Digital Ireland Conference

Roberto Viola is Director General of DG CONNECT (Directorate General of Communication, Networks, Content and Technology) at the European Commission.

He was the Deputy Director-General of DG CONNECT, European Commission from 2012 to 2015.

Roberto Viola served as Chairman of the European Radio Spectrum Policy group (RSPG) from 2012 to 2013, as Deputy Chairman in 2011 and Chairman in 2010. He was a member of the BEREC Board (Body of European Telecom Regulators), and Chairman of the European Regulatory Group (ERG) in 2007.

He held the position of Secretary General in charge of managing AGCOM, from 2005 to 2012. Prior to this, he served as Director of Regulation Department and Technical Director in AGCOM from 1999 to 2004.

From 1985-1999 he served in various positions including as Head of Telecommunication and Broadcasting Satellite Services at the European Space Agency (ESA).

Roberto Viola holds a Doctorate in Electronic Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration (MBA).

Prof. Stephen Kinsella is Full Professor of Economics and Head of the Department of Economics at the University of Limerick. He directs UL’s Immersive Software Engineering programme. As an economist with tech sector experience, he also is a regular columnist with extensive experience on state boards.

As Secretary General, Declan Hughes advises Government and leads the Department and its offices and agencies in promoting the creation of high-quality and sustainable full employment; by championing enterprise, supporting, and incentivising a competitive and innovative research and enterprise base, negotiating international trade agreements, and promoting fair and competitive employment and markets.

Declan has served as a Board member of IDA Ireland, SFI and Enterprise Ireland. He was also a member of National Competitiveness Council, the Interim Public Procurement Reform Board and Food Wise Implementation Committee and Chair of the Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund Committee. He has served on EU and OECD committees.
Declan joined the Department in 2014 as Assistant Secretary, heading the Strategic Policy Division and subsequently had responsibility for policy development and funding programmes for Inward investment and Enterprise Innovation and for Indigenous Enterprise, SMEs, and Entrepreneurship Divisions. He was formerly on the Executive Committee of the enterprise, trade and science and technology advisory agency, Forfás. He has led a range of national and regional policy and funding initiatives, including on ecommerce, enterprise and trade strategies, skills and research prioritisation, regional enterprise plans, the Action Plan for Jobs and Brexit and COVID business supports.

Declan is a Bachelor of Commerce graduate and holds a Masters and Postgraduate Diploma from the Smurfit Graduate School of Business, UCD. He has completed executive programmes at Wharton School of Business, Roffey Park Institute and Singapore Civil Service College. He is a member of Institute of Directors.

Dara Calleary TD is the current Minister of State for Trade Promotion and Digital Transformation.
As a Minister of State in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Minister Calleary is responsible for promoting responsible and sustainable trade, ensuring fair and better regulation for all businesses, and that markets work effectively for consumers and for the economy, as a whole. He also has a specific focus in the continued digital transformation of enterprise and ensuring Ireland maintains or improves its position of 5th in the DESI, and remains a digital frontrunner at the heart of Europe.
He represents the Irish Government at the EU Competitiveness Council which works to enhance competitiveness and increase growth in the EU, as well as the D9+ forum and OECD Digital for SMEs Global Initiative.
He was previously Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment with responsibility for Labour Affairs from 2009-2011 and Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach and the Department of Finance with responsibility for Public Service Transformation from 2009-2011. He served as Minister for Agriculture and as Government Chief Whip in 2020.
Prior to entering politics, Dara was involved in the banking and business sectors. He studied Business and Politics at Trinity College Dublin.

Mary brings her experience and perspective from over 35 years
at Microsoft to lead strategic AI initiatives in the Office of the
Vice Chair and President. She is a frequent speaker on issues
related to Microsoft’s corporate and social responsibility as well
as technology policy, including in relation to AI.
She formerly led Microsoft’s Global Philanthropies, investing
the company’s technology, financial support, employee talent,
and voice to partner with nonprofits and communities to create
lasting positive impact. Prior to that, Mary was Deputy General
Counsel leading legal support for Microsoft’s engineering
organizations.
Mary has been an active board member for many nonprofit
organizations, including the YWCA of Seattle, King, and
Snohomish County, the Seattle Art Museum, the National 4-H
Council, Washington STEM, and Farm Foundation. She also serves on the University of Michigan’s
President’s Advisory Group, and on the National FFA Foundation’s Corporate Sponsors’ Board.
Mary joined Microsoft in 1988 as its fourth attorney, and first female attorney. She grew up in
Newton, Kansas, where she still has close family, and graduated from the University of Kansas
School of Journalism before earning her law degree at the University of Michigan.

Mr. Georgii Dubynskyi has been an expert on international S&T cooperation for more than 20 years. His previous experience of work in the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, the Ministry of Education and Sciences of Ukraine, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Mission of Ukraine to the European Union, Embassy of Ukraine in the United States of America allows him to use his skills as well as his wide contacts with governmental agencies, research institutes, universities, NGOs, industrial companies and ministers both in Ukraine and outside to arrange international cooperation.
Mr. Dubynskyi is responsible for the development of cyber defense and digital security technologies in Ukraine. In his role as Deputy Minister, he coordinates the cooperation, and implementation of modern principles, methods, approaches, and mechanisms of public administration in the field of cyber defense, digital security technologies, and robotics. In addition, the deputy minister is entrusted with representing the interests of the Ministry of Digital Transformation at international exhibitions, conferences, and meetings.
Mr. Dubynskyi is a passionate advocate for the use of technology to improve the lives of Ukrainians. He is committed to making Ukraine one of the most digitally advanced countries in the world.

English
Peter Burke is Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment. He previously served as Minister of
State for European Affairs and Defence, and as Minister of State for Local Government and Planning.

Before being appointed to the government, Peter sat on the Oireachtas Finance and Public Accounts
Committees and has been a frequent media commentator on tax and financial issues.

He was born in Mullingar, Ireland and attended National University of Ireland, Galway where he
studied Commerce. He is a Chartered Accountant by profession with ten years’ experience in the
private sector. Peter served as a Councillor on Westmeath County Council from 2007 until he was
elected to the Dáil in 2016. He is married to Olivia and they have two young sons, Leo and Ted.

You can contact Mr Burke at peter.burke@oireachtas.ie

Irish

Is é Peter Burke an tAire Fiontar, Trádála agus Fostaíochta. Roimhe sin bhí sé ina Aire Stáit do
Ghnóthaí Eorpacha agus Cosanta, agus mar Aire Stáit do Rialtas Áitiúil agus Pleanála.

Sular ceapadh é ar an rialtas, shuigh Peadar ar Choistí Airgeadais agus Cuntais Phoiblí an Oireachtais
agus bhí sé ina thráchtaire sna meáin go minic ar chúrsaí cánach agus airgeadais.

Rugadh é sa Mhuileann gCearr, Éire agus d’fhreastail sé ar Ollscoil na hÉireann, Gaillimh áit a
ndearna sé staidéar ar an Tráchtáil. Is Cuntasóir Cairte é ó thaobh gairme le deich mbliana de thaithí
san earnáil phríobháideach. Bhí Peter ina Chomhairleoir ar Chomhairle Contae na hIarmhí ó 2007 go
dtí gur toghadh chun na Dála é in 2016. Tá sé pósta ar Olivia agus tá beirt mhac óg acu, Leo agus Ted.

Féadfaidh tú teagmháil a dhéanamh leis an Uasal Burke ag peter.burke@oireachtas.ie

Ossian Smyth is Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform with special responsibility for Public Procurement and eGovernment; and the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications with special responsibility for Communications and Circular Economy. He was appointed to these roles in July 2020.
He has been a TD for the Dún Laoghaire constituency since the 2020 general election.
Following the 2014 Irish local elections, Smyth was elected to Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council for the Dún Laoghaire local electoral area. He served as Cathaoirleach of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council from 2018 to 2019.
Smyth holds a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science from Trinity College Dublin.

Jane Suiter is Professor in the School of Communication and is director of DCU’s Institute for Future Media, Democracy and Society. She was awarded an IRC Laureate in 2022 for COMDEL Examining the Potential of Communicative Deliberation for Climate Action, IRCLA/2022/3896.

She also leads a WP on H2020-EUComMeet. Previously she led as PI on H2020 ICT28 Provenance, a multimillion interdisciplinary project to combat disinformation and on JOLT, a Marie Curie ITN on harnessing digital technologies in communication.

She has been involved in various research and oversight capacities on the Irish Citizens’ Assembly (2012-2022) and was a founder member of We the Citizens (2011), Ireland’s first deliberative experiment.

She is a member of the OECD’s FutureDemocracy network and on the advisory board of the Federation of Innovation in Democracy Europe (FIDE).Jane has testified at the OECD, the European Parliament, the UN and the UNDP as well as the Oireachtas.

She was the joint winner of the Brown Democracy Medal in 2019 and the President’s Award for Research. She was awarded the prestigious title of the Irish Research Council’s Researcher of the Year in 2020.

Jane is a frequent contributor to broadcast and print media and is a former journalist having worked as Economics Editor at The Irish Times and for other media such as the FT Group and AP Dow Jones.

She has published in 30 plus journals including Science, International Journal of Political Science, Electoral Studies, Politics and the International Journal of Communication.

John joined Coimisiún na Meán in July 2023 as the Digital Services Commissioner. The Government decided that An Coimisiún will be designated as Ireland’s Digital Services Coordinator, implementing and enforcing the EU Regulation known as the Digital Services Act in Ireland.

Prior to joining An Coimisiún, John was the Director of Strategy and Economics at ComReg, the Irish communications regulator, which he joined in 2015. At ComReg.

John also has extensive experience of enforcement. Prior to joining ComReg, John worked in various roles at the Irish Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (and previously the Irish Competition Authority), latterly as the Director of Civil Competition Law Enforcement where he worked on a number of high-profile complex investigations.

John holds a PhD in Economics from UCD, Ireland.

Russell Grandinetti joined Amazon in 1998 and today serves as Senior Vice President, International Stores, responsible for leading Amazon’s international e-commerce business across Europe, UK, Japan, India, China, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, the Middle East and Australia. He also oversees Payments, Prime, Books, Consumer Marketing, and Amazon Business. In prior roles at Amazon, he served as Senior Vice President for Kindle, GM for Amazon’s book business in North America, Vice President of Softlines, and as Treasurer of the company in Amazon’s early years. Before joining Amazon, Grandinetti was a securities analyst covering technology and Internet companies at Morgan Stanley. Prior to that, he was a systems designer and engineer at Andersen Consulting. He graduated from Princeton University and holds a B.S.E. in Operations Research.

Rena is the founder / CEO of Cilter, an award-winning technology startup developing child
protection software for smartphones that detects/blocks cyberbullying, grooming and
suicide/self-harm in on encrypted messaging apps and browsers.
Rena writes a column for business publication The Currency from the coalface of Irish business,
drawn from her experiences as both a corporate executive and entrepreneur. In 2022 Rena was
appointed by the Minister for Finance to the Commission on Taxation and Welfare. She also Chairs
the board of the Irish International Business Network, was named in the Sunday Independent’s Top
30 Women in Tech in 2021 and was named Women in AI person of the year at the AI awards.
Rena started her career in advertising sales and went on to hold senior management and director
roles in Sky, Sunshine and was latterly CEO of the iRadio group. In 2011 she co-founded Ireland’s
largest traditional matchmaking company and is an active startup investor.
Since inventing the patented Cilter concept, Rena won €2.8M grant towards the completion of the
solution from the highly competitive Disruptive Technology Innovation Fund and in May 23 she
raised €1.67m, one of the largest seed-raises of a sole female-founder in Ireland. Rena lives in
Dublin with her husband Feargal and two small children.

Daniel leads Zalando’s Public Affairs and Social Impact efforts. He oversees interest representation in
Berlin, Brussels, Paris and Warsaw and the company’s philanthropic and corporate responsibility
programs. Prior to joining Zalando in 2018, Daniel held several senior roles in policy consulting and
served as Chief of Staff of the German Retail Association in Berlin. Daniel graduated from University
of Tuebingen and holds a degree in Political Science, History and Rhetoric.

ABOUT ZALANDO
Founded in Berlin in 2008, Zalando is building the leading pan-European ecosystem for fashion and
lifestyle e-commerce around two growth vectors: Business-to-Consumer (B2C) and Business-to-
Business (B2B). In B2C, Zalando offers an inspiring and quality multi-brand shopping experience for
fashion and lifestyle products to about 50 million active customers in 25 markets. In B2B, Zalando is
using its logistic infrastructure, software and service capabilities to help brands and retailers run and
scale their entire e-commerce business, on or off Zalando. As an ecosystem, Zalando aims to enable
positive change for the fashion and lifestyle industry.

Dr. Patricia Scanlon is an Irish technologist and businesswoman. She holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence and Speech Recognition and a bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering. Her 25 year’s experience in AI spans both academia and industry including roles at Columbia University, Bell Labs and IBM. In 2013, she founded SoapBox Labs, the world’s leading provider of ethical Voice AI for children and was acquired by US based Curriculum Associates. Forbes recognized her as one of The World’s Top 50 Women in Tech in 2018. In 2022, Dr Scanlon was appointed Ireland’s first Artificial Intelligence Ambassador, to lead a national conversation on Artificial Intelligence, working with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. In 2023 she was appointed Chairperson of Ireland’s new AI Advisory Council providing the government with early foresight of emerging trends, challenges, risks and opportunities.

Dr. Susan Leavy is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information and Communication and Funded Investigator with Insight SFI Centre of Data Analytics where she is co-lead of the Trustworthy AI research initiative. Her research concerns AI ethics, bias mitigation, AI Auditing and digital policy. She is currently is leading several projects including the development of techniques for AI Auditing, evaluating social risk in recommender systems, fairness in multi-modal and large language models. She is currently one of Ireland’s nominee to the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI) and a member of the Irish government’s AI Advisory Panel.

Karan Bhatia leads the global public policy function at Google – a 450-person team based in more than 50 countries around the world. In this role, he serves as principal advisor to Google’s CEO, board and senior management on policy issues and leads the company’s work with policymakers and key political stakeholders in the US and around the world.

Before joining Google in 2018, Bhatia served as President of GE’s Government Affairs & Policy function. During his 10 years at GE, Karan helped drive the company’s significant expansion into government-facing global markets. He supported more than $40 billion in government-related industrial orders globally, secured international regulatory approvals for critical mergers and acquisitions, and led the company’s policy advocacy efforts on issues ranging from climate change to international trade.

Earlier in his career, Bhatia served in senior positions in the US Government, including at the Departments of Commerce and Transportation, shaping US international economic policy. His last role was as Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, overseeing U.S. international trade policy with respect to Asia and Africa. Prior to his government service, he was a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, where he was a member of the firm’s international and corporate groups.

Bhatia has written and spoken widely on international economic policy, taught at Georgetown University Law Center, and testified on many occasions before Congress. He currently sits on the boards of the Urban Institute, the US Global Leadership Coalition, and the Partnership for Public Service.

Bhatia holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton, a master’s from the London School of
Economics, and a law degree from Columbia University. He and his wife Sara have two grown sons.

Sandro Gianella leads OpenAI’s Policy & Partnerships efforts in Europe and the Middle East. He’s previously built the EMEA Public Policy function at Stripe, worked on technology regulation at Google and focused on the G7/G20 process as a lead analyst for the G20 Research Group and the Heinrich Böll Foundation. He’s a member of the Atomico Expert Network providing counsel on regulatory matters to European scale-ups. He was selected as a Young Leader for the Atlantik-Brücke e.V., took part in the Transatlantic Digital Fellowship of the Global Public Policy Institute and participated in the Internet Leadership Academy of the Oxford Internet Institute. He graduated from the University of Toronto with an Hon. Bachelor in International Relations and from the Hertie School of Governance with a Masters in Public Policy.

Co-founder and Director of Idiro Analytics & AI Ethics Centre, a multi-award-winning indigenous company in AI and Advanced Analytics, for over 20 years.
Idiro is Ireland’s leading AI strategy and implementation expert, specialising in
GenAI and ML. Solutions include algorithm bias detection and XAI for responsible
AI.
In 2021 Idiro established an AI Ethics Centre, the brainchild of Geraldine,
focusing on the development of standards and technologies to ensure implementations of AI are trustworthy, compliant, and empowering clients to
reach their ESG targets.

As Chairwoman of the Small Firms Association, she collaborates to promote and
lobby for small businesses across Ireland.
Geraldine sits on the Board of Technology Ireland and serves on their AI Enterprise Advisory Group. She also serves on the IBEC National Council, and
the SFA’s Skillnet Ireland steering group for MentorsWork.

Geraldine was named ‘Technology Ireland Person of the Year’ in 2022 and shortlisted for ‘Woman in Technology Award’ (WMB).

Audrey Plonk, Deputy Director, Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) As one of the two Deputy Directors of the Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation (STI), Audrey is responsible for the OECD’s portfolio of work on digital policy that includes data governance and data flows, artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, security and safety online, and connectivity and infrastructure. She plays a leading role in overseeing and advancing evidence-based policy analysis on the drivers, opportunities and challenges of digital transformation in collaboration with policy communities and stakeholders. She also supports and represents the OECD in related international initiatives. From 2019 to 2023, Ms Plonk served as Head of STI’s Digital Economy Policy Division. She was responsible for leading two OECD committees and six working parties across digital and consumer policy. She has successfully grown the OECD’s digital portfolio delivering a key Ministerial meeting in 2022, the launch of the Global Forum on Technology, and the Declaration on Government Access to Personal Data Held by Private Sector Entities. Ms Plonk had previously worked on digital security issues in STI in 2007, including malicious software and the protection of critical information infrastructure. Before returning to STI in 2019, Ms Plonk was Senior Director of Global Security Policy and Senior Director for Public Policy at Intel Corporation. During her more than 10 years at Intel, she led a global team of policy experts focusing on issues such as connectivity, data, artificial intelligence and autonomous driving policy issues. She also specialised in China cyber policy and advised Intel business and product teams on China strategy. Ms Plonk, an American national, holds a Bachelor’s Degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University (Washington, DC, United States)