meet our keynotes

Jonathan Evans,  CEO
Jonathan is a self-proclaimed geeky pilot and the CEO and co-founder of the leading drone operations platform, Skyward. Everyday he advise businesses from startups to Fortune 500s on integrating drones into their business. Jonathan was a professional aviator for 18 years serving as a UH60 Blackhawk pilot in the Army as well as a LifeFlight medevac pilot. He see drones as the convergence of two of his greatest passions: computer science and aviation. Jonathan am a nationally recognized commentator and an invited keynote speaker at leading drone industry conferences and events. He was named one of the seven most influential people in the drone industry and has been quoted in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Businessweek, Fox Business, Fortune, WIRED, The Washington Post, and Popular Mechanics.

 

X , CTO
X is a former military officer and commercially rated helicopter pilot-in-command and maintenance officer with flight experience on three continents. As a military officer, he managed the United States Army's Medical Information Technology Center's (USAMITC) plans and operations. X worked for L-3 Communications as a senior Emergency Operations Manager and continuity manager for the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) National Continuity Programs Directorate, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). As a member of the senior professional staff at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), he led and served as a technical subject matter expert for various teams in counterterrorism knowledge management and applied neuroscience advanced research projects supporting the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) and the National Security Agency (NSA). While at APL, X worked in the field of cybersecurity supporting the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on cybersecurity policy and information sharing prototypes. In addition, X developed various cybersecurity technologies and next-generation operations center concepts for APL and the NSA. Finally, he served as the lead technical assessor for United States Cybercommand (USCYBERCOM) for the commands' premier force-of-force cybersecurity exercises. X has a master's degree in computer science from Johns Hopkins University.

Called "Silicon Valley's most provocative voice" for his ideas on technology trends, globalization, U.S. competitiveness, and the future, Vivek Wadhwa’s work puts him at the heart of innovation. From tech entrepreneur and business owner to accomplished academic and widely published author, he is a Stanford University research fellow and director of Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering, where he teaches on the impact of technology. Formerly, he led research at Singularity University, an institution that educates a select group of leaders about the exponentially growing technologies that are soon going to change our world. He has also been a senior research associate at Harvard Law School, a visiting scholar at UC-Berkeley, and a distinguished visiting scholar at Emory University.

 

Known for pioneering change and innovation, Wadhwa’s speeches offers a look into how exponentially advancing technologies including robotics, AI, computing, synthetic biology, 3D printing, and nanomaterials will change our world, disrupt entire industries, and create new ones. As it is increasingly possible for small teams to complete work once reserved for governments and large corporations, Wadhwa also focuses on the keys to the U.S. remaining competitive and solving grand challenges in the face of the rapid transformation shaping business in India, China, and Latin America.

 

An advisor to governments and successful entrepreneurs alike, Wadhwa previously founded two influential software companies, prompting Forbes to name him a "Leader of Tomorrow" and Fortune to declare his start-up Relativity one of the "25 coolest companies in the world." In addition to his media accolades, the US government awarded Wadhwa distinguished recognition as an "Outstanding American by Choice," and he was named by Foreign Policy Magazine as a "Top 100 Global Thinker." In 2013, TIME magazine listed him as one of the "40 Most Influential Minds in Tech."

 

Wadhwa is also the author of The Immigrant Exodus: Why America Is Losing the Global Race to Capture Entrepreneurial Talent, which the Economist named as a "Book of the Year" in 2012, and Innovating Women: The Changing Face of Technology. He is a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post and a contributor to the Wall Street Journal, the Huffington Post, and VentureBeat. He has been featured in the Economist, Forbes, the New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, and Science Magazine, among others, and has appeared on U.S. and international TV stations, including CBS, PBS, CNN, ABC, NBC, CNBC, and BBC. In 2016, he accepted an honorary professorship at University Ricardo Palma of Lima in Peru, placing him closer to the booming entrepreneur community in Latin America.