The Leading Online Tech Festival for Emerging Markets

Transformation Group Partner, Former UpLoad VR Entrepreneur in Residence and Futurist for Rackspace, Blogger, and Author Robert Scoble is among the world’s best-known tech journalists and futurists. He is also a keynote speaker and most passionate about Virtual and Augmented Reality and how they will change and disrupt business. Futurist Based on his many meetings with tech pioneers and thinkers, he is always looking for early changes in patterns that foretell lasting trends. Three such trends have resulted in his three books with Israel. Siri was launched in his house. He did the first live video from inside the first Tesla (Elon Musk gave him a ride before he gave his best friend a ride). He has the first video of a Google self driving car up on YouTube. He was first to show the world many companies and technologies, like those, and Flipboard, Pandora, Instagram, and thousands of others. Technology Expert Scoble is best known for his blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technology evangelist at Microsoft. He later worked for Fast Company as a video blogger, and then Rackspace and the Rackspace sponsored community site Building 43 promoting breakthrough technology and startups. He worked for Upload VR  — a new media site covering virtual and augmented reality — as its entrepreneur in residence, where he developed new shows, events, with other entrepreneurs in the Upload Collective, a co-working space for virtual reality-focused startups. Transformation Group, LLC Founded by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel in March 2017, Transformation Group, LLC, is the first consulting firm dedicated to helping big brands develop and implement Mixed Reality (MR) strategies, a trend just now starting that will soon transform businesses as profoundly as the smartphone did a decade ago. They believe that a decade from today the center of digital commerce and life will have migrated from today's handsets to tomorrow's VR and AR headsets--or smart glasses, as they will be called. Robert wants to help brands understand, plan and implement strategies to make this vital transformation. Books Robert has interviewed thousands of tech company founders, and his three books, written with Forbes author Shel Israel, have predicted three decade-long trends Naked Conversations predicted how businesses would use Social Media before Facebook was released. Age of Context predicted how wearable and mobile technology would bring new kinds of software. His newest book, The Fourth Transformation, predicts how augmented and virtual reality will change every business. Keynote Speaker As a globally in demand keynote speaker Robert delivers a rocket ride through the future of technology, and shows you how your business is about to be disrupted by mixed reality, which will bring a new user interface onto smart cities, IoT devices, self-driving cars, robots, and drones. He gives businesses an insight into how other businesses, like Sephora, Disney, and Ford, are already using augmented reality and how your business will need to change to get ready for consumers and workers who will be wearing augmented reality (or what we call mixed reality) glasses while interacting with their business.  

Jeff Hoffman is a successful entrepreneur, proven CEO, worldwide motivational speaker, bestselling author, Hollywood film producer, a producer of a Grammy winning jazz album, and executive producer of an Emmy Award winning television show. In his career, he has been the founder of multiple startups, he has been the CEO of both public and private companies, and he has served as a senior executive in many capacities. Jeff has been part of a number of well-known successful startups, including Priceline.com/Booking.com, uBid.com and more. Jeff is the Chief Evangelist for the Global Entrepreneurship Network. Jeff serves on the boards of companies in the US, Europe, the Middle East, South America, Africa, and Asia. He supports entrepreneurs and small businesses on a worldwide basis. He has not only built multi-billion dollar global companies, but he has worked with them in many different industries and markets, and he possesses a unique and powerful knowledge of what it takes to achieve exponential growth for entrepreneurs and small business owners everywhere.

Futurist, Storyteller and Cultural Strategist. A polymath and enthusiastic curator of people, patterns and stories. In 2019, Adah was recognised as one of TED Talks Global Emerging Innovators and was nominated by Google. In 2018, she was recognised as one of the UK’s Top 100 Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Leaders in Technology. Adah is a storyteller who empathetically subverts the status quo. She takes a philosophical approach to technology, hones her skills in pattern recognition and creates immersive storytelling and learning and development environments. Cultures in which her clients and audiences become critical thinkers, philosophers and immersive storytellers, problem-solvers. Innovators. With over 20 years experience in transforming cultures to nurture decentralised humanity-centred innovation environments. Adah has worked with businesses and individuals in advertising, education, entertainment, entrepreneurship, marketing, media and, technology start-ups. Her clients and partnerships have included Google, Unilever, Sainsbury's, Oath, Ogilvy Labs, The British Council, The EU Council, The Tate Modern, the British Film Institute (BFI), The Union Chapel, Burning Man Camp: Playground, ArabNet Dubai, Innovate Finance, Wayra UK, The Friday Club, and Shambala Festival to name a few.

Jeremiah is a technology analyst who forecasts how technology will impact business, society and our lives, based in Silicon Valley.

Former president of HBO Enterprises, currently marketing professor at NYU Stern School of Business, visiting professor at American University in Dubai and former staff writer at the Los Angeles Times.

Marie-Lou Nahhas is a Lebanese American actress, model and activist who is starring in the break-out role of Shani Abboud on the final season of Netflix's Emmy® award winning drama series Orange Is the New Black. In 2018, Nahhas appeared in Hulu's Emmy® nominated series The Looming Tower. Her additional film and television credits include, but are not limited to Southpaw and Madame Secretary. Born in Beirut, Lebanon Marie-Lou Nahhas moved to the United States with her family to complete her higher education.The passion of acting led her to constantly explore the medium through coaching and workshops, while completing her degree in Biology and Masters in Public Health. In 2012, Marie-Lou was a finalist in Miss Lebanon pageant, which exposed her to the model and fashion industry both in the Middle East and internationally. Following a unique and diverse path, Marie-Lou Nahhas continued on crafting her acting career and is based in New York City. Nahhas speaks French, Arabic, Spanish and English and is working on many advocacy projects that combine her artistic and scientific endeavors.

Joel Ayala is a Managing Partner at Class 5. Prior to co-founding Class 5, Joel was on the founding team at Lumia Capital where he focused on investments in emerging markets, including Careem, Shedul, CargoX and many others. Joel serves on the Management Committee overseeing Lumia Capital Fund 1. Prior to Lumia, Joel worked on operations and corporate development at YuMe (NYSE: YUME). Joel led international expansion in Europe and Latin America and helped take the company public. Joel also co-founded Mingleton, a social discovery platform. He began his career as a banker with Jefferies. Joel graduated from Harvard University with an AB in Economics. He was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in 2016 and currently serves on the board of Yellow, Meliuz, Shedul, FiscalNote, and EatStreet.

Erica Kerner is currently Sr. Advisor at ONE Championship – Asia’s largest Sports Media Property. She was formerly Vice President of Marketing and Communications for Tiffany & Co. Asia Pacific. In this role, she was responsible for all aspects of Tiffany’s marketing and communications planning, strategy and implementation across all retail channels and all Asia Pacific countries. She held a similar position at Ralph Lauren prior to joining Tiffany in 2013 and brings to her role more than 20 years of marketing experience in Asia Pacific, specifically Greater China. Working for Adidas as director of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, she was responsible for all aspects of the company’s marketing, sponsorship, licensing and business development activities. She and her team won China’s first-ever Cannes Gold Lion for the adidas Olympics campaign. Erica held the same role for adidas at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Before joining Adidas, Erica was Director of Marketing and Communications for Special Olympics China, helping to develop the program from 50,000 to 500,000 participants. In addition, as an account director at J. Walter Thompson Shanghai, she was responsible for creative advertising development, product development and retail marketing for DeBeers and PepsiCo. She also worked at Nike in various roles including director of international marketing for Nike Retail and Asia Pacific marketing manager. Erica started her marketing and advertising career at Bates Advertising in Taiwan working on multi-national clients. Erica graduated cum laude from Tufts University in 1989 with a degree in international relations. She is also a founding steering board member of The Marketing Society Asia and Chairman of the Marketing Society South East Asia.

Daumantas Dvilinskas is a serial entrepreneur and advisor to startup founders, currently co-founder & CEO at TransferGo. Previously he co-founded Pinevio.com and “Green Trends”, of which he was also CEO. He graduated from Business Studies at Lancaster University in 2010. He has always been business-orientated and has had interest in focusing his efforts on creating something new and innovative that would add value to society, and he firmly believes that FinTech fascinatingly enables this. As one of the co-founders of TransferGo, he believes he is finally fulfilling this dream, not only by leading a successful business but also because the business is making a real difference and helping people to enter a middle-class lifestyle.

Vinodh (Vin) Bhat is Co-founder, President & Chief Strategy Officer of Saavn. He has over 19 years of experience in the media, entertainment and technology industries and has played a crucial role in defining the Saavn’s purpose and vision, recruiting talented individuals to join the Saavn team, raising capital to finance growth, and developing the company’s revenue streams. He also helps manage the company’s multi-faceted global relationships with Facebook, Google, and Amazon. 

Vin has been speaker at industry conferences around the world. He is also a Founding Partner at New York City-based venture development firm, 212MEDIA. Prior to Saavn and 212MEDIA, he co-founded and served as the VP of Sales & Business Development at Simile, a contextual advertising platform that advised various business units of Time Warner, Cox Media, Scripps and Hearst.

Vin began his career at the investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) and helped advise and raise capital for media & telecom companies such as Voyager, Earthlink, AT&T, @Home, Akamai, and several others. 

Vin graduated from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia.

Patrick de Laive is co-founder and CPO of TNW (The Next Web). As a frequently asked moderator and speaker at events across the world (Slush, Launch, South Summit, 4YFN, DIS Berlin) he is at his best at the intersection of creative thinking and technology. Patrick’s specialties include branding, marketing and communication strategy, growth hacking, innovation, event concepting and blockchain applications.

Melissa is the co-founder of Inspo, a text-tech and publishing network for Gen Z Previously, Melissa held executive positions at Cheddar, a live video media company at the intersection of business news and culture, which was acquired by Altice, and BuzzFeed. For her creative work in advertising, she was named to Forbes 30 Under 30, Business Insider’s 30 Most Creative People Under 30 and as one of Digiday's Changemakers.

Amit Chaudhary, Co-Founder, Lenskart.com is known for deriving innovative ideas and has a deep understanding and interest in Technology, Analytics, Operations along with an expertise in organizational development which has brought in a revolutionary growth in the business. Amit is also responsible for the aggressive offline expansion of Lenskart.com. The Omni Channel brand retails not only through its website also 500 plus stores spread across 100 plus cities at the moment and plans to ramp up the number aggressively making it the fastest retail growth witnessed in India.. Lenskart is India's first and the only brand to use robotic technique that delivers glasses which are accurate to 3 decimal places. The brand has brought a Technology revolution in eyewear with services like 3D Try On and Home Eye Check Up.

Helen Chen is the CEO and Co-founder of Nomad, a property technology company in the Middle East. Prior to founding Nomad, Helen was an investor and worked at several notable companies including Goldman Sachs, China Investment Corporation (CIC), and Blackstone as well as studying at Stanford Business School. Always having had a passion for real estate, the idea for Nomad was conceived whilst Helen was in Silicon Valley, but recognizing the potential in the Middle East she relocated to Dubai and launched the business in September 2019. A strong believer in supporting women both in tech and in the boardroom, Helen is a champion for hiring female talent at Nomad and encouraging a balanced workforce.

A serial entrepreneur, Eric Cheng founded Carsome to transform the used car industry in Southeast Asia. He leads the overall strategic direction of the business across multiple verticals and expansion strategies. Prior to Carsome, Eric accumulated 8 years of marketing experience in the internet industry and a pioneer in championing digital media within Southeast Asia.