Dr. Ott Velsberg is the Chief Data Officer of Estonia and a senior government official responsible for national data and artificial intelligence policy. He oversees the development of data governance, open data, and trustworthy AI, and leads initiatives that embed data and AI into public-sector decision-making and service delivery. Under his leadership, Estonia has gained a reputation as a trendsetter in data governance and artificial intelligence.

Born in Segovia, he is a Telecommunications Engineer, member of the Senior Corps of Systems and Information Technologies of the State Administration, Master in Systems Management and Information and Communications Technologies, Executive Master of Business Management by the School of Industrial Organization and Leadership Program for Public Management. Diploma of Advanced Studies in PhD in Applied Economics.
He has worked for more than a decade in the private sector in the areas of telecommunications (TELETTRA) and centres for urban traffic control and environmental pollution (SICE).
Since 1993 he has been a member of the Public Administration, where he worked in the Department of Tax Computing (1993-2005), in the Central Delegation of Large Taxpayers (2006-2009) and in the Department of Planning and Institutional Relations, in the State Agency of Tax Administration. General Director on Impulse of the Electronic Administration (2009-2011), responsible for the implementation of Law 11/2007 on electronic access of citizens to public services and he has been part of the Office for the Implementation of the Reform of the Public Administration (CORA), created to fight against the economic crisis, as responsible for promoting technological measures (2013-2016).
Between 2018 and 2020 he was Secretary General of Digital Administration of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, responsible for the Digital Transformation initiatives of the General State Administration and the common infrastructures that have supported the administration during the time of confinement caused by COVID-19.
He is currently General Director of the Madrid Digital Office in charge of promoting the digital transformation process in the city, digital administration and data strategy.

Giulio Quaggiotto is the former Head of Strategic Innovation at UNDP. He was a Research Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. His career spans leadership roles at Climate KIC, Nesta, WWF, and the World Bank. Additionally, he managed the Jakarta Lab of the UN Global Pulse. His research interests include portfolio approaches to innovation and lead user innovation. Giulio’s passions include marsupials and Slavic philology, which make him the last person you want to be stuck in the elevator with.

Pramod Varma is currently the Co-Founder and Chief Architect of “Networks for Humanity” (NFH), an international network of labs creating universal technology infrastructure for the AI driven digital economy. NFH’s mission is to develop universal, interoperable infrastructure for the tokenization and exchange of all forms of assets – both physical and digital – across geographies and sectors. These labs aim to serve and enable a set of decentralized, interoperable, open innovation playgrounds, empowering market participants and impact-driven organizations to build thousands of diverse applications, unlocking billions of dollars in economic value.

Under NFH efforts, he co-created the Finternet vision—an initiative to build a universal infrastructure that empowers individuals and businesses to unify, verify, and transact their assets seamlessly. This vision aims to enable billions of people to actively participate in the global digital economy. He is also the co-creator of Beckn, a vision for peer-to-peer, agentic native, open networks that enable universal value exchange across the global value chains. He helped to launch Digital Energy Grid (DEG) —a pioneering initiative that brings the Beckn vision to life for the future of energy networks.

Over the past 15 years, he has served as the Chief Architect behind many of India’s most impactful Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) initiatives, all of which now operate at population scale. These include:

• AADHAAR, the country’s digital identity system covering 1.4 billion people that enabled banking access to move from sub 20% to above 80% in a decade, reaching banking to villages, and helped India lay world’s largest Government-to-Person (G2P) cash transfer infrastructure;
• UPI, the unifi ed payments system launched in 2016, now processing over 18 billion transactions monthly across 350 banks and 50+ million merchants;
• E-SIGN, an interoperable digital signature protocol that enabled multiple market players to offer instant, interoperable digital signature capability under the law;
• DIGI-LOCKER, a digital credentialing and wallet system hosting over 9 billion verifi able credentials and serving more than 500 million users.
• ACCOUNT AGGREGATOR (AA), a decentralized, open fi nance network that spans banking, capital markets, insurance, and taxation data – enabling individuals and businesses to access and securely share their fi nancial data in real time.
• ONDC, a cross-sectoral, peer-to-peer commerce network powered by Beckn, bringing 1000’s of small and large businesses to sell directly to consumers.

In addition to the above, he also played a key role in the design and architecture of transformative digital systems across AI, taxation, healthcare, agriculture, commerce, transportation, and education.

He advises a range of population-scale digital transformation and AI efforts across Africa, Latin America, Asia, and other regions, contributing to both the design and implementation of large-scale systems. He also serves on the advisory boards of several public and private institutions globally and is a regular speaker at leading international conferences.

Before 2009, he built a distinguished entrepreneurial career over nearly two decades, holding various technology leadership roles with global responsibilities across the United States and India. This phase of his professional journey laid a strong foundation in technological innovation, paving the way for his later contributions to the digital infrastructure sector.

He holds a Ph.D. and a Master’s degree in Computer Science, as well as a second Master’s in Applied Mathematics. He is deeply passionate about technology, science, society, and education.

Eddie Copeland is Director of the London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI), the UK capital’s local government innovation team. LOTI helps London borough councils and the Mayor of London work together to bring the best of innovation, data and technology to improve public services and tackle big challenges such as climate change, homelessness and health reform. Over the past decade, he has worked with senior officials in the United Nations, European Commission as well as national and local governments around the world to support their digital, data and innovation strategies. Previously, he was Director of Government Innovation at Nesta, the innovation foundation. He is the author of seven think tank reports on government use of technology and data.

Managing Partner of Digital Nation

Eduard Mihalas is the Regional Adviser on Population and Data at UNFPA Eastern Europe and Central Asia Regional Office. He leads UNFPA’s work on population and data, by advising governments in the region on building strong data systems and leveraging the potential of data in addressing the demographic shifts.

He previously served as a Resource Mobilization and Partnership Specialist with the Public Funding and Financing Branch in New York. In that capacity, he engaged with various donors and governments to position UNFPA’s mandate and the SDGs, successfully managing relationships with traditional partners and leading diversification efforts, particularly with emerging donors. He also led the resource mobilization efforts for the ICPD30 Global Dialogue on Demographic Diversity and positioned UNFPA’s work on demographic shifts with the largest donors of the organization.

Prior to this role, Eduard was a Population and Development Analyst for UNFPA Moldova. There, he spearheaded innovative programs that supported the Moldovan Government to take a robust shift in building demographic resilience and worked with the National Bureau of Statistics in moving towards a register-based statistical system. His work enabled Moldova to revise for the first time in 30 years the population estimates at national and sub-national level and, for the first time, to estimate international migration, in alignment with the Eurostat requirements. He also initiated strategic collaborations with the private sector to foster family-friendly policies and intergenerational solidarity.

Before joining UNFPA, Eduard was a prominent civil society leader, actively involved with the Open Government Partnership and the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum. As President of the National Youth Council, he launched groundbreaking initiatives to empower young people and established new youth policy frameworks across Moldova and Eastern Partnership countries.

Dr Alexander Iosad is the director of the Government Innovation Policy team at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, leading research on governing in the age of AI. His work focuses on the steps political leaders around the world can take to harness artificial intelligence and other technologies to improve public services and reimagine the state. He has deep expertise in education, with a track record of collaboration with ministers in Africa and Europe, sector bodies, development banks and international agencies. His background includes roles in education technology venture capital as well as public sector and innovation consulting. He also holds a DPhil in history of science.

Manuel Kilian is Managing Director of the Global Government Technology Centre (GGTC) in Berlin, a collaboration between GovTech Germany and the World Economic Forum. He previously founded and served as CEO of GovMind, a leading provider of GovTech intelligence, which he sold in 2024. Prior to that, Manuel worked as an Investment Manager in the FinTech space, as a Principal at Axel Springer’s technology consultancy and as Chief of Staff to the President of the Federation of German Industries (BDI). He also gained experience as a Guest Researcher at the UK Cabinet Office.

Manuel holds a Master of Philosophy in Public Policy from the University of Cambridge and completed earlier studies at Lund University, Maastricht University, and Sciences Po Paris. His career has focused on driving innovation and fostering technology adoption in the public sector.

Matt Houlihan is Vice President, Government Affairs, Europe at Cisco, where he leads the company’s engagement with policymakers across the UK and Europe. Matt and his team advocate for forward-looking technology policies that support Cisco’s mission to power an inclusive future for all. He currently chairs techUK’s International Trade group and serves on the Executive Committee of the Industry and Parliament Trust.

Prior to joining Cisco, Matt held several key roles in the UK government, including diplomatic postings in Paris and Brussels with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, a member of the Prime Minister’s EU team and in the UK interior ministry. Matt was also an advisor to the UK’s EU Commissioner.

Matt holds an MSc in European Politics and Policy and a BSc in Sociology from the London School of Economics, as well as a DipEcon from the Open University.

Pedro Tavares is Co-Founder and CEO of GovHorizon, an AI-powered platform that helps organizations anticipate regulatory changes, policy shifts, and governance challenges before they happen. The platform processes global large scale daily sources to provide early-warning intelligence for strategic decision-making across public and private sectors.

Previously, Pedro served as Portugal’s Secretary of State for Justice, where he launched Europe’s first GovTech program in the Justice sector and led digital transformation initiatives that contributed to reducing case backlogs by 25%. He also managed the BUPi Digital Land Registry project, using AI and satellite imagery to map over 30% of Portuguese properties in two years, helping to contribute to sustainable resilience and smart territories policies. Both initiatives were recognized by the OECD in its 2024 report on Portugal’s justice modernization.

Before joining government, Pedro worked in digital transformation roles at IT consulting firms, where he led enterprise modernization projects across public and private sectors.

Pedro is a founding member of the UNU AI Global Network. He holds a Master’s in Media and Web and is pursuing a PhD in Information Management at NOVA IMS, focusing on AI-enhanced strategic foresight for digital policymaking.