Women in Tech® 100 Top Speakers 2023

As EVP, Chief Technology & Portfolio Innovation Officer at Capgemini, Cara strategically advises global corporates at the CSuite across industries on digital & cultural transformation and sustainability, where she is an energetic and thought-provoking catalyst for enduring growth and change.

Prior to her role, Cara was Managing Director at IG&H, Chief Marketing & Operations Officer at Microsoft Netherlands and Vice President for Continuous Improvement and Digitalisation at Royal Shell. She has seasoned international experience in B2B & B2C operations at Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, and Polaroid.

Outside of work, Cara is changing the game in empowering women in science & tech. She serves as President & Non-Exec Board Member of Global Women in Tech for the Netherlands Chapter, as Country Chair for Digital Literacy at the G100, and as Supervisory Board Member at the Wortell Group, with the ambition to stimulate, empower, and upskill future generations of female leaders in tech.

As a Patient Leader, Cara’s focus on digital health and visual improvements led her to join the Board of the Cornea Patient Association and serve as Chairwoman of the Hennie Völker Dieben Award, at the Board of Easee, the first clinically proven CE & FDA-certified online eye-exam, and the Digital Health Committee of the European Society for Cataract and Refractive Surgeons (ESCRS).

Cara received Global Women in Tech’s 2022 “Global Excellence Award” and was named Computable’s 2021 “Top 100 Most Influential Women in Business” and “Digital Leader of the Year”, DeMarketing’s 2020 “Top 100 Influencer in Media and Marketing”, and Global Digital Women’s 2019 “Global Digital Female Leader” in Digital Transformation.

Women in Tech® 100 Top Speakers 2023

I’ve set up a few ventures along the way:

Makers of Barcelona: One of the first community co-working and maker space in Barcelona
FabCafe Barcelona: A café with a digital fabrication built in.
Allwomen.tech: An AI and tech school for women, by women to build the pipeline for women-in-tech leaders.
Futurity Systems: We provide Futures-as-a-Service
Each venture has been a learning curve, turning ideas into reality.

Education Highlights:
Wrapped up my architecture studies at Harvard after exploring Biology and Fine Arts at Emory. Architecture taught me it’s not just about buildings, but about connecting dots in creative ways. Currently trying hard to get my PhD on Design Futures.

Speaking & Teaching:
Shared some insights at places like TEDx, European Commission, MWC, and 4YFN. Currently teaching at ID IIT, and have previously taught at Parsons New School and Toulouse Business School. And yes, had a fun time working on product strategies with the folks at Google.

Nods & Collaborations:
Offered my two cents to SXSW, City of Barcelona, and UN WFP. And hey, Forbes gave me a shoutout as one of the future-shapers.

Little anecdote: My 9-year-old once summed up my job as, “You work for the future!

Women in Tech® 100 Top Speakers 2023

Christyl Johnson joined NASA Goddard as deputy center director for science and technology on Dec. 6, 2010. In July 2012 then-Goddard Center Director Chris Scolese reorganized some of the responsibilities of the Goddard Executive Council, at which point Johnson assumed her role as deputy director for technology and research investments.

Johnson came to NASA Goddard from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she served under the President’s science adviser as the executive director of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), which is the principal means within the executive branch to coordinate science and technology policy across the Federal research and development enterprise. She was responsible for ensuring the establishment of clear national goals for Federal science and technology investments in a broad array of areas across the executive branch, including basic science, technology, energy, environment, natural resources, and homeland and national security.

Prior to joining the White House staff, Johnson served as the assistant associate administrator in NASA’s Office of the Administrator. In this role, she and the associate administrator provided the oversight of the agency’s technical mission areas and field center operations.
Johnson came to the Office of the Administrator from the Office of the Chief Engineer, where she served as the deputy chief engineer for program integration and operations. There, she provided an integrated focus for the development, maintenance, and implementation of agency engineering and program/project management policies, standards, and practices.

Prior to her appointment to the Office of the Chief Engineer, Johnson served as the associate director for exploratory missions in the Office of Earth Science, where she managed the formulation and development for all exploratory missions. The missions that she managed included QuikToms, GRACE, CLOUDSAT, Triana, AQUARIUS, HYDROS and OCO, and involved mission development activities at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Goddard Space Flight Center, Langley Research Center and several international and industry partners.

Johnson began her career at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., in 1985 in the Remote Sensing Technology Branch where she designed and built laser systems for advanced active remote sensors. In 1991, she became the program manager and lead engineer of the Diode-Pumped Cr:LiSAF Technology Development Program. In this role she established several initiatives, one of which was an industry and NASA collaboration to build an efficient Differential Absorption Lidar for remote sensing of water vapor. Under this program, Johnson delivered the first tunable diode-pumped Cr: LiSAF laser system to achieve 33 mJ. This achievement was highlighted internationally, and Johnson was invited to collaborate with scientists at Los Alamos National Labs, using this laser system for three weeks of field measurements in the desert of New Mexico. Johnson also established a state-of-the-art laboratory for stress optic coefficient measurement of laser crystals, and utilized this laboratory to provide the science community and laser industry with the first stress optic coefficients for the Cr:LiSAF laser material. Johnson held a variety of project management and senior engineering positions at Langley involved in the design, development and application of state-of-the-art and advanced systems and subsystems for atmospheric, aeronautic and space flight research missions.

Johnson earned her bachelor’s degree in physics from Lincoln University, a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Pennsylvania State University, and a Ph.D. in systems engineering from George Washington University.

Women in Tech® 100 Top Speakers 2023

In a nutshell, I’m a versatile IT multilingual professional (Portuguese, English and Spanish), with an in-depth understanding of technology and ability to translate technical and complex projects in a business and commercial orientated solution. Highly skilled in leading and building teams and collaborating with senior executives in improving operations, developing innovative solutions and starting up new business while managing staff and budgets.

I am a communicator and relationship builder by nature. Since college, I have always been involved in networking events, social and cultural activities, conferences, and workshops. Meeting people, keeping up to date about the latest technologies and promoting the Women´s talent in Tech and Leadership.

Women in Tech® 100 Top Speakers 2023

Dr. Almazrouei is recognized worldwide for her contributions to AI and was featured in Leading AI Women in the World in 2023 list, alongside other distinguished women in the field. She also received the Global Leadership Women in Tech® MENA Award in 2023. Dr. Almazrouei is an advocate for sustainability and AI for Good initiatives, as well as the general chair of Abu Dhabi AI Connect and TPC chair of many IEEE international conferences.

Dr. Almazrouei’s leadership and expertise have been vital in the successful development of TII’s Falcon LLM models (home-built rivals to ChatGPT), which significantly outperform models from giant tech companies. Her commitment to pushing the boundaries of AI innovation and her instrumental role led to the creation of the Middle East’s first homegrown, open-source large language model (LLM), Falcon 40B for use in research and commercialization. Following the phenomenal success of Falcon 40B, she then launched Falcon 180B, an advanced iteration of its predecessor and the world’s most powerful open AI model. Additionally, Dr. Almazrouei led the development of NOOR, the largest Arabic LLM model in 2022.

Her contributions extend beyond her work at TII where she leads the big data expert subcommittee of the UAE Council for AI and Blockchain and is a member of the worldwide steering board of the Wireless World Research Forum (WWRF). She is also a member of the Science and Engineering Advisory Board at Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi (SUAD). She is a scientific author, patent inventor, entrepreneur, and renowned speaker, known for her keynote speeches at prestigious summits such as the CogX Festival 2023- London UK, AI Summit in London, World AI Cannes Festival, and Tech summits.

Dr. Ebtesam Almazrouei previously worked in the telecommunications industry delivering business solutions for companies like BT, Etisalat, and KU where she leveraged her expertise to develop advanced tech solutions and products for stakeholders across multiple industries on the Internet of Things (IoTs), autonomous vehicles and drones, wireless localization, intelligence systems, 5G and beyond.

Women in Tech® 100 Top Speakers 2023

Women in Tech® 100 Top Speakers 2023

Women in Tech® 100 Top Speakers 2023

Women in Tech® 100 Top Speakers 2023

Women in Tech® 100 Top Speakers 2023

She was the founder and Head of the Standard Bank Incubator programme that focused on growing and developing entrepreneurs and improving the innovation stack of the bank and its corporate clients. The seven pillar Incubator model that she created was also applied to launch the 1st Incubator outside of South Africa for the bank within Maputo in Mozambique.

She has held several leadership roles in SA that include positions at Development Bank of Southern Africa, Discovery, ABSA and Internet Solutions. She was previously the CEO of Feenix, a crowd funding platform for students launched by the bank, a board member of JASA (Junior Achievement South Africa), as well as the Chairperson of SAINe (The Southern African Innovation Network), and held a seat on NACI (The National Advisory Council on Innovation).

She is a professional speaker and has been featured in several magazines including CEO Magazine, SA Innovator, Destiny, Fast Company and has been published in the Innovation Journal. She is a guest lecturer at many of SA’s top universities on the topics of Innovation, Incubation, Strategy and Digital Disruption. She was previously identified as on of the Top 25 Global FinTech Influencers.

She has local and international experience in the fields of strategy, consulting, innovation, entrepreneurship and e-commerce. She has worked in the following sectors: Technology, Manufacturing, Health Insurance, Finance, Development Finance and Education. Her qualifications include an MBA, CAIB (SA), Honors in E-Commerce and IT.