About Us

Kay Firth-Butterfield is Head of Artificial Intelligence and a member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum and is one of the foremost experts in the world on the governance of AI. She is a Barrister, former Judge and Professor, technologist and entrepreneur who has an abiding interest in how humanity can equitably benefit from new technologies, especially AI. Kay is an Associate Barrister (Doughty Street Chambers), Master of the Inner Temple, London and serves on the Lord Chief Justice’s Advisory Panel on AI and Law. She co-founded AI Global and was the world’s first Chief AI Ethics officer in 2014 and created the AIEthics twitter hashtag. Kay is Vice-Chair of The IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems and was part of the group which met at Asilomar to create the Asilomar AI Ethical Principles. She is on the Polaris Council for the Government Accountability Office (USA), the Advisory Board for UNESCO International Research Centre on AI and AI4All. Kay has advanced degrees in Law and International Relations and regularly speaks to international audiences addressing many aspects of the beneficial and challenging technical, economic and social changes arising from the use of AI. She has been consistently recognized as a leading woman in AI since 2018 and was featured in the New York Times as one of 10 Women Changing the Landscape of Leadership.

Ms. Figueres is an internationally recognized leader on global climate change. She was Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 2010-2016. Assuming responsibility for the international climate change negotiations after the failed Copenhagen conference of 2009, she was determined to lead the process to a universally agreed regulatory framework. Building toward that goal, she directed the successful Conferences of the Parties in Cancun 2010, Durban 2011, Doha 2012, Warsaw 2013, and Lima 2014, and culminated her efforts in the historical Paris Agreement of 2015.

Since then Ms. Figueres has continued to accelerate the global response to climate change. Today she is the co-founder of Global Optimism, co-host of the podcast “Outrage & Optimism” and is the co-author of the recently published book, “The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis"

She is also a member of the B Team and Chair of The Earthshot Prize Foundation.

Wendy Hanamura is the Director of Partnerships at the Internet Archive, one of the world’s largest digital libraries. She helps to steward the DWeb community (GetDWeb.net) that now encompasses 11 global nodes of technologists, policymakers, artists and activists all working to build a better web. Hanamura produced the Decentralized Web Summits in 2016 & 2018, and DWeb Camp in 2019 and 2022. At the Internet Archive, her areas of responsibility include communication and content strategy, strategic planning, and partnership building, all in service of the Internet Archive’s mission: universal access to knowledge. Hanamura is also an Emmy Award-winning television producer & correspondent (CBS, NHK, PBS, KCET/Link) and serves on the boards or advisory panels of the Filecoin Foundation, Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web, Unfinished Network Trust, Ruddie Memorial Youth Foundation, Harvard Asian American Alumni Alliance, and Whose Knowledge?

A passionate advocate for public Internet access and a successful entrepreneur, Brewster Kahle has spent his career intent on a singular focus: providing Universal Access to All Knowledge. He is the founder and Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive, one of the largest libraries in the world. Soon after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he studied artificial intelligence, Kahle helped found the company Thinking Machines, a parallel supercomputer maker. In 1989, Kahle created the Internet's first publishing system called Wide Area Information Server (WAIS), later selling the company to AOL. In 1996, Kahle co-founded Alexa Internet, which helps catalog the Web, selling it to Amazon.com in 1999. The Internet Archive, which he founded in 1996, now preserves 99+ unique petabytes of data - the books, Web pages, music, television, and software of our cultural heritage, working with more than 950 library and university partners to create a digital library, accessible to all.

Computer scientist, animal rights activist, and philanthropist, Britt Selvitelle was part of the founding team at Twitter, growing the company from birth to thousands of employees. His work has led to major social change from drug policy reform to increased animal rights. Britt is focused on how humans can become better listeners.

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Dr. Sean White is dedicated to the idea that science, technology, and design can improve lives. He has worked across disciplines, from computer science to nanoscale fabrication to botany building strong teams, successful companies, and global organizations. Dr. White currently works with several start-ups and nonprofits in the roles of advisor, investor, and board member. He is the former Chief R&D Officer for Mozilla. Prior to Mozilla, Dr. White was a Founder/CEO of BrightSky Labs, a company he incubated while at Greylock Partners that provided creativity tools enabled by machine learning. Previous roles include, CTO of NeoCarta Ventures, Founder/CEO of RecNet, VP of Technology for Lycos, Inc., CTO of WhoWhere?, Inc., and Head of New Mobile Forms and Experiences at Nokia.

In addition to 30+ peer-reviewed publications, 3400 citations, and 20+ patents granted, Dr. White’s award winning work received a Tech for Global Good Laureate.  Dr. White has created graduate courses at Stanford University and Columbia University as well as keynoted at IEEE and ACM conferences and served on the Steering Committee for IEEE’s International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR). Sean earned his B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University and his MS in Mechanical Engineering and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University.

Katie Zacarian is a conservationist, human rights advocate, underwater photographer, and devoted surfer who also happens to be a leader in artificial intelligence research as the co-founder and CEO of Earth Species Project (ESP). ESP is a 501c3 nonprofit developing novel machine learning research that can advance our understanding of animal communication for a more empathetic, individualized, and effective approach to protecting the natural world. 

To date, ESP’s work has been published in Science, International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, and Scientific Reports, as well as featured in The Guardian, WIRED, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and NPR, among others. Katie has co-authored two of ESP’s publications and authored one thus far. Her work can be found through her ORCID ID. 

Katie is no stranger to leading the tech world to new horizons. After graduating with honors in African and African American studies from Harvard University, Katie became an early Facebook team member as the first female advertising executive of its New York office and launched some of its most foundational features. Katie spent the next several years innovating technological solutions for those on the frontlines of conservation including biologists, park rangers, and wildlife veterinarians. In 2019 the International Seakeepers Society honored her with the Next Generation Conservationist Award for her work in conservation technology and public education. 

Despite Katie’s exciting, unfolding career in AI research, her happy place remains in the water: surfing, photographing, and communing with ocean wildlife. She has continued her role as producer and executive producer for SheChange, a documentary following female big wave surfers fighting for equality in the sport, throughout her time with ESP. This has allowed her to spend a lot more time in the ocean, truly living ESP’s mission to understand and listen to the natural world. Katie’s personal philosophy was captured in this photo where she is pictured with a baby sperm whale named Hope—different sizes, different habitats, different ways of communicating—but eye to eye and swimming alongside one another.