The 2026 speakers

Anya Nova is a Director at Galaxy, a Nasdaq-listed global leader in digital assets and data-center infrastructure, helping shape the future of finance and artificial intelligence. She works with banks, asset managers and fintechs to build institutional digital asset capabilities across custody, tokenization, staking and secure vault infrastructure.

Anya has spoken at more than 50 industry events on digital asset market infrastructure and tokenization. Her work focuses on how regulated financial institutions can adopt emerging technologies in practical, scalable and commercially viable ways.

At AI Summit Barcelona, she will bring a financial services perspective on the convergence of AI, blockchain and digital assets, exploring how these technologies are transforming institutional workflows, risk management, compliance and the future architecture of capital markets.

I am a Senior Solutions Architect with over 16 years of technical experience. My current focus areas include Autonomous AI Agents, CyberSecurity, Decentralized AI Swarm Orchestration and Neurosymbolic Agentic AI applicability to Legacy Code Modernization.

Anna Bohonek, Business Lead at Fameplay, sits at the front line of the AI revolution in voice and video and she's turned that experience into a very practical obsession.
That obsession? What it actually means to have a great conversation with a voice agent. Not just functional. Not just fast. But genuinely good the kind that leaves you feeling heard, helped, and maybe even a little surprised.
Anna has spent the last year exploring the frontier of AI voice companions: what makes them click, what makes them fall flat, and why the bar for "good enough" is quietly being raised by people who don't even realize it yet.
On stage, she brings warmth, honesty, and zero tolerance for buzzwords to one of the most human questions in tech right now what does it take for a machine to truly connect and stand out?

Oscar Lepoeter is an AI Fellow at Herprogrammeer De Overheid and Co-Founder of Manava, where he advises organizations on learning, development, and AI literacy. A lecturer in digital literacy at Windesheim University, Oscar studies the impact of digital technology on children's development and champions critical thinking about AI in education. He is a contributor to the Netherlands' National AI Delta Plan, a major initiative to drive widespread AI adoption and literacy across Dutch society. A self-described generalist, Oscar holds degrees in Cultural History, Biomedical Engineering, and Education from institutions including Utrecht University, Eindhoven University of Technology, and UCL Institute of Education. He is a recognized voice in AI education discourse, regularly publishing research-driven insights on prompt engineering, AI pedagogy, and digital literacy to his 18,000+ newsletter subscribers.

Founder of Spain’s first regulated AI-focused fund. Next Tier Ventures
is an early-stage VC investing in globally ambitious, B2B native AI companies.

Katya de Freedericksz is a growth marketing expert, startup mentor, and founder of SheRise, a Barcelona-based platform dedicated to empowering women founders through education, mentorship, and community. With 14+ years in tech and a background that spans co-founding nilo.health — a workplace mental health platform — and advising early-stage startups across Europe and the Middle East through Techstars and Google for Startups, she bridges the worlds of growth strategy, personal branding, and entrepreneurship. A regular speaker on AI's impact on founders and personal brand building, Katya is one of Barcelona's most active voices in the startup and innovation ecosystem.

Sarah Anto is the founder of FundHER, where she helps women-led and deep tech startups become investor-ready through pitch coaching, commercialization support, and access to capital. She has advised founders across programs including YC, Techstars, and Conception X.

Previously, as Chief of Staff at Hayden AI, she supported the company's scaling from $1M to $30M in ARR, and helped raise over $50M from VCs. A US-licensed CPA and former EY auditor, she brings financial and governance rigor to her work with founders and investors.

She is currently a PhD researcher in AI ethics at the University of Helsinki, studying how founders build responsible AI and navigate emerging regulation such as the EU AI Act. She mentors deep tech founders and advises accelerators on lab-to-market commercialization.

Now based in Europe, Sarah speaks internationally on inclusive innovation, women in AI, and scaling responsibly.

Ferdi Alici is a visionary new media artist and founder of Ouchhh Studio, a global creative powerhouse redefining the intersection of art, science, and artificial intelligence for over 15 years. Born in 1981 in Izmir, Turkey, Ferdi co-founded Ouchhh in 2011 with a radical philosophy: "Data as paint, algorithm as brush". Under his creative direction, Ouchhh—working alongside co-director Eylul Alici and a multidisciplinary team of AI coders, data scientists, architects, and media artists—has produced over 75 monumental public art projects across six continents for institutions including NASA, CERN, Google, Ars Electronica, and brands like Ferrari F1, Mercedes, Nike, and Bulgari. Ferdi's landmark works include the world's first AI Maze Data Sculpture in Taipei, AI data murals on the Burj Khalifa using real-time climate data, collaborations with Paramount Pictures (Mission Impossible), and the "Human Cell Atlas / Neuroorganism" AI data painting—the first AI art sent into space aboard SpaceX's lunar mission in February 2024, landing on the Moon and selected at Cannes Film Festival. Ouchhh has won Red Dot Best of the Best, Ars Electronica Prix, German Design Award, and Muse Creative Awards. Ferdi's question: "What does it mean to be an artist in the 21st century with AI and technology?"—answered through infinite collaboration between humans and algorithms.

Christophe Blefari is a data engineer turned entrepreneur with over a decade of experience building data platforms and teams for companies like BlaBlaCar, Qonto, and Kapten, as well as public institutions. In 2024, he co-founded nao Labs — backed by Y Combinator — the AI-powered code editor built specifically for data teams, enabling analysts and engineers to work faster with agentic workflows. Beyond his work at nao, Christophe is one of the most recognized voices in the French-speaking data community, running blef.fr, the leading data newsletter in France, with 20,000+ followers across platforms.

Limor Schweitzer is a serial technology entrepreneur pioneering autonomous robotics for enterprise, currently Founder & CTO of MOV.AI and Founder of TUGBOT. MOV.AI, a VC-backed robotics software company founded in 2016, developed a universal operating system for Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs)—"the Android for robots"—built on ROS with industrial-grade fleet management, dev-ops, and scalability from 1 to 1,000 heterogeneous robots deployed in warehouses and facilities worldwide. TUGBOT, spun off from RoboSavvy in 2021, manufactures intelligent AMRs for industrial cart intralogistics, optimizing workflows and productivity in facilities of all sizes. Before robotics, Limor co-founded XACCT Technologies (sold to Amdocs 2004), where he pioneered real-time billing mediation technology for telecom networks, and Xpert, an early UNIX consulting firm that raised $17M and was acquired by Bezeq. He also co-founded ActuatedCharacter, an EU-funded project researching biologically inspired running robots, and consulted for IMAX on in-theater gaming. With a background in Physics from Tel Aviv University, Limor's philosophy is open-source meets enterprise-grade: building tools that make robotics accessible, collaborative, and transformative.

Dr. Martin Ignatovski is a healthcare technology executive, product leader, and cybersecurity researcher with 20+ years of experience building and scaling enterprise software in regulated environments. He holds a PhD in Cybersecurity and has led technology, product, security, compliance, and AI initiatives across healthcare SaaS organizations.

His work focuses on the practical application of AI in high-trust industries, including AI-driven engineering, secure product development, governance frameworks, and responsible automation. He has published peer-reviewed research and developed AI governance approaches aligned with emerging regulatory and compliance standards, including the EU AI Act, Cyber Resilience Act, HIPAA, and ISO 42001.

Martin has spoken at industry forums including the EU Cyber Acts Conference in Brussels and the Behavioral Health AI Summit. His perspective centers on how organizations can adopt AI responsibly while balancing innovation, security, privacy, explainability, and real-world operational impact.

Giorgio Metta is the scientific director of the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT). From 2001 to 2002, he was a postdoctoral associate at the AI-Lab (now CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He worked at the University of Genoa and was Professor of Cognitive Robotics at the University of Plymouth (UK) from 2012 to 2019. From 2020 he Is Visiting Professor at the University of Manchester, UK. He is member of the Board of Gefran S.p.A. and the Board of Industrie De Nora S.p.A. (both listed in the Italian Stock Market). He advises HAT Sgr and the Quadrivio Group, two Italian/European Private Equity funds. Giorgio Metta's research activities are in the field of bioinspired systems and humanoid robotics, with a focus on the design of machines that can learn from experience; he has authored or co-authored more than 300 scientific publications .

A data and AI leader with extensive experience of delivering data-driven business value. Having worked for, among others, HSBC or ABB he currently works at WebPros as Senior Director of Data & AI. The author of over 30 scientific publications and patents, with over 250 citations in the field of broadly defined data analytics. A public speaker who presented at e.g. European Parliament and an author published by e.g. World Economic Forum. A member of the Forbes Technology Council for which he regularly writes thought leadership articles related to leadership and new technologies, mostly AI and data.

I am the President and Founder of Inlea Holdings, an international consulting firm dedicated to legal, commercial and technological advice, and specialized in the international expansion of companies thanks to its locations in Silicon Valley, London, Sao Paulo and Barcelona.
As engineer, I am specialist in deep technologies and web3. My experience and global vision allow me to advise and invest in startups.
I am also Chairman of the Entrepreneurship Committee of 22@Network, professor of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the Universitat Ramon Llull and mentor in accelerators such as Attico, The Collider, Stage 2 and UPF Ventures.

Reema Gill is a Data & AI Governance Specialist with extensive experience designing & operationalizing responsible data & AI governance frameworks across financial services, technology, & public sectors. She specializes in translating complex regulatory, risk, & ethical requirements into practical governance programs that enable innovation while maintaining accountability. Reema has led enterprise-wide initiatives covering AI risk assessments, third-party AI risk management, AI inventories, governance operating models, & compliance with leading standards, including the EU AI Act, NIST AI Risk Management Framework, & OSFI’s E-23 model risk guidelines. At Wealthsimple, Reema leads efforts to strengthen responsible AI & data governance practices, helping ensure effective oversight of critical data assets as the organization continues to scale. Previously, she held governance, risk, & policy roles at CIBC, Equifax Canada, & Payments Canada, where she advanced initiatives related to AI governance, data management, & payment system risk.

Nicolas Leonard is the founder of Experimenta, a small team of seasoned product operators who help companies adopt, build, and scale with AI.

After 13 years in product management at companies like Luko, Thiga and Viadeo, he deliberately stepped off the management track to return to an IC role, convinced that AI is killing product management theater and forcing PMs to become actual builders.

Experimenta partners with companies of all sizes, from early-stage startups to established scale-ups, including Evaneos, SightCall, Coinhouse, and currently Bricks (proptech), where Nicolas is building the AI analysis platform powering the company's investment decisions.

He writes and speaks about the identity crisis hitting the PM role, the discipline of knowing what NOT to build, and why everyone becoming a builder makes product thinking more critical, not less.

I'm Alexandre Gol i Mestre, CTO and co-founder of Systellar Space, a Barcelona-based deep tech startup. I'm a space systems engineer by training — MSc from Cranfield University and BSc in Physics from the University of Barcelona — with prior industry experience at Luxspace, OpenCosmos, and Exotrail, where I led frontier projects in the satellite industry. I now lead all technical development at Systellar, where we have built synapse™ to enable AI for the design of complex physical systems and make hardware work at the speed of software.

Pedro Romera López is a Data, Analytics, and AI Executive with a distinctive profile that bridges deep technical expertise and commercial leadership. With over 20 years of hands-on experience across the full data spectrum—from enterprise analytics to production-ready Generative AI—he has successfully guided organizations ranging from startups to large enterprises across Spain and international markets. His professional foundation is built on nearly six years at AWS, where he served in both technical and business development leadership roles across EMEA.

Throughout his career, Pedro has demonstrated a proven ability to build and scale data and AI practices from the ground up. He specializes in defining go-to-market strategies and service offerings with a "production-first" approach, ensuring that AI initiatives move beyond experimentation to deliver tangible business results. His expertise spans the entire lifecycle of AI adoption, including technical scoping, use case analysis, and the development of structured delivery methodologies.

An experienced leader of people and strategy, Pedro has held senior executive positions including Data & AI Director and Chief Revenue Officer. He has a track record of managing large-scale professional services teams and overseeing the development of dozens of specialists. His leadership style combines strategic planning and partner engagement with a core focus on problem-solving and "customer obsession

Alex Shershebnev is Lead DevRel at Zencoder, where he architects scalable ML/DevOps infrastructure and champions AI-driven developer productivity through coding agents and autonomous systems. With over a decade shaping AI-powered software development, Alex leads teams building production-grade ML pipelines on GCP and Kubernetes, managing infrastructure that scales to hundreds of GPUs while driving down costs and accelerating data scientist workflows. His expertise spans computer vision, MLOps, distributed training, and advanced AI agent architectures including ReAct (Reasoning and Acting) patterns and Model Context Protocol (MCP) for tool integration. Before Zencoder, Alex held pivotal roles at Sanas (ML/DevOps lead), MTS AI (computer vision lead), and ivi.ru (recommender systems), and started his career as a bioinformatician at Genotek and Vavilov Institute of General Genetics analyzing NGS and WGBS/RRBS data. A sought-after international speaker, Alex presents at London Tech Week 2025, Conf42 ML 2025, AI Skills Virtual Conf 2026, and MLConference, delivering hands-on talks on AI coding agents, multi-agent collaboration, and building autonomous systems. He holds a Deep Learning Nanodegree from Udacity and maintains technical certifications in AWS and AI.

Joan Salvatella is Co-Founder and CTO of Bookline.ai, a Barcelona-based Conversational AI leader serving over 1,000 companies across 9 countries in hospitality, travel, healthcare, and retail. Since founding Bookline in 2018, Joan has built a 40+ person team and scaled the company to $1.5 million ARR, automating customer service through advanced phone systems that ensure no call goes unanswered. His platform integrates with all major restaurant reservation software in Spain, positioning Bookline as the go-to solution for AI-powered phone automation. Before launching Bookline, Joan was an Artificial Intelligence Consultant at Accenture España, where he led teams building chatbots for robotic interfaces (Jibo, Nao, Pepper) and spearheaded digital transformation of IBEX35 call centers using voice bots. He holds expertise in Dialogflow, Rasa, Microsoft Bot Framework, and cloud platforms (Google Cloud, AWS, Azure). Joan serves as a certified startup mentor for ACCIÓ, the Catalan government agency supporting enterprise competitiveness, and lectured on Strategic Business Analytics at EAE Business School. He holds an MSc in Computer Engineering from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.

Astghik Zakharyan is Europe Manager at Startup Investor Accelerator (SIA), where she accelerates the development of angel investor ecosystems across Europe and North America through learning-by-doing methodologies. Born in Armenia and based in Barcelona, she leads SIA's mission to create balanced startup ecosystems, having trained 700+ angel investors who have collectively deployed $225 million into early-stage companies. Astghik holds a LEINN degree in Entrepreneurial Leadership and Innovation from Mondragon Team Academy and completed Harvard's Investing in Private Equity program. She co-founded ABORA, launching 40+ startup projects across China, Spain, the Netherlands, and the USA, and founded Kendani.com, a sustainable consumption platform. As Regional Manager at Mossy Ventures and a visiting lecturer at IMDBS teaching startup investment, Astghik is a prominent voice in Barcelona's tech ecosystem. She frequently speaks at industry events including DES Digital Enterprise Show and organizes Angels and Beers networking gatherings for investors.

Keynote speaker, healthcare AI strategy advisor, and CEO of Carebot — the most widely deployed radiology AI across CEE. I help hospitals deploy AI, advise governments and investors, and speak at the industry's most demanding stages. From longtime news reporter and the youngest anchor of TV Prima's prime-time newscast to the front lines of healthcare AI: 500+ hospitals visited, 15+ countries, millions of euros raised.

Pol Fenollar Villà is the Founder and Strategic Advisor at Deep Engineering, where he advises CEOs, CTOs, and CPOs across SaaS, PE-backed, and enterprise organisations on platform engineering, AI governance, and engineering organisation design. Before founding Deep Engineering, he led the Barcelona R&D lab at Dynatrace. He previously directed global engineering, IT operations, and M&A integration at Hotelbeds Group and served as CEO and Chief Technology & Product Officer at SUEZ Group. He began his career advising institutions on technology strategy at Gartner and enjoys building platforms with open-source blocks in his spare time.

Antoine Heftler has built a 20-year career at the intersection of operational management, B2B marketing strategy, and AI integration. Having worked at Ogilvy (Paris, Bangalore, Bucharest), TietoEvry (Stockholm), and as an Operating Partner with PE/VC funds (Marlin, Verdane), he has led international teams and supported scale-ups across Europe and Asia.

Today, Antoine focuses on two converging shifts: the erosion of traditional acquisition models in the face of conversational AI engines, and the organizational transformation driven by AI. As co-founder of ResonanceMetrics — a Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) platform — and strategic partner at Ardelys.ai, he helps marketing, sales, and general management teams structure their visibility in AI-generated responses and embed AI into their value chain.

Lean Six Sigma certified, trained at IIM Bangalore and in AI ethics at Lund University, he advises CEOs, CMOs, CROs, and investment funds.

Writer and speaker on AI.
Author: Fantasia, Tales and legends of AI.
Teacher at Sciences Po and HEC Paris.
Ex-Google Arts & Culture Lab Coordinator.
Ex-cofounder AURA (incubated by Bayes Impact), AI for medical emergencies.