2024 speaker highlights

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  Dong Sun

  Secretary for innovation, technology and industry, Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

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  Dong Sun

  Secretary for innovation, technology and industry, Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

  Dong Sun was appointed secretary for innovation, technology and industry in 2022. Professor Sun is a world-renowned scholar and scientist. He is a pioneer in robotic manipulation of biological cells and robot control. His research has led to breakthroughs in the use of robotics combined with various micro-engineering tools. He has also received numerous awards. Professor Sun was elected as a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, fellow of the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering, fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Prior to his appointment, Professor Sun was the chair professor and head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at City University of Hong Kong, and a member of the Legislative Council (election committee).

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  Jimmy Wales

  Founder, Wikipedia

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  Jimmy Wales

  Founder, Wikipedia

  Jimmy Donal Wales is a US internet entrepreneur, wiki pioneer and technology visionary. He is best known as the founder of Wikipedia, a collaborative, free-content encyclopaedia on the internet, and the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit charitable organisation dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content. He is also the founder of WikiTribune, an ad-free news platform that produces evidence-based journalism, and co-founder of Wikia, a privately owned free web-hosting service he set up in 2004. As Wikipedia expanded and its public profile grew, Mr Wales assumed the role of the project’s spokesperson and promoter through speaking engagements and media appearances. 

   

  Mr Wales is a fellow of the Berkman Klein Centre for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. He serves on the board of directors of Socialtext, a provider of wiki technology to businesses, and the non-profit organisation Creative Commons. He has received an honorary doctorate from numerous academic institutions, including Knox College of Illinois, where he was presented with a Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Maastricht University, where he received the Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service. He received his bachelor’s degree in finance from Auburn University and started with the PhD finance programme at the University of Alabama, where he left with a master’s degree.

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  Michio Kaku

  Theoretical physicist, activist, futurologist, and popular-science writer

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  Michio Kaku

  Theoretical physicist, activist, futurologist, and popular-science writer

  Michio Kaku is one of the most widely recognised figures in science in the world today. He has written five New York Times bestsellers and is the science correspondent for the national CBS This Morning TV programme. His weekly science radio show is heard in 100 cities across the country. He has hosted numerous science specials on the Discovery Channel, Science Channel and BBC TV and has appeared on many TV news, science and history programmes. He has written for Time magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Astronomy magazine, London Times, Daily Telegraph and many other international newspapers.

   

  Mr Kaku graduated summa cum laude in physics from Harvard in 1968, graduating first in his physics class. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1972. He has taught at City College of the City University of New York for 45 years, and holds the Henry Semat Chair in Theoretical Physics. He has taught at Harvard and Princeton as well. His goal is to complete Einstein’s dream of a “theory of everything”, to derive an equation, perhaps no more than one inch long, that will summarise all the physical laws of the universe. He is the co-founder of string field theory, a major branch of string theory, which is the leading candidate today for the theory of everything.

   

  Mr Kaku is an internationally recognised authority in two areas. The first is Einstein’s unified field theory, which he is attempting to complete. The other is to predict trends affecting business, medicine, finance and our way of life, based on the latest research in science. 

  He frequently keynotes at major business conferences about the next 20 years in computers, finance, banking and commerce.

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  Alexis Crowell

  Chief technology officer and vice-president, Asia-Pacific and Japan, Intel

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  Alexis Crowell

  Chief technology officer and vice-president, Asia-Pacific and Japan, Intel

  Alexis Crowell is a seasoned technology executive with nearly 20 years in the industry. She currently serves as vice-president and general manager for the technology solutions, software and services group in Asia-Pacific at Intel Corporation. In this role, Ms Crowell is responsible for driving the company’s growth in the region by developing and delivering innovative technology solutions to meet the needs of customers across various industries. 

   

  She is an agile and proven global leader who has lived and worked on four continents. Her career path has been unconventional and has spanned software engineering in cloud and client technologies, artificial intelligence and deep learning frameworks, edge computing and digital transformation, and product marketing.

   

  Today, Ms Crowell is a respected leader in the technology industry, known for her ability to drive innovation, solve some of the biggest challenges and deliver results. She is a frequent speaker at industry events and has been recognised with numerous awards for her contributions. In addition to her passion for technology, she has been fortunate to have amazing mentors and sponsors throughout her career and is dedicated to “paying it forward” to advance the next generation of leadership.

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  Tom Standage

  Deputy editor, The Economist

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  Tom Standage

  Deputy editor, The Economist

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  Fan Ho

  Executive director and general manager, Asia-Pacific solutions and services group, Lenovo

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  Fan Ho

  Executive director and general manager, Asia-Pacific solutions and services group, Lenovo

  Fan Ho is responsible for leading Lenovo SSG’s growth in the Asia-Pacific region. She spearheads the company’s transformation by delivering business success across smart verticals, attached services, managed services and as-a-service offerings, including DaaS and TruScale.

   

  Since joining Lenovo in 2018, Ms Ho has held key leadership positions in the region. Most recently, she was chief of staff of the Central Asia-Pacific (CAP) region and general manager for Lenovo Hong Kong and Macau, where she led strategy, planning, customer experience, and various strategic and transformational initiatives for the CAP region. Additionally, she drove sales and operations across all customer segments, covering solution portfolios across all business groups in Hong Kong and Macau markets. 

   

  Ms Ho has over two decades of regional experience backed by exceptional business leadership. Previously, she was the general manager of corporate strategy at Telstra. She has worked at McKinsey & Company in Hong Kong and New York, managing mergers and acquisitions and conducting strategic due diligence for leading corporations in primarily the telecom and high-tech sectors.

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  Byron Wong

  Managing director and head of technology, Asia Private Bank and J.P. Morgan Online International, J.P. Morgan

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  Byron Wong

  Managing director and head of technology, Asia Private Bank and J.P. Morgan Online International, J.P. Morgan

  Byron Wong is the head of digital platform technology within the International Private Bank (IPB) of J.P. Morgan. He is the chief technology officer at IPB Asia-Pacific and leads J.P. Morgan Online International (JPOI) Technology, the web and mobile platform for IPB ultra-high-net-worth clients. Mr Wong is responsible for the technology strategy, solutions, development and operations of the private bank business in Asia-Pacific, and internationally with JPOI. He is based in Hong Kong, leading around 200 people across Hong Kong, Singapore, India, the UK and Switzerland. He is also a member of the IPB Asia management team, working and partnering with stakeholders across the asset and wealth management businesses.

   

  Mr Wong joined the firm in 2018, and he was most recently leading the global research technology as well as the beta and solutions technology teams in asset management in Asia-Pacific. Prior to joining the firm, he was the SFC type 1, 4, 9 responsible officer and head of robo-advisory for Yunfeng Financial Group. He also spent nine years at Goldman Sachs as a private wealth adviser as well as a quantitative strategist in New York and Hong Kong.

   

  Mr Wong is a chartered financial analyst. He is academically trained in artificial intelligence and is a hands-on Python coder, with experience in building and growing business for the China market.

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  Olivier Klein

  Chief technologist, Asia-Pacific and Japan, Amazon Web Services

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  Olivier Klein

  Chief technologist, Asia-Pacific and Japan, Amazon Web Services

  Olivier Klein’s expertise in IT architectures, internet technologies and software engineering paved the two decades for him helping businesses make the most out of technologies such as cloud computing to solve business struggles and adapt to a data-driven business model. Mr Klein has been working for AWS across Asia-Pacific and Europe to help customers implement architectural best practices and be successful in their digital transformation journey. In addition, he advises on how emerging technologies in the artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics and internet of things space can help create new products, make existing processes more efficient and leverage new engagement channels for end-consumers.

   

  Prior to joining AWS, Mr Klein ran the digital product strategy for an American multinational publishing and education company across Asia and led engineering and R&D efforts to build a virtualised web service platform for an internet service provider in Luxembourg during the pre-cloud era.

   

  He has a bachelor of science degree in computer science from Trier University of Applied Sciences and a master’s degree in software engineering from the National University of Singapore.

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  Ashish Jain

  Director of group applications, AIA Group

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  Ashish Jain

  Director of group applications, AIA Group

  Ashish Jain is a senior visionary digital and technology change leader renowned for successfully initiating, leading and implementing transformative initiatives. Mr Jain has a proven ability to build effective digital services, establish innovation partnerships and lead effective change. At AIA Group, he heads the corporate function technology team. In this role, he delivered IFRS17, AIA’s most extensive big data implementation, while pioneering the integration of public cloud; drove business digitisation and automation at scale across 18 markets; and led buildout of risk, treasury, investment and finance data platforms. He is championing AI strategy and implementation for the corporate office.

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  Ben Falk

  Director, global chief technology office, EY

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  Ben Falk

  Director, global chief technology office, EY

  Ben Falk joined Ernst & Young four years ago and is currently director of the global technology office. Previously, he sat on an advisory panel at the UK Office for AI. Mr Falk spent a decade working in the hedge fund industry, including at Comac Capital and Millennium Capital, supporting global macro trading strategies and conducting statistical and econometric research across all major asset classes in more than 20 countries. He then moved over to the technology sector, joining an AI startup building a financial large-language model, where he led the knowledge engineering team. Next he launched his own startup, the world’s first consumer data protection agency, to coincide with the onset of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, while also advising an AI commodity price forecasting startup, advising a large Middle Eastern Royal family investment office, as well as advising a major multinational law firm on AI litigation.

   

  Mr Falk completed a BA with double major in economics and political science simultaneously with a BSc majoring in business with a minor in law. During his undergraduate programme, he spent three summers as an equity derivatives analyst at the Chicago Board Options Exchange, as well as two summers as a mortgage derivatives analyst for Bear Stearns in New York City. He subsequently completed a master’s degree in economics and history at the London School of Economics, where he graduated first in his class.

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  Brad Jones

  Chief executive, PayMe HSBC

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  Brad Jones

  Chief executive, PayMe HSBC

  Brad Jones is the chief executive of PayMe, the leading digital wallet in Hong Kong, owned by HSBC. Prior to this appointment, Mr Jones spent over 15 years in digital payments and fintech in Asia. His career has included establishing successful digital payments businesses in two markets in South-east Asia, as well as leading mobile innovation in Asia-Pacific for Visa. He has also consulted to IFC (World Bank) in a variety of markets, including Indonesia, Bangladesh and China, advising their portfolio companies on digital payments strategy. Mr Jones has a bachelor of commerce from Griffith University in Australia and post-graduate business qualifications from the University of Queensland, and he is currently completing a master of fintech at the University of New South Wales.

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  Amitabh Sarkar

  Vice-president and head of Asia-Pacific, Tata Communications

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  Amitabh Sarkar

  Vice-president and head of Asia-Pacific, Tata Communications

  As Tata Communications vice-president and head of APAC, Amitabh Sarkar is responsible for business growth across all industry verticals and enabling the future growth of enterprises in the region.

   

  Mr Sarkar has more than 20 years of experience in the Asia-Pacific region in business development, strategy, client management and alliances. In his previous role, he was the executive director for enterprise sales and strategic clients (ASEAN) at IBM Singapore. Prior to IBM, he worked with organisations like SunGard (now part of FIS), Xerox and Microworld.

   

  Mr Sarkar has extensive experience with in-depth understanding of the enterprise market landscape, with a specific focus on hybrid cloud, business platform, infrastructure and application services. He successfully tripled the telecom business while leading the industry practice at IBM and also set up a workstream for large multiyear engagements in ASEAN.

   

  He holds an MBA in marketing management from the Indian Institute of Advanced Management, as well as a bachelor of engineering.