Giovanna Faso (Class of 2001) - Moderator
Head of Engineering Operations, Tech Excellence at OLX Group
Giovanna received her BA/BSc (Hons) Events Management and Mass Communication from tin London Metropolitan University in 2006, her Master of Business Administration, MBA from Ashridge Executive Education, Hult International Business School in 2018, her Master’s Degree
Digital Media; Technology and Cultural Performance from Goldsmiths, University of London and is currently pursuing her Bachelor of Science, BS - Computer Science at IU International University of Applied Sciences.
Giovanna is a practitioner currently based in Lisbon leading Tech Excellence at the OLX Group. With over 15 years experience of working in Product&Tech in London, she finds herself specialising in organizational behaviour with a focus on the product and software delivery arena. Her experiences range from small start-ups all the way to publicly traded global corporations.
Diva Tommei (Class of 2001)
Investment Director Information Technology ICT at Enea Tech
Diva received her B.S. in Biotechnology from the Sapienza University of Rome in 2005, her M.S. in Genomic Technology from the Sapienza University of Rome in 2007, and her Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from the University of Cambridge in 2013. Diva attended the NASA university program Singularity University in 2010 and has been an honorary member of the Cambridge University Technology and Enterprise Club since 2013.
Diva has over ten years of experience as an entrepreneur and investor. She is currently the Investment Director for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at Enea Tech.
She was nominated “Top 50 Women in European Tech” by Forbes in 2018 and has given two TEDx talks, one in Rome (2017) and one in Matera (2018). She was also awarded the Young Global Innovator Award by MIT Tech Review in 2017 and has worked with Huawei on their artificial intelligence campaign (2017) as well as with Land Rover on their sustainability campaign (2019). In 2019 Diva was awarded the Pleiade International Award in the field of Innovation and New Technologies.
Varun Baker (Class of 2002)
Co-founder & Managing Director at Farm Credibly
Varun received his Bachelor of Science and Computer Science and Electronics in 2006 from The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona.
Varun, has over 10 years of enterprise-level industry experience in business communications and operational management, with a strong focus on software engineering. He designs and builds web services, mobile applications, and website architectures based on open standards.
Varun‘s experience in applying technology to solve agricultural issues started over 11 years ago as co-founder of the Slashroots Foundation where he was tackling issues such as the theft of crops and livestock from farms in Jamaica. Benefitting from close interactions with farmers who have shared their challenges has provided insights that help to shape the work that Farm Credibly is doing today. Farm Credibly leverages blockchain technology to provide access to loans for unbanked farmers in Jamaica.
Karim El Malki (Class of 1990)
Founder at Athonet
Karim received his B.Eng. (Hon.s) in Electronic & Electrical Engineering - Microelectronics/Communications from Brunel University London in 1994 and a PH.D. in Telecoms - Computer Science from The University of Sheffield in 1998.
In his earlier career Karim was a University Lecturer in Mobile Communications (U.K.) with a research focus on IP Mobility & VoIP and then became responsible for Ericsson’s earliest efforts on Mobile Network evolution and "All-IP" migration. He also has previous experience in product development including DSP coding (author of IPR, implementor, and designer of widely adopted echo cancellation algorithm), ASIC/FPGA design, ATM Access Network design, and standardisation.
Karim is the Founder of Athonet - Private 5G & LTE. Previously President of Athonet USA and President of Athonet Italy. Winner of 4 prestigious GSMA Global Mobile Awards 2019 for their innovative Athonet Connectivity Platform: putting you in control of your Private LTE network.
Athonet provides a complete in-house software-based LTE/5G connectivity platform that runs in cloud or virtualised data centre environments and on ruggedized hardware. Athonet platform allows customers to break free from the restrictive, expensive, proprietary telco-centric architecture of legacy solutions and embrace the true potential of wireless networks – capturing new sources of revenue whilst also massively reducing CapEx and OpEx.
Karim was selected by WIRED magazine in 2015 as one of the 17 leading global influencers expanding human possibility through technology. Awarded a Medal from the President of the Republic of Italy.
Mattias Ljungman (Class of 1991, St. Stephen's School Trustee)
Founder at Moonfire Ventures
Mattias received his Honours BA in Geography and Economics from McGill University in 1996 and a Masters in Business and Economics in 1999 from the Stockholm School of Economics.
Mattias is the Founder of Moonfire Ventures, a European seed fund focused on helping founders at the very start of their journeys to create the right foundations for exponential growth. Before Moonfire he co-founded the multi-billion-dollar fund Atomico with Niklas Zennstrom, the founder of Skype. At Atomico, Mattias and his team worked hard to inspire founders to think even bigger and Mattias aims to do the same at Moonfire, founded in 2019. Mattias firmly believes that VCs need to create powerful tech platforms to hone, scale, and optimise everything they do. Every work process at Moonfire from discovery to evaluation to support is tech and data-driven approach.
His key investments include Supercell, Klarna, Truecaller, Viagogo, and Climate Corp.
Harinda Katugaha (Class of 1998)
Founder at Qlik.me
Harinda received his B.Comm. in Finance from the University of Windsor in 2003, his Executive MBA from INSEAD in 2013, and has currently paused his Doctorate at Bocconi University to work on his latest startup.
Harinda bootstrapped his first start-up, IDAMA, and spun it off after 2.5 years of rapid growth. More recently, he launched Qlik.me, the first programmatic advertising platform for the Influencer community. He works with Gaming and media companies such as Warner Bros., Wargaming, and Traplight. He has appeared as a guest lecturer at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC and Loyola University Chicago. He was also a TedxSpeaker at TedxColombo in 2017 where he gave a talk on the importance of diversity of life experience which goes to broaden neurodiversity.
Harinda has over 16 years of management and consulting experience working with a variety of organizations on 4 continents. His experience spans startups (both operating and advising) and in a previous life, managed over $4B in various financial assets.
