“DATA DRIVEN INNOVATION & AI: Interoperability, ePrivacy and Free Data Flow: Which strategy for Europe?”

Benifei is the youngest MEP among the Italian representatives of the Democratic Party. He participates as a full Member in the Committee “Employment and Social Affairs”. Benifei previously worked as the person in charge of European affairs for the Democratic Party in Liguria region of Italy and for the Young Democrats at national level. He has also been the Vice-President of ECOSY (PES youth organization) for four years, during which he took part in numerous educational and training activities on European topics. He joined the PES working group which drafted the preliminary version of the European Youth Guarantee, later adopted by the European Commission. Benifei is currently President of the EuLab Association, focused on campaigns and projects regarding EU policies for young people.

Prof. Dr. Gabriel M. Crean is currently advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg on digitalization of the Luxembourg economy, building out a digital innovation ecosystem and the European high performance computing initiative. He is the Luxembourg Ministry of Economy representative on the European Commission Digitizing Europe member states group and the European Commission Strategic Forum on Important Projects of Common European Interest. Prof. Crean is also the Chief Executive Officer of the Lux Consulting Group, which advises Governments, Corporations and other organisations on Technology and Innovation Policy issues.

Professor Crean has played a significant role at European level in the formulation of European Union research, development and innovation policy. From 2010 to 2014, he was the Chair (Sherpa) of the European Commission High Level Group on Key Enabling Technologies (KETs). From 2011 to 2015, Prof. Crean was a member of a high level team of experts advising the European Commission on how to establish more effective regional economic links and growth, along with robust ecosystems, as a member of the European Commission Smart Specialization Mirror Group. Prof. Crean received a Doctor Honoris Causa in 2014 from the Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland for his contribution to promoting European innovation.

Professor Crean has considerable senior international scientific and innovation management experience in one of the world’s most innovative public research organisation, the Atomic Energy and Alternatives Energy Commission (CEA) of France. He was the Vice-President for Technology and Director for Europe of CEAtech, the Division of Technological Research of the CEA, from 2012 to May 2015. Prior to that, Professor Crean was the Scientific Director of the Division of Technological Research of CEA from 2009 to 2012. He has led national research and innovation institutes in Ireland, France and Luxembourg.

Professor Crean was globally recognised for his passion and capacity to connect scientists from around the world and his strategic engagement to build international scientific networks, when he was elected President of the International Union of Materials Research Societies from 2007-2009. Prof. Crean has also encouraged new ways of looking at and stimulating the interface between civil society and science, technology and innovation communities of interest. In recognition of his work, Prof. Crean was elected a Lifetime Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts; Academia Scientiarum Et Artium Europaea, in 2011.

Professor Dr. Crean was a co-founder and director of three international venture capital backed high-technology companies.

Stefano is the President of I-Com , which he founded in 2005, and he teaches political economy and economic policy at Roma Tre University. Previously, he directed the Observatory on Energy Policy of the Einaudi Foundation. He is an expert member of the Technical Secretariat for the Protection of Nature at the Ministry of the Environment, of the Task Force on investment in the electricity sector of Eurelectric. He is the Scientific Director of the Association La Scossa, founded in 2011, and he is member of the board of the Brussels-based European Foundation EYPROM. He is Member of the Scientific Board of several institutions and initiatives, and the author and editor of numerous publications on economic subjects, particularly with regard to policy and regulation of the energy market and infrastructural services and the governance of the institutions. He conducted studies and consultancy assignments for Italian and international public institutions, including the Senate of the Republic, the Department for EU policies, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and the OECD, and also leading Italian and foreign companies and non-profit organisations. He holds a Master’s degree in economics at the CORIPE Piedmont and a Master of Arts in Economics at the George Mason University (USA).

Daniel Dalton has been Conservative MEP for the West Midlands since January 2015.
Daniel is Coordinator for the ECR Group on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO), where he has been involved in a significant number of trade and digital single market-related legislation and is currently shadowing the proposal on the free flow of non-personal data. Furthermore, Daniel is a member of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee (LIBE), where he is the rapporteur on the European criminal records information system (ECRIS-TCN) and has been shadowing the e-privacy regulation.Particular areas of interest for Daniel include cybersecurity, ePrivacy, the sharing economy, as well as automation and the wider digital revolution.

Mariya Ivanova Gabriel is a Bulgarian politician and a member of the GERB party. In July 2017 she was appointed European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society. Following her first election to the European Parliament for Bulgarian party GERB in 2009, Mariya Gabriel was nominated by the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, as Chief of the EU Electoral Observation Mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2011. On 19 October 2012 she was elected Vice-President of EPP Women. In 2014, Mariya Gabriel became a Member of the European Parliament for a second mandate. Since then she is Head of the Bulgarian EPP Delegation and Vice-President of the EPP Group responsible for relations with Mediterranean countries. Born in 1979, Mariya Gabriel is the only Bulgarian Member of the European Parliament who twice won the prestigious Parliament Magazine’s annual MEP Award. She received the Parliament Magazine’s MEP Award in 2013 in the category “Gender equality” and in 2016 in the category “Development”. In addition to this, she has also been awarded the EACA Care Prize in 2015 for her commitment to violence against women and to gender equality. Mariya Gabriel has devoted her work to several priority areas, such as the coherence of external and internal EU policies, migration, EU visa policy, relations with Africa and Middle East and women rights.. There, she served as Vice-President of the European People’s Party (EPP) group, Vice-President of EPP Women and head of the Bulgarian EPP delegation.

Dr Enzo Maria Le Fevre, Ph.D., is a Senior Expert on International and European affairs working in the international activities coordination and in the Technical Secretariat and Public Relations Office at the Agency for Digital Italy – Presidency of the Council of Ministers (AgID). He works in the international projection of the Agency’s activities, particularly of those focusing on digital governance and Artificial Intelligence. Specifically, he closely collaborates with the OECD as the Agency’s delegate in the expert and thematic groups where AgID is involved. He has recently participated to the OECD Digital Government Review of Colombia and Brazil, and since September 2017 he is coordinating the Thematic Group on Emerging Technologies (AI & Blockchain) of the OECD Working Party of Senior Digital Government Officials (E-Leaders). He is also a Senior Lecturer of International Law and Diplomacy at LUISS University in Rome. Since 2002 he has covered numerous leading positions in governmental and non-governmental institutions. Currently a fellow at the European Center for International Affairs, he also served as research associate at the CICR of Columbia University. He holds a Ph.D. in international and European studies with a focus on international law and theory of the state, an MA in International Relations (with honours), and a postgraduate specialization in International Law and Public Law.

David Martin is a Senior Legal Officer at BEUC, the European Consumer Organisation. BEUC represents 42 independent national consumer associations from 31 European countries. The primary task of BEUC is to act as a strong consumer voice in Brussels and to try to ensure that consumer interests are given their proper weight in the development of all EU policies. David is part of BEUC’s Digital policy team, where he focuses on privacy, data protection, copyright and competition. He has been working on digital and ICT issues since 2006. Prior to joining BEUC in May 2015, David worked at the Public Affairs consultancy Burson-Marsteller and the EU Regional Office of Murcia in Brussels. A Spanish national, David is fluent in English and French. He studied Law at the University of Murcia (Spain) and holds a Master’s Degree in European Law from the University of Luxembourg, as well as a Postgraduate Degree on Economic and Legal EU Studies from the Collège Miguel Servet / Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. He can be contacted at dma@beuc.eu.

Clara Neppel is the Senior Director of the IEEE European office in Vienna, where she is responsible for the growth of IEEE’s operations and presence in Europe, focusing on the needs of industry, academia, and government. Neppel serves as a point of contact for initiatives with regard to technology, engineering and related public policy issues that help implementing IEEE’s continued global commitment to fostering technological innovation for the benefit of humanity. She joined IEEE in 2017 after working with the European Patent Office (EPO) where she was involved in various aspects relating to innovation, intellectual property and public policy in the field of information and communication technologies. Before joining EPO, Neppel worked in research, in the area of parallel database optimization, and in industry, as program manager for archiving solutions. She holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Technical University of Munich and a Master in Intellectual Property Law and Management from the University of Strasbourg.

Edmondo Orlotti runs Business Development for High Performance Computing and Artificial Intelligence at Hewlett Packard Enterprise in Southern Europe. He has been addressing advanced analytics and visualization needs of industrial and academic environments in order to close the gap between numerical simulation and data interpretation. Prior to HPE, he’s been covering several roles in sales and marketing for the Professional Division of NVIDIA. He’s also a professional journalist since 2001.

Mario is Intel’s Global Policy Director for Data and the AI Policy Lead for Europe where he directs activities to address the adoption of AI in Europe.  He orchestrates Intel’s global public policy advocacy on data, with focus on Europe, USA, China and India. He is also involved in policies that harness big data and ICT across economic sectors with special emphasis on healthcare. He participates actively in numerous groups and associations promoting the advancement of digital technologies in Europe.

After studying law at Humboldt University of Berlin, she joined the Communications & EU Government Affairs team at Siemens AG. In 2014, she became Senior Manager for European and International Competition and Antitrust Law, State Aid Policy at BDI, where she currently holds the position as a Senior Manager for Digitalisation, Innovation and Healthcare.

Wojciech Wiewiórowski was born on June 13th 1971. In 1995 he graduated from the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Gdańsk, and in 2000 he was awarded the academic degree of Doctor in constitutional law. After graduation he was editor and then publisher in legal publishing houses. In 2002 he began to work as lecturer at Gdańsk College of Administration, and since 2003 he was assistant professor and head of Legal IT Department at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Gdańsk, with which he has been associated since 1995. Since 2006 he has been working for public administration. He was among others adviser in the field of e-government and information society for the Minister of Interior and Administration, as well as Vice-president of the Regulatory Commission of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church. In 2008 he took over the post of the Director of the Informatisation Department at the Ministry of Interior and Administration. He also represented Poland in committee on Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations (the ISA Committee) assisting the European Commission. He was also the member of the Archives Council to the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. He is a member of the Polish Association for European Law. In 2010 he was elected by Polish Parliament for the post of the Inspector General for the Protection of Personal Data (Polish Data Protection Commissioner) which he served by November 2014 being reelected for the second term in 2014. Vice Chairman of the Working Party Art. 29 since February till November 2014. The author of numerous studies, publications and lectures in the field of personal data protection, IT law, e-government and legal informatics. His areas of scientific activity include first of all Polish and European IT law, processing and security of information, legal information retrieval systems, informatisation of public administration, electronic signature and application of semantic web and legal ontologies in legal information processing.

Carlos Zorrinho (born 28 May 1959) is a Portuguese politician and university professor. He has undertaken the positions of Secretary of State and leader of the Socialist PartyParliamentary Group at the Portuguese Parliament. Currently, he is a Member of the European Parliament for the S&D group. He belongs to the ITRE Committee. From 2009 to 2011, he served as Secretary of State for Energy and Innovation, within the Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Development of the Portuguese Government.