Keynote speaker: AI’s potential to create competitive advantage and economic and social progress
27 September 2023 | 11.15h to 12.15h
Why is AI relevant today? In her presentation, the Keynote Speaker Inma Martínez will talk about responsible AI, data governance, the future of work and the innovation and commercialization of AI in business and industry.
INMA MARTÍNEZ
International technological and scientific pioneer of AI
Chair of the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI), an agency of the OECD and the G7, and co-chair of its Steering Committee
Inma Martínez is an advisor to business and government leaders on how to turn digital transformation into a competitive advantage to contribute to business and social progress. As her career has progressed from its earlier stages in investment banking and telecommunications to delve into technology entrepreneurship, she has become recognised around the world as one of the leading female entrepreneurs who pioneered the mobile Internet’s first real-time artificial intelligence recommendation system with her team at Cambridge University. She continued to work on technological innovation throughout the 2000s, creating emerging digital technologies such as mobile music and video streaming, the connected car and smart living. Her unique experience has made her one of the most sought-after experts on anticipating digital disruption and unlocking the potential of AI and other transformative technologies.
Since 2001, Martínez has provided expert testimonies and sector strategies on Big Data and AI to the European Union’s Technology Council. In 2022, she was invited to present her vision on Big Data at its economic forum. She has combined her career in innovation with prestigious government positions in the United Kingdom (in the government agency for Trade and Investment (UKTI) and in the Innovation Fund of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport) and Spain (Secretariat of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation). She has also advised the Malaysian government’s Sarawak Centre of Performance Excellence on digital transformation strategies for both civil society and government enterprises. In March 2021, she was appointed an AI Expert for the GPAI AI Innovation and Commercialisation Working Group, where she leads Project 3: “Widespread Adoption of AI in Agriculture and Livestock”. In October 2022, she was elected chair of the GPAI Experts Group and co-chair of its Steering Committee. She is also a contributor to the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), where she advises on the implications of the 4IR for developing countries in the post-pandemic world and UNESCO’s initiative to make AI include intercultural inputs. Since 2018, she has worked with the European Space Agency on its trade missions for the cislunar economy.
She is a guest lecturer at Imperial College London Business School and the director of the Master’s programme in AI at Loyola University in Spain, where she also sits on the Advisory Board. She has been a key figure in European knowledge transfer efforts and has been a mentor in technology innovation in major business-focused accelerator programmes.
She is the author of two books: The Future of the Automotive Industry (June 2021) and The Fifth Industrial Revolution: How Space Commercialisation Will Derive the Biggest Industrial Expansion of the 21st Century (November 2019) on digital transformation and innovative business models that create progress and competitive attributes. She has also contributed to many white papers on cloud and edge computing and other innovations in telecommunications.
In 2021, she joined the jury in the scientific category of the Princess of Asturias Awards of Spain, a meritorious position at the service of the Spanish Crown and its philanthropic and cultural initiatives.
Fortune and TIME magazines have described her as one of Europe’s top talents in social engagement through technology and FastCompany called her “a firestarter innovator”, while The Financial Times and The Economist have featured her in conferences. She was voted the “Best contributor to the formation of strategy” in the “Driving the Future of Europe’s Digital Economy” section at Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s European Leadership Forum: Charting the Economic Future of Europe, a conference for CEOs and government officials.
