Mission: Innovation, Tech Leadership

• Leveraging technology for economic growth and development.
• International collaboration on innovation and entrepreneurship.
• Promoting inclusive and equitable access to digital resources.
• Implications of Deep Tech innovations for diplomacy and global governance.
• Historical overview of tech diplomacy.
• Key concepts and frameworks.
• Economic vs Tech Diplomacy.

• Grasping fundamental principles and models guiding tech diplomacy.
• Understanding the sensitive interaction between policymaker and innovators.
• Identifying current and future issues shaping tech diplomacy.

Martin is the Executive Director of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program and Co-Founder of the Tech Diplomacy Network.  He is the Senior Tech Diplomacy Fellow at DiploFoundation. Previously, he served for two years as Austria's first Tech Ambassador in Silicon Valley. During more than five years as Head of Open Austria and Austrian Consul in San Francisco, Martin shaped the emerging field of tech diplomacy, engaged in transatlantic digital diplomacy and digital human rights. He initiated Open Austria's "Art + Tech Lab", and co-founded the European art + tech + policy initiative "The Grid". Martin is a fellow at the Berggruen Institute focussing his research on how tech governance and diplomacy are conceptually based on our understanding of the human, nature, and technology.

Christina Steinbrecher-Pfandt is the CEO of the Tech Diplomacy Network and a seasoned serial entrepreneur with hands-on experience building startups in Silicon Valley, where she shares her expertise as a mentor. With over a decade in the cultural sector, she co-founded Blockchain.art, serving as CEO and pioneering blockchain integration in the arts. Previously, she worked in the private sector in the EU, securing significant investments from venture capitalists and family offices to establish leading brands. Currently pursuing a PhD focused on Tech Diplomacy, she also launched a series of fundraising events at the start of the Ukraine war to raise awareness of Ukraine’s history.

• Analysis of international landscapes.
• Regulatory/Policy approaches to technology governance.
• Case studies on policy implementation and impact assessment.
• Ethical considerations and policy implications of Deep Tech developments.
• Implications of Deep Tech innovations for diplomacy and global governance Responsible innovation and sustainable development goals.

• Comparing regulatory environments across different regions.
• Learning from real-world examples of policy applications and their outcomes.
• Grasping various strategies for managing technology impacts.
• Exploring how advanced technologies affect international relations and policy.

Andrea Renda is Director of Research at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS). He is Adjunct Professor of Digital Policy at the School of Transnational Governance of the European University Institute, in Florence (Italy), where he (i) teaches courses on “Regulation of Emerging Technologies” and “AI Policy: ethics, policy and governance challenges”; (ii) teaches in, and coordinates, several executive training courses (on digital platforms, high-quality regulation, agile governance, digital identity, blockchain); directs research projects (ACE BRAIN on blockchain, regulation and innovation; and a project on the future of work; and contributes research to the Global Peace Tech Hub. 

Andrea is a non-resident Senior Fellow at Duke University’s Kenan Institute for Ethics, and Visiting Professor of Competition Policy and the Digital Economy at the College of Europe in Bruges (Belgium). He is a Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Science, a CITI Fellow at Columbia University’s Centre for Tele-Information and a member of the European Parliament’s STOA International Advisory Board. His current research interests include regulation and policy evaluation, regulatory governance, innovation and competition policies, sustainable development, innovation policy, and the ethical and policy challenges of emerging digital technologies, in particular Artificial Intelligence. 

A very prolific author and keynote speaker, Andrea provides regular advice to several institutions, including the European Commission, the European Parliament, the OECD, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and many more. He sits in the Board of the journals Telecommunications Policy (Elsevier), European Journal of Risk Regulation (Cambridge) and Digital Policy, Regulation and Governance (Emerald). He is currently the Vice Chair of the advisory group on Economic and Societal Impacts of Research (ESIR), for the European Commission, DG Research and Innovation; and member of the Expert Group on “Smart Specialisation Strategies for Sustainability” (S4) at the European Commission, DG Joint Research Centre; and a Distinguished Fellow appointed to provide advice to the European Commission, DG GROW for the year 2023. He is the Co-director of the Brookings/CEPS Forum for Global Cooperation on AI. He is also a member of the OECD Network of Experts on AI, where he is currently the Co-Chair of the Working Group on Risk. 

In the recent past, Andrea was a member of the EU High Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, and a member of the Task Force on AI of the Italian Ministry of Economic Development. He sits in the Advisory Board of the University College Dublin’s Centre for Digital Policy; and in the Steering Committee of the “Regulatory Diplomacy in Artificial Intelligence” project at the Global Partnership on AI’s International Center of Expertise in Montreal on Artificial Intelligence (CEIMIA). He is the Co-Coordinator and Strategy Director of the PERISCOPE project, an EU-funded project that analyses the socio-economic and behavioural impacts of COVID-19; and the Director of the Trade and Technology Dialogue, an EU-funded project that supports, for three years, the activities of all ten working groups of the EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council.

• Strategies for crisis response & emotional intelligence.
• Negotiation mediation techniques.
• Building resilience and fostering cooperation.

• Enhancing leadership skills in tech crisis management.
• Mastering negotiation tactics for resolving tech-related disputes.

Ken Singer is a serial entrepreneur, technology executive, university lecturer, and director/advisor to numerous startups in the US and Europe. 

Since 2012, Ken has served as Managing Director of the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology at UC Berkeley, where he co-created the Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship Education. He is the inventor of the game-based Challenge Lab course, now taught in several universities globally. These courses engage industry leaders and corporations in fostering student-led startups, such as Lily (a camera-enabled drone for extreme sports) and Eko (a medical device for African and Asian markets).

Ken is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and has been a guest lecturer at Tallinn Tech University (Estonia), Kaunas Technical University (Lithuania), Aalto University (Finland), and numerous Grandes Écoles in Paris. He collaborates with governments and universities to promote entrepreneurship education and consults with corporations on product and innovation management

David is a policy and public affairs professional with a track record of building international advocacy networks and achieving legislative change. He was an early builder of tech solutions for the Government Affairs world having previously launched EU Insider. He is also the co-founder of KilnerTech, an AI-driven solution that analyzes political discourse, enabling industries, companies, and stakeholders to track and influence the narrative to effectively influence the discourse. Additionally, David serves on the Board of Advisors for the EuroCham San Francisco chapter, representing 15 bilateral European-American business organizations and fostering connections between European and American enterprises.

Leonardo Quattrucci is an Adjunct Professor of Digital Transformation and Innovation Management at Sciences Po and a Senior Fellow at the International Center for Future Generations (ICFG). His career spans the public sector and the technology industry, from big tech to deep tech startups.

At the European Commission, he was a member of the European Political Strategy Center, the Commission’s in-house think tank that provided advisory services to the President. At Amazon Web Services (AWS), he was the Head of Technical Programs at the Center for Quantum Networking, where he launched the first-of-its-kind Harvard-Amazon partnership on quantum technologies. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he launched AWS Global Account for the United Nations that was instrumental in helping UN agencies respond to the emergency. He joined Amazon to establish the Amazon Web Services Institute, a global executive education program on digital transformation catered for public sector executives.

Leonardo was nominated by Forbes Magazine among the 30 Under 30 ‘top young leaders’ in European policy (inaugural cohort). He was also named a “Responsible Leader” by the BMW Foundation, an International Strategy Fellow by Schmidt Futures, a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum, and a Jr Fellow by the Aspen Institute. He has spoken at several prestigious global events, including the European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS 2021), World Economic Forum (2017), Malmö Social Innovation Summit (2016), and the European Commission’s SEMIC Conference (2024).

Leonardo has a Master of Public Policy from the University of Oxford.

Sean Randolph is Senior Director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, a public-private partnership of business, labor, government, and higher education that works to foster a competitive economy in California and the San Francisco Bay Area, including San Francisco, Oakland, and Silicon Valley. The Economic Institute produces authoritative analyses on economic policy issues affecting the region and the state, including infrastructure, globalization, energy, science, and governance, and mobilizes California and Bay Area leaders around targeted policy initiatives. Dr. Randolph previously served as President & CEO of the Bay Area Economic Forum, as director of international trade for the State of California, where he developed trade strategy and directed international business programs to stimulate exports and introduce California companies to overseas markets. Before service with the state, he was Managing Director of the RSR Pacific Group, an international business consulting firm specializing in Asia and Latin America, and before that served as International Director General of the Pacific Basin Economic Council, a 15-nation international organization of leading U.S., Asian and Latin American corporations. His professional career includes extensive experience in the U.S. Government, including the U.S. Congress staff, and the White House staff.