VISION CONFERENCE

Academician Jaak Aaviksoo was nominated as the Rector of Tallinn University of Technology in September 2015. Former roles have included being the Minister of Education and Research and the Minister of Defence of Estonia. He has also been elected twice as the Rector of Tartu University and serving as EUA Board member. Before becoming the Rector of Tartu University he was Professor of optics and spectroscopy at Tartu University heading the Institute of experimental physics.
In 1994 he was elected to the Estonian Academy of Science. Rector Aaviksoo has worked in many foreign institutes as a guest professor: Novosibirsk Institute of Thermal Physics, the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Osaka University and Paris Diderot University.

Alexander Stubb is Vice-President of the European Investment Bank since August 2017. His oversights include the Bank’s financing activities in the Nordics, Baltics and a number of Eastern European countries; Funding & Treasury; EU Multiannual Financial Framework; Security & Defence; Corporate Responsibility; Gender Equality and Diversity & Inclusion. Alex Stubb served as Prime Minister, Finance Minister, Foreign Minister, Trade and Europe Minister of Finland. His background is in academia and civil service, with a focus on EU affairs. He was a member of the European Parliament from 2004-2008, a government minister from 2008-16, a member of parliament from 2011-2017 and chairman of the National Coalition Party from 2014-16. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics, has published 18 books and is a self-professed sports fanatic.

Carlota Perez studies the socio-economic impact of technical change and the historical context for growth and development. She is currently Visiting Professor of International Development at the London School of Economics, Professor of Technology and Development at the Nurkse Institute, TUT, Estonia, Honorary Professor at SPRU, University of Sussex and at IIPP-UCL, UK. Her long career has combined civil service, academic research and teaching, and she has acted as consultant for several governments; for international organisations such as the EU, UNIDO, CEPAL, the Andean Pact, the World Bank, and the OECD; and for many global corporations including IBM, Cisco, Telefonica and Ericsson. Author of the influential Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages (Elgar 2002), the Venezuelan-British scholar is currently working on a sequel, analysing the roles that government, business and civil society play in shaping the potential of technological revolutions.

Said Hamdioui is currently Chair Professor on Dependable and Emerging Computer Technologies and Head of the Computer Engineering Laboratory (CE-Lab) of the Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. He received the MSEE and PhD degrees (both with honors) from TUDelft. Prior to joining TUDelft as a professor, Hamdioui spent about seven years within industry including Microprocessor Products Group at Intel Corporation, IP and Yield Group at Philips Semiconductors R&D and DSP design group at Philips/ NXP Semiconductors. His research focuses on two domains: Dependable CMOS nano-computing (including Reliability, Testability, Hardware Security) and emerging technologies and computing paradigms (including 3D stacked ICs, memristors for logic and storage, and in-memory-computing).
Hamdioui owns two patents (and one pending) and has written one book, contributed to two books, and published over 180 conference and journal papers. He has consulted for many companies (such as Intel, ST, Altera, Atmel, Renesas. He has collaborated with many industry/research partners like Intel, IMEC, NXP, Intrinsic ID, DS2, ST Microelectronics, IBM, Politic di Torino, etc.
He is strongly involved in the international community as a member of organizing committees or a member of the technical program committees of the leading conferences. He delivered dozens of keynote speeches, distinguished lectures, and invited presentations and tutorial at major international forums/conferences/schools and at leading semiconductor companies. Hamdioui is the recipient many international awards, among others the European Design Automation Association Outstanding Dissertation Award 2001 and the Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Frontier of Computer Science and Technology FCST-2017.

Dr. Keith Devlin is a co-founder and Executive Director of Stanford University’s H-STAR institute and a co-founder of the Stanford mediaX research network. He is a World Economic Forum Fellow, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. His current research is focused on the use of different media to teach and communicate mathematics to diverse audiences. In this connection, he is a co-founder and President of an educational technology company, BrainQuake, that creates mathematics learning video games. He also works on the design of information/reasoning systems for intelligence analysis.
Other research interests include: theory of information, models of reasoning, applications of mathematical techniques in the study of communication, and mathematical cognition. He has written 33 books and over 80 published research articles. Recipient of the Pythagoras Prize, the Peano Prize, the Carl Sagan Award, and the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics Communications Award. In 2003, he was recognized by the California State Assembly for his “innovative work and longtime service in the field of mathematics and its relation to logic and linguistics.” He is “the Math Guy” on National Public Radio.

Toru Iiyoshi is Deputy Vice President for Education, and Director and a professor at the Center for the Promotion of Excellence in Higher Education of Kyoto University. He also serves as Executive Director of KyotoUx, the institutional MOOC initiative.
Dr. Iiyoshi works with various national and international initiatives, projects, and organizations in an advisory role to provide vision and leadership in the development and distribution of innovative educational technology. Previously, he was a senior scholar and Director of the Knowledge Media Laboratory at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and Senior Strategist in the Office of Educational Innovation and Technology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has served as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Technology and Education as well as a visiting professor of Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies at the University of Tokyo. He is a co-editor of the Carnegie Foundation book, “Opening Up Education: The Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge” (MIT Press).

Advisor to the Minister of State for Higher Education and Secretary General of the Education and Human Resources Council in the UAE. Experienced in policy making in education and employment with a demonstrated history of working in the management consulting industry. Skilled in Growth Strategies, Financial Modeling, Market Entry, Due Diligence, and Business Strategy. Strong operations professional with a Master of Science focused in Financial Engineering from University of Southern California.

Mr. Hando Sutter has been Chairman of Management Board and Chief Executive Officer of Eesti Energia AS since December 01, 2014. Mr. Sutter has served as the regional manager of Nord Pool Spot power exchange in the Baltics and Russia and he has previously worked in ESS Group (renamed to G4S Estonia), Tolaram Investments, Olympic Entertainment Group and US Invest.
He has a degree in mechanical engineering from Tallinn Technical University and has taken a MBA course in business administration from Estonian Business School.

Helena Almqvist is Managing Director of Protex Balti AS, leading provider of advanced textile solutions to Scandinavian market. The company is a subsidiary of Protex AS (Norway) and currently employs 230 people in Estonia. Today Protex technical/smart portfolio is fast-growing and represents 52% of total turnover and the company has entered strong strategic partnerships with European frontrunners in ICT, electronics, and R&D.
Helena started her career in Protex as Chief Business Development Officer in 2012, implementing a broad restructuring of the business portfolio towards high profile technical customers.
Helena has a diversity of public appointments such as Chairman of Foreign Investors Council in Estonia (FICE) and background from Business Sweden, Wireless Car, and Swedish Foreign Ministry. She has M. Sc. In Business Administration, Gothenburg University of Economics and Commercial Law, Strategic Management Program at Stockholm School of Economics Executive Education (SSE Riga).
Helena is passionate about innovation, business development, and entrepreneurship.

René is a Serial Entrepreneur, Investor, the former Manager of the TTÜ Innovation and Business Centre and the Co-founder and CEO of Optofluid Technologies.

Prof. Dr. Robert Krimmer is Full Professor of e-Governance within Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance at the School of Business and Governance at Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia. He is focusing on electronic governance, cross-border interoperability, as well as participation and democracy, including e-voting, the transformation of the public sector, and all issues developing the digital society. He heads the Large-Scale-Pilot on the Once-Only Principle within the Horizon 2020 framework program, the largest running research and innovation project currently in Estonia.

He is Associate Editor of the international scientific journal Government Information Quarterly (GIQ) in charge of participation issues. He was a member of the core group of experts for the Council of Europe Ad-Hoc Committee on Electronic Voting (CAHVE) in charge of updating the electronic voting recommendation Rec(2004)11 the only international legal document available. He has also been one of the lead experts for the Council of Europe Ad-Hoc Committee on Electronic Democracy and drafted Annex 1 of the CoE Recommendation (2009)1 on e-Democracy. Teaching on e-Governance, e-Democracy, incl. e-Participation and e-Voting as well as End-User Management Information Systems at Tallinn University of Technology, University of Applied Sciences Hagenberg, Danube University Krems, and WU Vienna University of Economics and Business. Mentor of more than twenty five graduation theses. Author and/or editor of ten books/special issues of scientific journals.

Robert holds PhDs from Tallinn University of Technology and WU Vienna University of Economics and Business. Author of more than 140 international scientific articles. He has been cited some 1000 times with an Hirsch index of 15 according to Google Scholar.

Jürgo Preden is the founder and CEO of Thinnect, he has over 15 years of experience in wireless networking from industry and academia. He is also the inventor of ‘Mist Computing’, having developed that concept at Tallinn University of Technology and Microsoft Research. Jurgo was the co-founder and CTO of Defendec, he successfully led the development of Defendec’s wireless border patrol product, which has been deployed to 25 countries with over 4000 devices operational globally. Jurgo has been with Microsoft Research and Nokia, he was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar in Buffalo, New York.

Programme Director of the study programme Product Development and Robotics, coordinator and developer of several innovative projects. Project manager of the Estonian first self-driving car ISEAUTO and founder of the laboratory-competence centre for self-driving vehicles at TTÜ.

Academician Jaak Aaviksoo was nominated as the Rector of Tallinn University of Technology in September 2015. Former roles have included being the Minister of Education and Research and the Minister of Defence of Estonia. He has also been elected twice as the Rector of Tartu University and serving as EUA Board member. Before becoming the Rector of Tartu University he was Professor of optics and spectroscopy at Tartu University heading the Institute of experimental physics.
In 1994 he was elected to the Estonian Academy of Science. Rector Aaviksoo has worked in many foreign institutes as a guest professor: Novosibirsk Institute of Thermal Physics, the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Osaka University and Paris Diderot University.