Shaping the Future Across Industries

Founders & Chief Visionary

Niloufar Gharavi is a creative professional with a strong background in design, technology, and innovation. She specializes in user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design, working to craft engaging digital experiences. Known for her ability to blend aesthetic vision with technical expertise, Niloufar has contributed to numerous successful projects in various industries, helping businesses enhance their digital presence. Her multidisciplinary approach allows her to collaborate effectively across teams, driving forward-thinking solutions that align with modern user needs.

Katapult VC & NorthStar Impact Analytics
AI & Data Analytics Director

About Humberto
AI and Data Analytics Director at Katapult VC. Led the early development and established the AI capabilities of the fund, executing two grants to develop AI systems to support Impact VC operations. Now carving out the capabilities into a startup offering an AI platform to support other Impact Investors in their operation and decision making.

The speech:
Venture Capital has funded many of the companies that have advanced and created the tech that became AI. Pushing AI into many new and existing industries. Yet VC is the least digitized industry, until now. At the tipping point of VCs becoming more data driven NorthStar has built a series of solutions that are now being deployed for Impact investors, enabling not only VCs but Angel and institutional investors to scale, augment and improve their operations, through AI.

Advokat / partner
Elden Advokatfirma AS

About Johan:
My name is Johan Woo Kvandal, and I have an extensive legal career, including General Counsel at the Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency. In this role, I was responsible for the legal aspects of some of the most complex projects in the Norwegian defense sector, including fighter jets, helicopters, ships, and submarines. I have been involved in managing 1/3 of the defense budget, ensuring that all processes and contracts comply with the necessary regulatory requirements and standards. Before this, I worked at Statnett, where I eventually became Vice President. I also have experience with some of the largest law firms and have served as a Deputy Judge. My educational background includes an MBA from INSEAD and specializations in negotiation and project management from Harvard Law School and SKEMA Business School. In recent years, my focus has shifted towards the tech sector, working extensively with start-ups and scale-ups. I have gained significant experience in product development, particularly in navigating the dual-use landscape for both defense and civilian markets. I recently spoke with Stefan, who suggested I reach out to speak about dual-use opportunities in both the defense and civilian markets.

The speech:
Navigating Dual-Use Innovations: Insights from Defense to Tech Start-ups Based on case studies on how to penetrate challenging markets and leverage on the significant resources within the defense sector. Gain practical insights into navigating the dual-use landscape for both defense and civilian markets, with a focus on supporting tech start-ups and scale-ups.

Founder and CEO
INTELIS

About Salvador:
Salvador Baille holds an M.Sc. in Engineering from ETSEIB, an MBA from the former ICT in Barcelona, and a Master's in Corporate Finance from BI in Oslo. He has been an independent analyst and advisor in innovation and technology management for over 25 years. He is also a partner at Aggrator, the startup accelerator of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). Salvador has been board member of the Spanish-Norwegian Chamber of Commerce and a member of the organizing committee for AI+, Norway's largest conference on applied artificial intelligence, in 2021, 2022, and 2023. He is an active speaker and regularly writes for business and technology media outlets such as E24, DN, and Shifter, as well as his own blog, salvadorbaille.com.


About your speech:
Is AI hitting the wall already? How to play the law of diminishing returns in a world dominated by tech giants - Every new generation of Large Language Models demands exponentially more computing power and training resources - The output doesn't follow by far the same evolution - We are already seeing the first signs of investor exhaustion - How can smaller players compete in the AI arena?

Senior Data Engineer

About Anine:
Anine Aarvold Harto works as a Senior Data Engineer at Snøkam, a consultancy firm founded just two years ago, where she specializes in data platform development. Anine is driven by her passion for the potential of data and technology, and to make solutions loved by both users and developers.

The speech:
How can an organization transform itself from being dependent on a centralized data team to one where access to and analysis of data is democratized? In her speech, Anine draws inspiration from 'The Wizard of Oz' as she explores the journey through this transformation by introducing a modern self-service data platform. During this journey, she will delve into some key principles which, from experience, are considered crucial for overcoming traditional bottlenecks, making data easily accessible and integrated, and enhancing overall data management.

Partner
Aigap

About Gorm:
A business architect who has also worked as a domain architect, solutions architect, and developer. You have several years of consulting and advisory experience in traditional advanced analytics. Currently focusing heavily on the “New AI,” you are developing future digital healthcare services using multimodal AI and XR through the startup “Aigap.”

The speech:
My previous job simulated with AI: What have I learned? As a bureaucrat, I contributed to national investigations on privacy and digital assistance for citizens in Norway. In connection with this, I replaced myself with a GPT model at the turn of 2022/2023. Today, this is something “everyone” can do. I will demonstrate how and initiate a discussion on why.

CEO & Founder
AKHOLD AS

About Mehmet:
Mehmet Naci Akkøk, PhD (Dr. Scient.) is an entrepreneur with over 40 years of experience in industry, academia, and research. He leads research and development in scientifically reliable non-hallucinating artificial intelligence, and automating the creation and maintenance of ontologies and knowledge bases.

The speech: The focus of this short talk will be the state-of-the-art and what it takes to automate molecular design using scientific AI for discovering and developing new drugs, therapeutics, battery technologies, and new materials. One component of the solution called OntoMate, which is a knowledge base capable of reasoning and continuously updating itself to be used as a deterministic and intelligent RAG for an LLM. OntoMate can also be used wherever there is a need to automate the creation and maintenance of ontologies and knowledge bases. which are very manual and costly processes. We will also look at the market for such a tool breifly.

CEO
NORA.ai

About Dr. Klas: 
Dr. Klas Pettersen is the CEO of NORA.ai – Norwegian Artificial Intelligence Research Consortium, a collaboration between eight Norwegian universities, five university colleges, and five research institutes within artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics. His master’s is in physics from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, where he studied quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity. He turned to neuroscience and received a PhD in computational neuroscience in 2007 from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). After receiving his PhD, Dr. Pettersen worked as a postdoctoral researcher and research scientist. In his scientific work, he has applied physics, mathematics, informatics, and techniques from artificial intelligence to understand the brain. From 2014 to 2019, he was a research scientist at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Oslo. From 2008 to 2013, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher and research scientist at NMBU, in the Group for Computational Biology and later also at the Center for Integrative Genetics. He has also worked as a Visiting Scholar at the University of California San Diego (2015) and as a consultant within informatics for a major international consulting company. Since NORA.ai was established in 2019, he has been the CEO of NORA.

The speech:
Title: Large language models as a national infrastructure Abstract: Norway has the possibility of building an AI infrastructure that align with our social model and make it possible for everyone to access the technology. This applies especially to SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises). An infrastructure for artificial intelligence has many aspects, and the large foundational models can themselves be seen as infrastructure - it is on top of these models that we will build many of the services of the future. In his presentation, Klas Pettersen will discuss the status of large language models and what a national infrastructure for artificial intelligence might look like. He will also discuss how both the private and public sectors could benefit from such an infrastructure.

Principal Product Manager
Microsoft

About Osama:
Experienced product leader with strong skills in new products and ventures, strategy, customer insights and execution, driving measurable success. He is currently leading personalization of Copilot for Microsoft 365, led Kahoot!'s growth and success, growing the company from 50 to 650 employees with $169M ARR. Was a Co-Founder of health tech company Diffia, Product Manager at Telenor, founder of digital agency OH Marketing, and Head of Marketing and Sales at LiveAdmins. Received Bachelor's degree in Telecom Engineering from NUCES and new ventures leadership education from MIT.

The speech:
Demystifying Generative AI What is AI? What are LLMs? How do they work? Why do they hallucinate? How do you fine tune them? What are they good at?

Principal Consultant/Lead Data scientist
Nextbridge Analytics

About Kosovare:
With a Ph.D. in Astrophysics and over a decade of consulting experience, I bring a unique blend of deep technical expertise and strategic business insight. My career spans advanced data analysis, project management, and business architecture, specializing in machine learning, deep learning, and large-scale data analysis. I have focused extensively on utilizing Large Language Models (LLMs) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to enhance natural language understanding and generation. Throughout my career, I have significantly contributed to sectors such as oil and gas, metallurgy, and logistics by developing complex machine learning models and analytical tools, leading to substantial improvements in production quality and operational efficiency. My expertise extends to big data, cloud infrastructure, automation, process optimization, and digital transformation, where I have guided companies through critical technological transitions. This combination of technical proficiency and business acumen enables me to bridge the gap between implementation and business needs, driving digital innovation and transformation effectively.

The speech:
"Data Literacy in time of LLMs" This session will tackle the pervasive issue of data illiteracy, particularly in the use of large language models (LLMs) and their implementations. Drawing from a series of hands-on workshops and practical experiences, the talk will illuminate how a widespread lack of understanding about data underpins many challenges faced by users and developers of AI technologies.