Nenad Paunović is Director of Delivery Unit for IT and Entrepreneurship within the Office of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia. He is leading national efforts to create a world class business environment for digital and innovative industries in Serbia. Please refer to https://innovations.serbiacreates.rs for more details. Previously, he worked as a business growth consultant and executive with 20 years of professional experience. He is co-founder of Serbian Venture Network (SeVeN) which is organizing Belgrade Venture Forum, the largest innovation, investment and entrepreneurship forum in the region. He holds an EMBA from Cotrugli Business School and was President of the Board of Cotrugli Alumni Club in Serbia. Active in various sports, he holds a full marathon result of 3 hours and 58 minutes.

Miri Rodriguez is a globally recognized Storyteller, Head of Global Internship Program at Microsoft and author of Brand Storytelling. She is a creative journalist and content strategist, evangelizing brand narrative and showcasing how thought leaders can leverage storytelling techniques for culture activation and influence in the digital age. Miri brings 15+ years of expertise, valuable industry and consulting insights matched with a lighthearted and connected delivery approach.

Empathy: The Rise Against the Machines
Having failed at several product launches, as well as working on a few successful products, has taught me a lesson or two that I want to share here. From making the right (and wrong) assumptions to testing them (and what happens when you don’t – which I see with 99% of product launches), to building MVPs and choosing the right features to build – all has an impact on the success of your product.

Aleksandar Mastilovic is a former EU Marie Curie Fellow, 5G and telco scientist, cybersecurity industry expert, and policy agitator for smart solutions and digital transformation. Mr. Mastilovic works in the community and he is the Ambassador of the EU Code Week in Bosnia and Herzegovina and actively promotes modern education for kids as the country’s highest priority. As an active member of the IEEE managing bodies, he works on progressive policies, strategies, and smart tech solutions for the modern world’s challenges. He is a co-founder of several Smart City initiatives and start-ups in the Western Balkans region. Mr. Mastilovic works as the external consultant and expert for the BEREC – EU national electronic communications regulatory body association and ITU – International Telecommunications Union, the UN body for telecommunications.

The Road to Society 5.0: Smart Technologies for Smart Society in the 21st Century
The smart tech solutions are not the purpose or goal. Humanity needs technology to improve our Quality of Life and to optimize our resource allocation. From urban areas to villages, we want to improve the living experience, to improve living quality in suburban and rural areas motivating people to deaccelerate the global urbanization process. Using tech solutions means that we need to build the affirmative legislative and regulatory framework to enable many new applications. It is not only about technologies, but it is important to consider the ethical and social impact side of the massive tech presence and applications. The key point is trust, we need to be sure that privacy and cybersecurity issues will not cause demotivating issues for the broader population. In this talk, we will learn how to observe the challenge from a multistakeholder perspective and how to successfully finalize the process of the digital transformation of the society – to Society 5.0 we name Smart and Sustainable Society.

In the world of Video Games & Esports, Bill Le Voir-Barry works with clients on improving ROI – through Agile / DevOps, SCRUM, Motivational Game Mechanics, Efficiency in Architecture, Event Services / Arena Technologies for Esports and Cognitive & Cloud Patterns. As an IBM Award Winner in 2014 & 2015 for Eminence & Excellence, Bill strives to put his clients up front and unites with IBM / Client Teams to “Get it Done!” Bill’s work with diverse technologies include such as BigWorld, Unreal, Unity SDK, Various Streaming Packages, Bluemix/Watson, Cognos TM1, and various Cloud Patterns. Outside of client time, you will find Bill exploring the rocky shores of the Pacific Northwest in the United States, Getting “Beat-up” as a Newb in a game of StarCraft II; Midlane or Tank in League of Legends, or perhaps walking the Strand in Manhattan Beach, California. Winter activities also include exploring the great lakes region during a beautiful “polar vortex.”