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Keynote SpeakerAyesha Khanna

AI entrepreneur and advisor. Board member. Forbes Groundbreaking Female Entrepreneur, Co-Founder and CEO of Addo, a global artificial intelligence (AI) solutions firm

Dr. Ayesha Khanna is Co-Founder and CEO of Addo, a global artificial intelligence (AI) solutions firm headquartered in Singapore and San Francisco. She has been a strategic advisor on artificial intelligence, smart cities and the metaverse to leading corporations and governments around the world. In 2017, Addo was featured in Forbes magazine as one of four leading artificial intelligence companies in Asia and Ayesha was named one of Southeast Asia’s groundbreaking female entrepreneurs by Forbes magazine in 2018. Addo’s clients... Read More

Biography

Dr. Ayesha Khanna is Co-Founder and CEO of Addo, a global artificial intelligence (AI) solutions firm headquartered in Singapore and San Francisco. She has been a strategic advisor on artificial intelligence, smart cities and the metaverse to leading corporations and governments around the world.

In 2017, Addo was featured in Forbes magazine as one of four leading artificial intelligence companies in Asia and Ayesha was named one of Southeast Asia’s groundbreaking female entrepreneurs by Forbes magazine in 2018. Addo’s clients have included SMRT, Singapore’s largest public transport company; Mercy, one of the largest hospital networks in the United States; Singtel, Singapore’s largest telco; SOMPO, Japan’s largest insurance firm; Habib Bank, Pakistan’s largest bank; and Smart Dubai, the government agency tasked to transform Dubai into a leading smart city. Prior to founding Addo, Ayesha spent more than a decade on Wall Street developing large scale trading, risk management and data analytics systems for leading financial institutions.

Ayesha is an active advisor and board member to companies and smart city projects. Ayesha serves on the board of AVEVA Group, a British FTSE 100 multinational technology firm that is a global leader in industrial software. She also serves on the board of NEOM Tech and Digital Holding Company, which is responsible for formulating the vision and delivery of the technology infrastructure (which includes AI, robotics, blockchain, and virtual reality) for NEOM, the $500 billion smart city under development in Saudi Arabia. Ayesha also serves on the global Scientific Advisory Board of L’Oreal, the world’s largest cosmetics company, where she advises on the future of new technologies, disruptive innovations and changing consumer preferences.

Ayesha serves on the board of Ngee Ann Polytechnic, a leading polytechnic in Singapore with 44 full-time programs through 9 academic schools and a student population of almost 15,000. She is also a member of the board of Sport Singapore, the lead government agency tasked with developing a holistic sports culture for the nation.

From 2018-2022, Ayesha served on the board of the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), the Singapore government agency that develops and regulates its world-class technology sector to drive the country’s digital economy and power its Smart Nation vision. In 2014, Ayesha was a member of the Singapore’s Ministry of Education’s steering committee that resulted in Skills Future, an innovative national program that aligns education with economic demand, career guidance and lifelong learning to prepare citizens for the fourth industrial revolution.

Ayesha is the Founder of 21C GIRLS (21st Century Girls), a charity that delivers free coding and artificial intelligence classes to girls in Singapore. Programs include Code in the Community, a program sponsored by Google and that has taught thousands of children (8-14 yrs) coding, and Empower, which has partnered with Ngee Ann Polytechnic to teach girls (18-24 yrs) the basics of artificial intelligence. Ayesha is also the Founder of Squad, a global collective for women who want to learn, build and invest in the Metaverse and Web3.

Ayesha has presented at major financial, technology and other industry conferences, provided high level government briefings, chaired symposiums such as AI Asia, and spoken at TEDx events. She is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Councils, a community of international experts who provide thought leadership on the impact and governance of emerging technologies.

Ayesha is the author of Straight Through Processing (2008) and co-author of Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization (2012). She has been published and quoted on technology, innovation and smart cities in The New York Times, BusinessWeek, TIME, Newsweek, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Strategy+Business, and Foreign Policy.

Ayesha was featured in ZDF’s (Germany’s largest TV channel) documentary on twelve “Leading Women” around the world (2019). She has been named one of Singapore’s leading women in tech (Singapore Computer Society), and been recently profiled for her work in artificial intelligence in leading publications including Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland), Focus Magazin (Germany), Corriere della Sera (Italy), Dagens Næringsliv (Norway), Lëtzebuerger Journal (Luxembourg), Computer Sweden (Sweden), Information Age (Nordics), Peak (Singapore), and In The Black (Australia).

Ayesha has a BA (honors) in Economics from Harvard University, an MS in Operations Research from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Information Systems (focused on digital innovation in smart cities) from the London School of Economics.

“Ayesha Khanna's scintillating talk had the audience spellbound.”
“Dr. Ayesha Khanna spoke to Mercy’s leadership team on AI and the future of healthcare. She was on point, vibrant, positive, and incredibly passionate. The quality of information she shared was exceptional. She exceeded my expectations and gave us much to consider. Feedback was extremely positive with many stating Dr. Khanna is the best outside speaker we have invited to date. An hour of time with her just wasn’t enough!”
“A highly stimulating speaker, Ayesha combines academic rigor with practical world examples and case studies. She was able to provide a broad overview of smart city developments around the world as well as deep dive into specific case studies such as Singapore. We found her talk quite insightful and thought-provoking.”
“Ayesha was brilliant. She hit all of our key messages and delegates were obviously impressed with the breadth and relevance of her knowledge to their own situations.”
“Very good! We thoroughly enjoyed the whole session.”
“Clearly a passionate subject matter expert with great examples of AI in the financial services industry. Loved the analogy of the glass and rubber balls to be juggled in work-life balance!”
“It was great to have Ayesha on stage for the opening of our new platform FUTURE FORUM. She made a decisive contribution to the success of the event. Her keynote about 'Smart Cities and the Urban Revolution' was perfectly prepared and presented in the most respectable appearance. It would be our great pleasure to welcome her again.”
“Ayesha’s insights into developing technological solutions after fully investigating and exploring the issue being tackled, and her use of real-life examples, resonated strongly with our audience. Many thanks for the insights and experiences shared.”
“We invited Dr. Ayesha Khanna to the International Alpensymposium in Interlaken to speak about smart cities and the impact of AI in our daily life. Her speech was very well received and the participants left the conference with many new ideas and inputs. We would like to thank Dr. Khanna for the insights and would highly recommend her to any conference to learn more about the future of technology and work.”
“Prelection of Smart Cities by Dr Ayesha Khanna. I just realized how many information we need to improve our smart installations, how much data AI devices need to be able to work efficiently. It is our future and I hope we will find a balance between high-tech production, health & wellbeing and ecology."
"Please ‘Thank’ Ayesha for a terrific session!"

Popular Talks by Ayesha Khanna

  • The Future of Work: How to Amplify Human Potential in the Fourth Industrial Revolution
    AI, robotics, additive manufacturing, AR/VR, quantum computing, and gene editing are among the suite of revolutionary technologies that are disrupting every industry in the world. What do they mean for the future of work and jobs? Dr. Khanna takes you on a journey through the main forces that will reshape...
  • Smart Cities 2.0: The Future of How We Will Work, Play and Live
    New technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things, and robotics can offer urban businesses and citizens higher quality, more productive, and more sustainable lifestyles. The key shift underway is from centralised, top-down models to an ecosystem approach that is inclusive of corporate and civic stakeholders, especially digital...
  • Top Ten Trends That Will Affect Your Industry
    AI-driven automation, edge computing, industrial and nano-robotics, and human enhancement are just a few of the main trends that will significantly impact all industries in the coming 5-10 years.  Using illuminating case studies, Dr. Khanna discusses how these accelerating technologies will both disrupt business models and operations but also open...
  • Winning with AI: How Innovative Leaders Are Driving Growth
    Artificial intelligence has been called one of the most significant technologies of our time. But what is the reality behind the hype? With some of the world’s most recognized companies as her clients, Dr. Khanna provides insights on how innovative firms are embracing data and machine learning to leapfrog competitors...
  • The Disruptive Force of the Next Internet: Are You Ready For Crypto, the Metaverse and Web3
    A tsunami of digital disruption is coming our way and will drive the next iteration of the internet will emerge. Dr. Khanna explains the new digital architecture that will revolutionise how we live and do business, explaining concepts like the Metaverse, digital currencies and crypto, and the hot buzzword Web3....