Future.Industry 2023

James R. Scapa brings more than 35 years of engineering experience to his dual role of chairman and CEO of Altair, a title he has held since the company’s inception in 1985.

Through Scapa’s leadership, the company is now a global technology company that provides software and cloud solutions in the areas of product development, high performance computing (HPC) and data analytics. Today, the company employs over 3,000 engineers, scientists and creatives with more than 86 offices in 25 countries.

With more than 11,000 customers globally, Altair software enables customers to enhance product performance, compress development time and reduce costs.

Scapa earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University and a master of business administration degree from University of Michigan.

Vikram Shyam (Vik) 擁有航空航天、仿生學、創新方法和未來學方面的背景和興趣。 他於 2009 年在俄亥俄州立大學獲得博士學位，並在 NASA 航空研究任務理事會的融合航空解決方案項目中擔任未來學家。 Vik 是科學家和工程師總統早期職業獎 (PECASE)、NASA 早期職業成就獎章、NASA 集團成就獎和 ASEI 青年工程師獎的獲得者。

As chief technology officer, Srikanth (Sam) Mahalingam is responsible for overseeing the development and dissemination of Altair’s simulation, HPC, and AI technology and portfolio of products and solutions.

With more than 20 years of experience in software development, software architecture, technical management, and project management, Mahalingam previously served as Altair’s chief technical officer for the company’s cloud and HPC strategy where he shaped current products and identified new solutions to ease cloud adoption and mobile strategies for Altair customers.

During his time at Altair, Mahalingam has worked on various products and projects across custom services and product teams. He then joined a start-up as a joint promoter to launch a disruptive virtual try-on product that was later acquired by a large software services firm in India. Mahalingam rejoined Altair in 2005 to spearhead new product initiatives and eventually became Altair’s thought leader for enterprise software strategies.

Mahalingam earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering and an executive master’s degree in business administration from the Indian School of Business.

Sandy Carter has more than 20 years of experience of demonstrated success in the technology industry and has held leadership roles in some of the most prominent companies in the world, including Amazon and IBM Corporation. She was also a founder and CEO of Silicon Blitz, a Silicon Valley startup. Currently, Sandy is senior vice president and channel chief of Unstoppable Domains Inc., a software company that specializes in building domains on blockchains.

Previously, she was the vice president of Public Sector Partners and Programs at Amazon Web Services (AWS) where she secured some of
AWS Public Sector’s largest partnerships, innovated new revenue streams, and implemented business strategies that increased partner participation by 54% on average. With AWS, she also spearheaded organizations that prioritized racial and gender diversity and created the Women of EC2 group, the Women of the C-Suite group, and founded the Think Big for Small Business program, which “offers small and/or minority-owned public sector organizations unique access to business, technical, and marketing support.”

Sandy also holds a position on the board of Girls in Tech, a global nonprofit organization of more than 60,000 that’s dedicated to eliminating the gender gap in the international tech industry, and she’s an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley. And outside of her corporate and academic ventures, she’s authored five books about business, social media, and marketing, was named to Forbes’ “Global Top 40 Marketing Masters” list, and CNN’s “10 Most Powerful Women in Tech of M2M” list. She’s an international speaker and influencer, and has presented on topics like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud computing in more than 80 countries.

Carter earned a Master of Business Administration degree in marketing/technology management from Harvard Business School, and a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from Duke University.

Hod Lipson is a professor of Engineering and Data Science at Columbia University in New York, and a co-author of the award-winning book Fabricated: The New World of 3D printing, and Driverless: Intelligent cars and the road ahead. His work on self-aware and self-replicating robots challenges conventional views of robotics, and has enjoyed widespread media coverage. Lipson has co-authored over 300 publications that received over 14,000 citations to date. He has co-founded four companies, and is frequent keynoter both in industry and academic events. Hod directs the Creative Machines Lab, which pioneers new ways to make machines that create, and machines that are creative.

Before joining Leonardo in May 2020, I’ve spent more than 20 years in Cineca (Italian supercomputing centre) dealing mainly with support of user communities and EU initiatives. From an education stand point I hold a PhD in physics from SISSA/ISAS international schools. I’m presently a member of the ETP4HPC steering board, and Leonardo representative in GAIA-X and in the European Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud.

I’ve collaborated with different user communities to enable applications on massively parallel HPC systems and innovative architecture solutions. In particular, I’m responsible for the parallel design of the Quantum ESPRESSO suite of codes, and one of the core developer of the EXSCALATE drug design platform. I’m author and co-author of more than 100 peer review articles, including Science, Physical Review Letters, Nature Materials, and many others.

Samantha Simmonds is a TV news presenter, journalist and broadcaster with more than 20 years’ experience. She is currently presenting on the BBC, where she covers all the main programmes for BBC World News – including the agenda-setting ‘The Briefing’ on BBC 1 and ‘Business Live’ on the BBC News Channel. She has also hosted the ‘One to One’ Series on BBC Radio 4, and can also regularly be heard on BBC Radio London covering the early breakfast programme.

In addition to being a sought-after and experienced live events host, Samantha is now regularly asked to speak at city firms, schools and motivational events about her experiences of juggling an ambitious career with motherhood, and the challenges faced by women in these situations along the way.

Samantha co-hosts a regular podcast for midlife women ‘It’s a Grown Up Life’ – featuring candid interviews with the likes of Samantha Cameron, Kay Burley and Rachel Stevens – which has gained a huge following. She also regularly writes for the national press about parenting and issues around women in the workplace.

Samantha presented on Sky News for more than a decade, anchoring coverage of some of the biggest stories of recent years. These included the murder of British MP Jo Cox, the EU referendum and the royal wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Samantha was also the first British broadcaster to break the news of the death of pop superstar Michael Jackson.

Martha serves CIOs and other tech leaders, helping them understand the impact of emerging technologies on their business. She also provides best practice guidance on how to assess and introduce new and emerging technologies. Martha provides in-depth coverage of blockchain technology and digital assets, as well as analytics and artificial intelligence at a strategic level. She has also started a new research stream, looking at types of non-IT innovation that are necessary to get the most of out of new and emerging technologies.

Prior to rejoining Forrester in early 2013, Martha provided custom research studies for tier 1 CIOs, covering topics ranging from big data to the role of the CIO in the transition to the digital economy. In the preceding years, she held a variety of senior management and individual contributor positions at Freeform Dynamics and various companies within the Informa Group, where her main focus area was financial services. Martha’s first analyst role was as a vice president at Giga Information Group, which was later acquired by Forrester, where she became a research director for financial services. Before joining Giga, Martha’s roles included head of advanced technology at Prudential and manager at Price Waterhouse’s World Multimedia Unit.

Martha earned and MA in English literature, American studies, and modern history from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany. A qualified translator, Martha is fully bilingual in English and German.

Biography coming soon

When the world’s top companies want to understand what’s next for their businesses and how they can create the next big breakthrough in their industries, they turn to world-renowned futurist Sheryl Connelly. Connelly is a global trends and consumer expert whose mastery at identifying what’s coming around the corner and the potential influences on customer attitudes and behavioral patterns that directly impact business strategy is unparalleled. For more than two decades, she was a cornerstone presence on Ford Motor Company’s global trends and futuring team, working her way up the ranks at the automotive juggernaut and becoming the company’s chief futurist. Connelly draws upon her business foresight expertise and experiences at Ford to help organizations in any industry identify and analyze global consumer trends in order to lay the groundwork for long-term, future-focused planning and strategy across the entire company, and anticipate the ever-evolving needs and desires of the people they serve.

Exclusively represented by Leading Authorities speakers bureau, Connelly leads audiences on a fascinating journey into the potential futures of their industries. She helps leaders and their teams make sense of how STEEP factors — social, technological, economic, environmental, and political trends — will affect their businesses in the short- and long-term, while providing a big picture outlook of the key trends that are reshaping the way we live. With unique perspectives designed to revolutionize approaches to long-term planning and strategy, Connelly reveals how anyone at any level of an organization can think like a futurist, and delivers the insights leaders are looking for as they look for new methods for sparking innovation in their teams and facilitating the growth of their organizations in this new age of never-ending disruption.

As Ford’s chief futurist, Connelly led a team of researchers, engineers, marketers, and anthropologists tasked with tracking trends, spotting signals of change, and identifying outliers to develop uniquely compelling insights designed to test the power innovation across the enterprise. Data-driven insights collected by Connelly and her team were pivotal to all aspects of Ford’s operations, including corporate strategy, product development, and design. Prior to joining Ford’s trends team, Connelly spent eight years in various marketing, sales, and service field positions at the company. She began her unconventional career path practicing law.

When Connelly speaks, the business world takes notice. She has twice been named one of Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business” and was listed among TechWeek’s “Top 100 Innovators.” Her thought leadership and strategic viewpoints have been featured in leading publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Financial Times, Forbes, and the BBC. She has also appeared on CBS’s “This Morning with Charlie Rose,” CNBC’s “Fast Money,” and NPR’s “All Things Considered.”

Connelly 對她的工作充滿熱情，但她坦然承認，在她走到今天這一步的道路上有一些意想不到的曲折。 她在密西根州底特律的創意研究中心教授設計研究，曾是麻省理工學院、密西根大學和沃頓商學院的客座講師，並且是世界經濟運輸全球諮詢委員會的前成員。