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Areeq Chowdhury is Head of Policy (Data and Digital Technologies) at the Royal Society. His team focuses on how artificial intelligence and other data-driven technologies can, and should, be used to benefit humanity.
Areeq founded the influential technology policy think tank, WebRoots Democracy, which ran between 2014 and 2020. He has authored various reports on digital democracy, social media, and artificial intelligence. Most notably, he led a high-profile project on disinformation during the 2019 UK General Election, producing viral deepfakes of Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn endorsing each other for Prime Minister.
Areeq holds a BSc in Economics and Political Science from the University of Birmingham. His career history includes working at: the Foreign Office; the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport; the UK Parliament; London City Hall; and KPMG.
Interactive Workshop: Disability Tech and the 10-year NHS plan (Morning Breakouts – Governance & Accountability) Wednesday @ 12:05 PM
Rumman Chowdhury is a leading practitioner in responsible AI.
Rumman Chowdhury, PhD, is a globally recognized expert in responsible AI, governance, and algorithmic accountability. She is the CEO and co-founder of Humane Intelligence, a nonprofit advancing community-driven AI auditing and evaluation.
Appointed as the U.S. Science Envoy for Artificial Intelligence, she engages in global AI governance efforts with a focus on emerging markets. Previously, she led AI ethics teams at Twitter and Accenture, pioneering enterprise-level AI risk mitigation tools. Rumman is also a Responsible AI Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center and a trusted advisor to international organizations on AI policy and ethics.
Afternoon Fireside – Human-Centered Innovation in 2025: What future are we building? Wednesday @ 2:20 PM
Kate Jones is the Chief Executive Officer of the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (www.drcf.org.uk). Kate leads this innovative team, working to increase and deepen coordination between regulators of online services and technology for the benefit of both businesses and their customers.
Before joining the DRCF, Kate was an expert consultant and researcher on the governance of emerging technologies, with particular regard to human rights law, public international law and diplomacy. She was an Associate Fellow with the International Law Programme at Chatham House, Senior Associate with Oxford Information Labs, and member of the advisory board of an AI ethics company. She has published and spoken widely on aspects of national and international tech governance, with specialisms in artificial intelligence, disinformation and foreign interference, and the role of technical standards.
In her work, Kate brings to bear her many years of experience as a legal adviser and diplomat with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, including as Legal Adviser to the UK Mission to the United Nations in Geneva and UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. She also draws on her experience of leadership, skills and technical expertise as Director of Oxford University’s Diplomatic Studies Programme and as Course Director and Advisory Board member of the Centre for Political and Diplomatic Studies. Kate took her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in law at the University of Oxford and qualified as a UK solicitor at Norton Rose.
The realities of implementing digital ethics in 2025: What have we learned this year? Wednesday @ 10:15 AM
In her eight years at the Academy, Alex has led a range of policy projects including leading the external review of the government’s National Security Risk Assessment methodology and the Academy’s COVID-19 response programme. She now oversees broad policy programmes on engineering responsible AI, neighbourhood health and maintaining safe, resilient infrastructure.
Human-Computer Interaction: Robotics and other Embodied Intelligences (Afternoon Breakouts - Participatory Design & Public Benefit) Wednesday @ 3:20 PM
Meet the Responsible AI Practitioners: a view from the frontlines of AI adoption Wednesday @ 12:50 PM
Maria is an acknowledged AI ethics and policy expert. As PwC's Head of AI Public Policy and Ethics, she is responsible for integrating ethical and policy considerations into the company's AI strategies, promoting partnerships with key stakeholders, and leading PwC's engagement in public policy debates and initiatives. Previously she was PwC Responsible AI lead, pioneering the adoption of ethical AI practices for the UK firm and its clients. Additionally, Maria champions AI for children and human centric AI.
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariaaxente/
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@maria_axente
Looking to the year ahead: Do we have the institutions, infrastructure and resources we need? Wednesday @ 4:25 PM
Sue leads techUK's Technology and Innovation work at techUK.
This includes work programmes on cloud, data protection, data analytics, AI, digital ethics, Digital Identity and Internet of Things as well as emerging and transformative technologies and innovation policy. She has been recognised as one of the most influential people in UK tech by Computer Weekly's UKtech50 Longlist and in 2021 was inducted into the Computer Weekly Most Influential Women in UK Tech Hall of Fame. A key influencer in driving forward the data agenda in the UK Sue is co-chair of the UK government's National Data Strategy Forum. As well as being recognised in the UK's Big Data 100 and the Global Top 100 Data Visionaries for 2020 Sue has also been shortlisted for the Milton Keynes Women Leaders Awards and was a judge for the Loebner Prize in AI. In addition to being a regular industry speaker on issues including AI ethics, data protection and cyber security, Sue was recently a judge for the UK Tech 50 and is a regular judge of the annual UK Cloud Awards.
The realities of implementing digital ethics in 2025: What have we learned this year? Wednesday @ 10:15 AM
Rory joined techUK in June 2023 after three years in the Civil Service on its Fast Stream leadership development programme.
During this time, Rory worked on the Government's response to Covid-19 (NHS Test & Trace), school funding strategy (Department for Education) and international climate and nature policy (Cabinet Office). He also tackled the social care crisis whilst on secondment to techUK's Health and Social Care programme in 2022.
Before this, Rory worked in the House of Commons and House of Lords alongside completing degrees in Political Economy and Global Politics.
Today, Rory leads techUK's Emerging Technology and Innovation activity, working with many of the UK's most innovative tech companies to convene key stakeholders, work through key challenges and opportunities for industry, showcase best practice, and shape Government's thinking around future technologies, sectors and industries.
Focus areas include Robotics, Immersive, Web3, Metaverse, Photonics, Space, Gaming, Creative, Innovation policy, university spin-outs, and Futures & Horizon Scanning.
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/rorydaniels28/
Human-Computer Interaction: Robotics and other Embodied Intelligences (Afternoon Breakouts - Participatory Design & Public Benefit) Wednesday @ 3:20 PM
Henry de Zoete is a senior advisor and visiting fellow to the Oxford Martin AI Governance Initiative at the University of Oxford. Until July 2024 he was the Prime Minister's advisor on AI. He led the UK's approach on AI including the Bletchley Park AI Safety Summit and setting up the UK's AI Safety Institute. He was the UK's co-lead negotiator ("sherpa") for the AI Seoul Summit.
His government experience includes four years as a Non-Executive Board Member of the Cabinet Office from 2020 to 2024. He was on the advisory board of Gov.uk / Government Digital Service for three years. Previously he worked as a special adviser in the Department for Education from 2010 to 2013 and is currently a Non Executive Director of Oak National Academy (an Arms Length Body of the Department for Education).
Henry has extensive private sector experience including at CEO and board levels. He founded a tech start up in 2014 which was backed by the Silicon Valley based Y Combinator. As CEO and co-founder he successfully took that start up to exit to a public traded company. He sat on the board of publicly listed Hornby PLC as well as campaigning group 38 Degrees. He is also an angel investor in early stage tech start ups.
From Safety to Security - Just Semantics or a New Focus? Wednesday @ 2:35 PM
Octavia is Associate Director (Public Participation & Research Practice) at the Ada Lovelace Institute. Leading Ada’s Public Participation Research and Research Practice teams, she directs and co-creates all Ada’s quantitative and qualitative research, to ensure that the voices of people are heard in processes and decision-making across policy, industry and public services. She leads organisational thinking on how Ada does research, including design, methods, integrity and ethics. And designed and implemented the impact framework that has guided our work since 2019.
Octavia holds an MA in Digital Media Culture, an MSc in Social Research and is currently a PhD candidate in UCL Science and Technology Studies, with a subject specialism in technology governance and corporate law. She is Co-Investigator to the UKRI-funded Public Voices in Responsible AI programme, a member of the Digital Good Network (DGN) College of Experts, a member of the Smart Data Research (SDR) UK public engagement advisory board and a Reviewer for IEEE Technology and Society Magazine.
Interactive Workshop: A Participatory Design Workshop: AI by and for the public (Afternoon Breakouts - Participatory Design & Public Benefit) Wednesday @ 3:20 PM
Tanya Goodin is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of EthicAI (www.EthicAI.net). Tanya leads this global AI assurance team of engineers, policy and governance and AI ethics experts - a University of Cambridge spinout - helping private and public sector organisations build trust in their AI solutions.
Tanya has many years of experience in digital ethics and has published and spoken widely on the ethics of human-technology interactions. She is the author of five books, published in ten languages.
Tanya’s undergraduate degree is from the University of Oxford and she has a Master’s from the University of Cambridge in AI Ethics. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and was honoured as one of the UK’s Women of the Year in both 2014 and 2025.
What does the spectrum of open and closed models mean for developers trying to democratise access? (Morning Breakouts – Governance & Accountability) Wednesday @ 12:05 PM
Linda’s most recent role was as Vice President for Public Policy and Communications at Kry – Europe’s largest health tech start-up. In that role she consolidated Kry’s public policy functions across markets. Previously she established and led public policy at the leading mobile games developer King. After King’s acquisition by the Activision Blizzard Group Linda became Vice President for Public Policy across the entire group.
Linda is Co-founder of the European Tech Alliance (EUTA) and was its Chair and later Advisory Board member. She was Vice President of the Board of DOT Europe, and a Board Member of the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in the UK. Earlier in her career, Linda led Facebook’s EMEA policy communications and early work in government transparency reporting, security, and privacy. She began her career in public policy consulting as an advisor to Kofi Annan’s Africa Progress Panel, governments including UAE and Singapore, and other clients.
At Mozilla, Linda is responsible for developing and rolling out our work on public policy across all of our organizations, spanning topics from platform accountability to artificial intelligence.
What does the spectrum of open and closed models mean for developers trying to democratise access? (Morning Breakouts – Governance & Accountability) Wednesday @ 12:05 PM
Gaia Marcus is Director of the Ada Lovelace Institute. Prior to joining Ada, Gaia was Deputy Director (Advanced Analytics and Local Capabilities) at the Spatial Data Unit within the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). In this role, she led on ensuring that data and data-driven analysis were used to support policymaking and service delivery.
Gaia has extensive experience of leadership roles across the civil service and the non-profit sector. In government she has held roles as Deputy Director (Strategy for the Integrated Data Service) at the Office for National Statistics, Head of Engagement for Civil Service Reform at the Cabinet Office, and Head of National Data Strategy at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
In the non-profit sector, Gaia specialised in data strategy and participatory approaches to research, innovation and policy. This included roles at Parkinson’s UK, Centrepoint and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. She also serves on the Samaritans’ Board of Trustees.
Gaia holds an MA in Understanding and Securing Human Rights from the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London and a BA in History from University College London.
The realities of implementing digital ethics in 2025: What have we learned this year? Wednesday @ 10:15 AM
Phillip Souta is Global Director of Tech Policy within Clifford Chance's Tech Group, a cross disciplinary team of 600+ lawyers globally advising on Tech risk and opportunity.
He focusses on public policy and political risk in tech law and regulation, including AI, cybersecurity, privacy, online child safety, biometrics and IP, and provides strategic advice to clients across a range of sectors. His clients include businesses in the retail, automotive, financial services, private equity and internet sectors, as well as industry bodies and advocacy groups.
He works closely with the Clifford Chance Accelerate programme which brings men and women together in developing female leaders of tomorrow. He was named Risk Advisory Individual of the year in London.
Phillip is a member of the Clifford Chance Political Change team and sits on the firm's Thought Leadership Board. He practices as a barrister qualified in England and Wales.
From Safety to Security - Just Semantics or a New Focus? Wednesday @ 2:35 PM
Jeni is the founder of Connected by Data, a campaign that aims to put community at the centre of data narratives, practices and policies. She is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, adjunct Professor at Southampton’s Web Science Institute, and a Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow. Jeni was CEO at the Open Data Institute, where she held leadership roles for nine years and worked with companies and governments to build an open, trustworthy data ecosystem; a co-chair of GPAI’s Data Governance Working Group; and an Associate Researcher at Cambridge’s Bennett Institute for Public Policy. She sits on the Boards of Creative Commons and the Information Law and Policy Centre. She has a PhD in AI and an OBE for services to technology and open data. She loves Lego and board games and is the proud co-creator of the open data board game, Datopolis.
Looking to the year ahead: Do we have the institutions, infrastructure and resources we need? Wednesday @ 4:25 PM
