Biography
Damien Acheson is a Barcelona-based B2B technology marketing executive, advisor and entrepreneur focused on AI, SaaS and deep tech. He has spent his career building go-to-market strategies for high growth companies across the US, UK and Europe. He has held senior marketing roles at early stage and public companies including LivePerson, Scytl, Cien.ai and Qatium, and now advises tech companies on growth, product marketing and GTM. He is also a cofounder of Geodes.ai, an AI visibility platform helping brands understand and improve how they appear in generative search. Damien holds an MBA from MIT Sloan and the Diplôme from Sciences Po Paris.
He is an active connector in Barcelona's technology ecosystem and head liaison of the MIT Club of Spain in Catalonia.
Sessions
- AI For BuildersModerator
Debate 1 — Agents: The Real Platform Shift, or 2026's Most Overhyped Demo?
Tuesday 22 September, 12:00 – 12:55Auditorium StageEvery deck in 2026 says 'agentic.' Most agents still break the moment they touch a real workflow. Side A: agents are the genuine platform shift — the jump from copilots that suggest to systems that actually do the work, and the teams already shipping them in production are pulling ahead. Side B: 'agentic' is this cycle's most oversold demo — brittle, expensive, badly governed, a thin wrapper over the same models we already had. 55 minutes, two builders, one moderator who has actually run agents in prod, and an audience vote before and after.
With Maanas Mediratta, Dave Garcia, Simon Bosch, Barnaba Barcellona, Emma Rees
- AI FoundationsModerator
Debate 3 — Sovereign AI or Surrender? Should Europe Stop Outsourcing Its AI Future?
Wednesday 23 September, 12:00 – 12:55Auditorium StageEurope is building 13 AI Factories, funding Mistral and Aleph Alpha, demanding open weights, and writing the world's strictest AI law. Yet 90% of European AI compute still runs on AWS, Azure and GCP, and the foundation model leaderboards are American and Chinese. So is sovereign AI the project of the decade for European strategic autonomy — or an expensive industrial-policy fantasy that taxes EU founders without producing winners? One debater says Europe must stop renting its future. The other says we already lost — partner up and accept it.
With Justin Strharsky, Jan Kavalírek, Pedro Romera, Siobhan Fairman
- AI For GrowthModerator
Debate 4 — The 2027 Crash: Is AI the New Dot-Com Bubble?
Wednesday 23 September, 16:00 – 16:55Auditorium Stage$500 billion in AI capex this year alone. NVIDIA at a $4-trillion market cap. Startups raising $1 billion before product. And a chorus of investors, economists and former bulls now whispering the b-word. Is AI the most important infrastructure build of the century — worth every dollar — or the largest mispricing of risk since 1999, with the 2027 hangover already booked? The closing debate of AI Summit Barcelona puts a believer and a sceptic in the ring while the audience decides whether to ride the wave or run for cash.
With Oleg Chervonnyi, Patricia Pastor, Astghik Zakharyan, Jorge Blasco, Oriol Juncosa