Steering Board
The LEADS project is privileged to establish an external Steering Board comprised of 8 esteemed experts coming from diverse fields within advanced technology. This esteemed group will serve as a representative body for both demand generators and suppliers, with a particular focus on incorporating the perspectives of Policy Makers.
The primary objective of the Steering Board is to provide invaluable insights into the methodologies and frameworks employed within the project, as well as offer suggestions for enhancing project outputs and engaging pertinent stakeholders.
Tanya Suarez
Founder and CEO of BluSpecs and IOT Tribe CHAIR
With over 25 years’ experience in the field of technological innovation and digital policy, Tanya is Founder and CEO of BluSpecs, and IoT Tribe, an equity- free accelerator focusing on connecting start-ups with ground-breaking technology to market opportunities Tanya is on the board of the Alliance of Internet of Things Innovation (AIOTI), an industry body set up to promote IoT adoption in Europe, and has also been elected to the Quantum Industry Consortium’s Governing Board.
She is actively involved in delivery providing support in designing methodologies, managing quality, and providing expert inputs. She is a member of the European Innovation Council, a WEF European Digital Leader, a advisory board member to the Next Generation Internet initiative and several start-ups, a member of Tech London Advocates and Tech Spain Advocates.
Anne Bajart
Deputy Head at European Commission. BOARD MEMBER
Anne Bajart is Deputy Head of Unit of DG CONNECT.G2 Interactive Technologies, Digital for Culture and Education. She previously was Head of Sector in DG CONNECT A1.Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. She worked as lecturer, researcher and project manager at the University of Liège (BE), at the Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne (CH) and at Philips Leuven (BE).
She has expertise in computer science, robotics, artificial intelligence, systems control, digital signal processing, power electronics and speech recognition. Her main areas of interest today are digital transformation of society; Human-Machine Interaction; extended reality; benchmarking and performance evaluation of systems; ethical, economical and societal aspects of technologies; dissemination, impact and awareness of science. Anne Bajart holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering.
Vladimir Deliu
Global Education & Certifications Operations Manager at UiPath. BOARD MEMBER
Vladimir is leading the global operations for the programs within the UiPath Academic Education & Certifications group (Academic Alliance, Learning Partners, Certification and Digital Credentials). Prior to this role he led the programs in Europe, Middle East, and Africa.
A learning-focused generalist with an entrepreneurial spirit and enthusiast in the automation industry, Vladimir has as main goal to align higher education institutions, training centres and Government skilling initiatives to the skills of the future. Automation brings disruptive innovation across the globe, freeing people from tedious work and leading to progress and collaboration within the society as a whole and individuals themselves.
Before joining the technology field, Vladimir worked in international higher education marketing, advising universities how to increase their global recruitment efforts. Thus, he sees the impact RPA can have on shaping young people’s minds, challenging the status quo, increasing employability, and making the world a better place.
Carsten Johnson
Manager for Germany, Cisco Networking Academy. BOARD MEMBER
Carsten Johnson is the CSR Territory Manager for Cisco Systems in Germany. The main activity of the CSR team is the promotion of the public-private learning partnership “Cisco Networking Academy”. Many public sector education partners have embedded the learning content in the respective teaching and training tracks. It needs the collaboration with Ministries of Education, universities, schools, NGOs and the alignment of industry certifications with European competence standards to make a global learning platform locally relevant.
He holds a master’s degree in political science from the Free University Berlin. He has previously worked for the Max-Planck-Society and the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB). He has developed and managed education projects on national and European level. As an external expert he has evaluated project proposals on behalf of the European Commission and its agencies.
Anthony McCauley
Technical Advisor for Future in Tech, Chair of the Industry Advisory Board for Quantum Computing and National Masters in AI, Technology Ireland ICT Skillnet. BOARD MEMBER
Anthony is the Chair of the ICT Skillnet Expert targeting the growth of new business collaboration across Academia, Business and State Agencies. Additionally, he is a Contributing Member of the National Standards Authority of Ireland contributing to the ISO committee on Innovation Management and the NSAI mirror committee on Artificial Intelligence. Anthony has over twenty years of commercially driven track-record of delivering market-led innovation through customer engagement. He transformed the Fujitsu Ireland brand from managed service provider to research-led innovator. Anthony is experienced in leading multi-disciplined teams, building global relationships and communities building ecosystems and governance models to support collaboration. He has the determination to create new business solutions, through adoption of emerging technologies aligned to A.I., IoT and advanced analytics.
Robert Seidl
Head of AI, ML, Data Analytics and Privacy team at Nokia Bell Labs Network. BOARD MEMBER
Robert studied Electrical Engineering at the Munich University of Applied Sciences. He received his diploma in 1993. Joining Rohde & Schwarz for a first period of practice he was involved in the introduction of digital cordless phones in Germany. Since 1995 he has been with Siemens AG in Munich. After 7 years of hard- and software development he entered the mobile network division in 2001. In 2007 he joined Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) and has mainly been involved in the area of identity management, reliability, service access control and simplified access to services.
He was responsible for several European funded projects and heading a group on Identity Management within NSN research. Today Mr. Seidl works in the research group of Nokia Bell Labs and is heading a team responsible for AI, ML, Data Analytics and Privacy. He is also in the Board of Directors of the EU Big Data Value Association (BDVA) and a member of the steering group of the NESSI ETP.
Araceli Venegas-Gomez
Founder and CEO of QURECA Spain S.L. BOARD MEMBER
Dr. Araceli Venegas-Gomez spent several years working for Airbus in Germany and France as an aerospace engineer, before falling in love with quantum mechanics. She then decided to follow her passion for physics and moved to Scotland to pursue a PhD in quantum simulation at the University of Strathclyde. Following discussions with the different quantum stakeholders she had over the last years, Araceli identified the need to bridge the gap between businesses and academia, as well as to raise the quantum awareness to the public. Continuing her work on outreach advocating quantum technologies, she was named the “Quantum Ambassador”, after winning the Optical Society Milton and Rosalind Chang Pivoting fellowship in 2019.
Araceli founded her own company called QURECA (Quantum Resources and Careers) to create a link between the different stakeholders in the quantum community through a common language, and to generate global opportunities with quantum technologies. QURECA provides a range of professional services, business development, and the solution to the quantum workforce skills bottleneck: the first online platform for quantum training and resourcing, to support individuals and businesses to be part of the quantum revolution.
Stella Voulgaraki
Chief People Officer at KAIZEN Gaming. BOARD MEMBER
Stella Voulgaraki is the Chief People Officer of Kaizen Gaming, a company in the Entertainment Sector since March 2022. She has been working in the Human Resources area in the tech industry for the last 17 years, being a member of the Intracom Group and having the position of the Chief People Officer for 7 years (2015 – 2022) in Intrasoft International.
In her career, she has worked as a Human Resources Consultant, an Executive Coach and a Learning Facilitator for large enterprises. She holds a Bsc degree in Psychology from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and a Msc degree in Organisational Psychology from City University in London. She is an accredited Coach (ACC) from the ICF and a certified Master NLP Practitioner.
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