, a leading online magazine for designers and developers. His curiosity drove him from interface design to front-end to performance optimization to accessibility and back to user experience over all the years. Vitaly is the author, co-author and editor of all Smashing books (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/books), and a curator of all Smashing Conferences (https://www.smashingconf.com). He currently works as creative lead of Smashing Magazine (www.smashingmagazine.com) and front-end/UX consultant in Europe and abroad, working with European Parliament, Haufe-Lexware, Axel-Springer and a few other companies.
Ukraine

Oleksandr Honchar

CTO

Neurons Lab

Czech Republic

Antonio Nasuto

Director, Commercial Sales, Central and Eastern Europe

IBM

Dublin

Vera Ivashchenko

Client Partner, Digital Natives Central Eastern Europe

Facebook

Switzerland

Matthias Zwingli

Head Startup Enablement & International

Digitalswitzerland

Germany

Pavlo Kuznyetsov

Product Manager - Martech

Zalando

France

Pascal Condamine

Startup Evangelist

INDIEGOGO

Latvia

Marite Aleksandra Silava

Fintech Community Manager

Swedbank

Banking, innovation and communication expert with 16+ years of experience, most notably as Innovation and Collaboration Lead for Swedbank Group, international speaker and business owner.
Ireland

Andrii Krykavskyi

Territory Manager

Google

Ireland

Grygorii Krutii

Technical Consultant, Web and Apps

Google

Germany

Anastasia Stefanska

Business Intelligence Analyst

BlaBlaCar

US

Rebecca Roth

Social Media Specialist & Imaging Coordinator

Nasa

US

Lysandre Follet

Director of Generative Design

Nike

I’m a musician, designer and innovator living and working in Portland, Oregon. During the day I’m the Director of Generative Design in Nike’s Innovation Department. I lead a team of cutting-edge multidisciplinary creatives who use Generative Design to create the cutting-edge performance products like those introduced at the 2016 Olympics.
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Speakers 2018

Timon Afinsky

Angel Investor I Co-Founder

Elbi

Maxim Chebotarev

Angels, Co-investments, Co-Founder

IIDF @ TECHMAFIA

Jake Sharpe

Product Designer

Farfetch

Lukasz Maroszczyk

Digital Marketing Lead CEE

Philips

George Chogovadze

Chairman

Georgian national tourism administration

Andrii Krykavskyi

Google Cloud Manager

Google

Clement Marcelet

Director of the Airbnb Hospitality Lab

Airbnb

Sergiy Myronenko

Startups, Export & Entrepreneurship Development

Google

James LEGO Poulter

Head of Emerging Platforms & Partnerships

LEGO

Tornike Margvelashvili

Musician

RM

Eka Kadagishvili

Co-Founder and Managing Partner

The Movement TV

Grzegorz Kosiński

CEO

Audience Network

George Tserodze

Priest

Georgian Orthodox Church

Jakub Dymitrowicz

Founder & CEO

Brandbridge

Mariam Lapiashvili

Co-founder and Managing Director

Giovanni Morra

Anano Bakuradze

Co-founder & Managing Partner

Movement TV

Margo Lazarenkova

Co-founder

Emerge

Tarek Ghobar

Entrepreneur, Business founder, and Growth driver

Union.vc

Benjamin Talin

Founder

MoreThanDigital

Zurab Japaridze

Politician

GIRCHI

Tarmo Virki

Co-founder

CoFounder Magazine