Dr. David A. Bray has served in a variety of leadership roles in turbulent environments, including bioterrorism preparedness and response from 2000-2005, time on the ground in Afghanistan in 2009, serving as the non-partisan Executive Director for a bipartisan National Commission on R&D, and providing leadership as a non-partisan federal agency Senior Executive. He accepted a leadership role in December 2019 to incubate a new global Center with the Atlantic Council.

He also provides strategy to both Boards and start-ups espousing human-centric principles to technology-enabled decision making in complex environments. He was also named a Senior Fellow with the Institute for Human-Machine Cognition in starting in 2018. Business Insider named him one of the top “24 Americans Who Are Changing the World” under 40 and he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum for 2016-2021. From 2017 to the start of 2020, David served as Executive Director for the People-Centered Internet coalition Chaired by Internet co-originator Vint Cerf, focused on providing support and expertise for community-focused projects that measurably improve people’s lives using the internet.

He also was named a Marshall Memorial Fellow and traveled to Europe in 2018 to discuss Trans-Atlantic issues of common concern including exponential technologies and the global future ahead. Later in 2018, he was invited to work with the U.S. Navy and Marines on improving organizational adaptability and to work with U.S. Special Operation Command’s J5 Directorate on the challenges of countering misinformation and disinformation online. He has received both the Joint Civilian Service Commendation Award and the National Intelligence Exceptional Achievement Medal.

David enjoys creative problem solving. He began working for the U.S. government at age 15 on computer simulations at a high-energy physics facility investigating quarks and neutrinos. In later roles, he designed new telemedicine interfaces and space-based forest fire forecasting prototypes for the Department of Defense. From 1998-2000 he volunteered as a part-time crew lead with Habitat for Humanity International in the Philippines, Honduras, Romania, and Nepal while also working as a project manager with Yahoo! and a Microsoft partner firm. Dr. Bray then joined as IT Chief for the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Program at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, leading the program’s technology response to during 9/11, anthrax in 2001, Severe Acute Respiratory System in 2003, and other international public health emergencies. He later completed a PhD from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School and two post-doctoral associateships at MIT and Harvard in 2008.

David likes to be a digital diplomat and a “human flak jacket” for teams of change agents working in turbulent environments. He volunteered in 2009 to deploy to Afghanistan to help “think differently” on military and humanitarian issues and in 2010 became a Senior National Intelligence Service Executive advocating for increased information interoperability, cybersecurity, and protection of civil liberties. In 2012, he became the Executive Director for the bipartisan National Commission for Review of Research and Development Programs of the United States Intelligence Community, leading an interagency team that received the National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citation. He received both the Arthur S. Flemming Award and Roger W. Jones Award for Executive Leadership in 2013. He also was chosen to be an Eisenhower Fellow to meet with leaders in Taiwan and Australia on multisector cyber strategies for the “Internet of Everything” in 2015. He is the author of 40+ academic papers and published publications.

David’s passions include complicated, near impossible missions involving humans and technology in challenging circumstances. Through the efforts of a team of “positive change agents”, he led the transformation of the Federal Communication Commission’s legacy IT with more than 207 different systems to award-winning tech. This included rolling-out new cloud-based IT that achieved results in 1/2 the time at 1/6 the cost. He was the recipient of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronic Association’s Outstanding Achievement Award for Civilian Government. He also received the global CIO 100 Award twice, which usually is awarded to private sector Fortune 500 companies, both in 2015 and 2017, for his transformational leadership in change-adverse settings. In 2019, he was invited to give the AI World Society Distinguished Lecture to the United Nations on UN Charter Day.

Dr. Bray’s passions include the Future of Work, Future of Governance, and the Future of Augmented Communities that maintain a human focus on collaboration, pluralism, and individual choices. Over the years for six different startups, he has served as President, Chief Strategy Officer, and Strategic Advisor roles. He accepted a role of Co-Chair for 2016-2017 with an IEEE Committee focused on Artificial Intelligence, automated systems, and innovative policies globally and has been serving as a Visiting Executive In-Residence at Harvard University since 2015 and as a Faculty Member giving talks on Impact and Disruption at Singularity University since 2017. He has been an invited keynote speaker to CEOs, world leaders, and crowds of more than 3,000 participants at events in India, Vietnam, Australia, Taiwan, Dubai, South Africa, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Canada, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Deji Olukotun is the Director of Policy and Corporate Social Responsibility at the audio technology company Sonos. Before joining Sonos, he managed global advocacy at Access Now and established the digital freedom program at PEN America, the writers advocacy organization. He is also an award-winning science fiction writer. His short story "Between the Dark and the Dark" was featured in Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 (ed. Diana Giabaldon) and his novel After the Flare won a Philip K. Dick Special Citation.

Internationally recognized as a corporate data privacy and cybersecurity pioneer, Harriet Pearson brings to her practice decades of leading-edge experience advising companies and boards on cyber and data risk management and governance, breach preparedness and response, crisis management, global data privacy compliance, and public policy strategies.

The Financial Times recognized Harriet as North America Legal Innovator of the Year, Lawdragon named her as one of the 500 "Leading Lawyers in America," and the National Law Journal recognized her as a Cybersecurity and Privacy Trailblazer. She is ranked Band 1 by Chambers and Partners for Privacy and Data Security in the U.S.

Harriet joined Hogan Lovells in 2012 from the IBM Corporation, where in addition to executive leadership roles in human resources, communications, and government relations, she served as Vice President Security Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) from 2000-2012.

She launched and led Hogan Lovells' global multi-disciplinary Cybersecurity practice until transitioning to senior counsel in 2021 and for several years also served as the firm's first Innovation and New Ventures partner, a role in which she was responsible for sparking and supporting ideas for new client solutions.

Harriet co-founded and co-chaired the Georgetown Cybersecurity Law Institute from 2012 to 2018 and serves on a number of advisory boards. She helped found and served for a decade on the board of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, an organization that recognized her longstanding leadership in the privacy field in 2007 by awarding her its Vanguard Award.

Dr. Nick Merrill directs the Daylight Lab at the UC Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity. His lab produces tools for understanding and addressing critical security issues.

Melissa Hathaway is globally recognized as a thought leader in the fields of cybersecurity and digital risk management and has relationships with the highest levels of governments and international institutions. She served in two U.S. presidential administrations, spearheading the Cyberspace Policy Review for President Barack Obama and leading the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI) for President George W. Bush. She received the National Intelligence Reform Medal, September 2009 and the National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citation, December 2011 for her leadership. As President of Hathaway Global Strategies, Melissa brings a unique combination of policy and technical expertise, as well as board room experience that allows her to help clients better understand the inter-section of government policy, developing technological and industry trends, and economic drivers that impact acquisition and business development strategies in this field. Ms. Hathaway has a B.A. degree from The American University in Washington, D.C. She has completed graduate studies in international economics and technology transfer policy, and is a graduate of the US Armed Forces Staff College, with a special certificate in Information Operations. She publishes regularly on cybersecurity matters affecting companies and countries. Most of her articles can be found at the following website: https://www.belfercenter.org/person/melissa-hathaway

Mike Nelson is a senior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment’s Technology and International Affairs Program, which helps decision makers understand and address the impacts of emerging technologies, including digital technologies, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence. Prior to joining Carnegie, he started the global public policy office for Cloudflare, a startup that has improved the performance and security of more than 10 million websites around the world. Nelson has also served as a principal technology policy strategist in Microsoft’s Technology Policy Group and before that was a senior technology and telecommunications analyst with Bloomberg Government. In addition, Nelson has been teaching courses and doing research on the future of the internet, cyber-policy, technology policy, innovation policy, and e-government in the Communication, Culture, and Technology Program at Georgetown University.

Before joining the Georgetown faculty, Nelson was director of internet technology and strategy at IBM, where he managed a team helping define and implement IBM’s next generation internet strategy. He has served as chairman of the Information, Communication, and Computing Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, serves as a trustee of the Institute for International Communications, and was selected to be a “Global Leader of Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum. From 1988 to 1993, he served as a professional staff member for the Senate’s Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space and was the lead Senate staffer for the High-Performance Computing Act. In 1993, he joined Vice President Al Gore at the White House and worked with President Bill Clinton’s science adviser on issues relating to the Global Information Infrastructure, including telecommunications policy, information technology, encryption, electronic commerce, and information policy.