Malta AI & BC Summit 'Spring Edition' Speakers

I understand that the regulators are wary of this technology but the fact is that it’s coming. We must be on the front line in embracing this crucial innovation, and we cannot just wait for others to take action and copy them. We must be the ones that others copy.

Silvio Schembri is a an elected Maltese politician and academic currently serving as a Junior Minister within the Maltese Government. Hon Schembri was born in Luqa, the second child among four siblings.

His father John Schembri has been occupying the office of Mayor of Luqa since 2001. Silvio is an experienced Lecturer In Economics with a demonstrated history of working in the higher education industry. Skilled in Political Communication, Negotiation, Sustainable Development, Political Science, and Analytical Skills. Strong education professional with a Master of Arts and a Bachelors Degree of Honours focused in Economics from L-Università ta’ Malta.

Tim Draper is an American venture capital investor, and in 1985, the founder of the firm that would become Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ). He also founded Draper Associates and Draper University. In July 2014, Draper received wide coverage for his purchase at a US Marshals Service auction of seized Bitcoins from the Silk Road marketplace website. He also spent in excess of $5 million to push a ballot initiative to divide California into three smaller states, which has met the signature threshold but was removed from the ballot by a decision in the Supreme Court of California.

Roger is currently involved in numerous Bitcoin related projects. He is an early investor in bitcoin-related startups. He has been a prominent supporter of bitcoin adoption and saw bitcoin as a means to promote economic freedom. He now promotes Bitcoin Cash, a hard fork of the cryptocurrency created with the intent to fix issues such as high fees and long transaction confirmation times.

Ben Parr is an award-winning entrepreneur, investor, author, and journalist. He is Co-Founder and President of Octane AI, the Facebook Messenger bot concierge for every merchant’s online store. With Octane AI, merchants can automatically answer question, run automated campaigns, and segment customers to build loyalty and increase revenue. Ben is also the author of the best-selling book “Captivology: The Science of Capturing People’s Attention”, named the top marketing book of 2015 by multiple publications. He sits on the board of directors of Samasource, whose mission is to reduce global poverty through impact sourcing and outsourcing digital work. He sits on Lufthansa Airlines’ advisory board and is a columnist for Inc. Magazine. Previously, Ben was the Co-Editor and Editor-at-Large of Mashable, where he wrote more than 2,400 articles on technology, media, and startups. He is a member of the Forbes 30 Under 30. Ben is an alum of Northwestern University.

Vivek is the Vice President at Redpoint Ventures, where he focuses on early-growth investment opportunities. He focuses primarily on companies in the enterprise SaaS, infrastructure and security sectors, as well as healthcare and fintech. Prior to joining Redpoint, Vivek was in the technology, media and telecommunications investment banking division of Goldman Sachs, where he advised large-scale enterprise, storage and SaaS businesses.

Patrick Chang is an early stage investor at Samsung NEXT Ventures. He primarily focuses on seed to series B enterprise / B2B investing and specializes in blockchain, security, edge computing, and more. Prior to Samsung, Patrick was at Foundation Capital with a focus on SaaS and enterprise software. He has over 12 years of experience investing in enterprise software including IT security, infrastructure, developer tools, business intelligence/analytics and more ranging in various stages from seed to growth equity at Bain Capital Ventures, Investor Growth Capital, New York Angels and Updata. Patrick is also a recovering tech investment banker at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Brothers, where he helped public and venture backed technology companies raise capital and execute M&A transactions.

Sunil is a Vice President at NextWorld Capital, an enterprise focused venture capital firm focused on investing in Series A & B companies. His current investments include Aircall, Gong.io, Headspin and CasaOne. Prior to joining NextWorld Capital, he was an investor at Tenaya Capital and was involved in the investments of Wavefront [acq. by VMW], Optimizely, Numerify, BaseCRM [acq. by ZEN] and Revinate.

Sunil leverages his international background spanning across four continents to help companies think globally. He also works very closely with entrepreneurs to help them realize their full revenue potential as well as help them build a secure foundation for future success.

Stephen is a high-energy leader and investment professional with a 21 year track record of building businesses, managing trading desks and hedge funds at leading international investment firms. His focus is on the balance of risk, reward and growth during the various stages of investment cycles, volatility and liquidity conditions. He was CEO of Ashburton International running the combined asset and wealth manager for FirstRand which made new highs in both AUM and fund performance NAVs. Throughout the Global Financial Crisis, Stephen ran the Central Risk Unit and financing businesses at Renaissance Capital. Previously he ran the volatility arbitrage fund for KBC. He started his career at Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, where he ran index options trading.