Professor, Computer Science & Engineering, HKUST; Distinguished Research Scholar, ICSI (Berkeley); Founding ACL Fellow

De Kai is a pioneering AI visionary and cross‑cultural bridge‑builder whose innovations laid the foundation for modern natural language processing. His invention of the first global web translator became the technical seed for tools like Google Translate and Microsoft Translator. Honored as one of only 17 Founding Fellows of the Association for Computational Linguistics, De Kai has earned global recognition for the depth and societal relevance of his work.

As a Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Distinguished Research Scholar at Berkeley’s International Computer Science Institute, he combines academic excellence with institutional leadership across East and West.

In the policy and ethics arena, De Kai helped shape global AI governance as an inaugural member of Google’s AI Ethics Council and as Independent Director at The Future Society, a leading AI policy think tank—bringing rare legitimacy across academia, industry, and civic society.

His 2025 book Raising AI reframes the AI future through a deeply human lens, urging us to treat AI development as a moral act akin to raising children—an argument that media outlets have framed as “AI is more akin to climate change than a geopolitical contest.” 

Head of Quant Technology Strategy, Bloomberg; Adjunct Professor, IEOR, Columbia University

Gary Kazantsev is a leading expert at the intersection of artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and real-world institutional applications of machine learning. As Head of Quant Technology Strategy at Bloomberg LP, he oversees the design and deployment of AI systems powering one of the most complex and high-stakes information infrastructures in global finance. His work integrates state-of-the-art NLP techniques with large-scale, high-integrity data pipelines—ensuring predictive reliability and interpretability in environments where precision and trust are paramount.

He is adjunct professor in IEOR at Columbia University, where he contributes to research and teaching at the interface of computational linguistics, data ethics, and the design of trustworthy AI systems. He has advised both public and private sector organizations on AI implementation, model robustness, and the risks of opaque or non-auditable algorithmic systems.

Kazantsev is known for advocating pragmatic, verifiable AI architectures, grounded in formal reasoning, statistical rigor, and operational transparency. His approach reflects a rare blend of hands-on systems leadership and epistemic sensitivity—qualities essential in navigating the use of AI in complex institutional, financial, and policy environments.

CEO, Vizp; CEO, LifeNome

Dr. Ali Mostashari serves as the CEO and co-founder of LifeNome, a genomics-based precision health AI company headquartered in New York City.

Dr. Mostashari has served as Chief Executive Officer of ViZPren LLC and Director of the Global Institute for Sustainable Development in New York City. He is also a Member of the Global Futures Council and maintains affiliations with MIT.

From 2008-2014, Dr. Mostashari was an Associate Professor and Program Chair of Sociotechnical Systems at Stevens Institute of Technology. At Stevens, he directed the institute’s Smart Cities initiative and systems thinking research. 

He also served as Director of the Center for Complex Adaptive Sociotechnological Systems (COMPASS) and co-led the Intelligent Governance of Large-scale Urban Systems (IGLUS) Project, a consortium of 16 universities across five continents.

Prior to his academic career, Dr. Mostashari served as strategic advisor for the Assistant Secretary General for Africa at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) from 2004-2008, providing oversight for over $1.2 billion of annual development projects in the region.  

From 2004-2006, he served as Lead Project Manager for the UNDP ARMADA Initiative, which increased development project delivery in Africa from $380 million to over $922 million within two years. 

Dr. Mostashari’s research focuses on complexity science, precision health, systems thinking, technology management, and technology policy. He has authored books including “Socio-Technical Networks: Science and Engineering Design,” which addresses concrete socio-technical network design issues from algorithmic and engineering perspectives.

Prior to LifeNome, he served as co-founder of Vizpren, a context-rich search AI engine.  His entrepreneurial work focuses on applying advanced technologies to health, wellness, and complex systems challenges.

Dr. Mostashari represents a unique combination of academic excellence, international development experience, and entrepreneurial innovation in the fields of complex systems, precision health, and artificial intelligence.

Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics, Queens College, CUNY; Host, Team Human; Research Fellow, Institute for the Future; Author and Documentarian

Douglas Rushkoff is named #6 of the world’s most influential thinkers featured by MIT Technology Review, focused on media, technology, and cultural evolution. Rushkoff is a pioneering voice in decoding the relationship between digital systems and human values—especially in moments of civilizational transition.

A prolific author and documentarian, Rushkoff’s work spans over twenty books, including Team Human, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, Survival of the Richest, and Present Shock—each dissecting how technological and economic systems reshape time, meaning, community, and power. His thought leadership consistently challenges the extractive logic of techno-capitalism and urges a re-centering of human dignity, creativity, and mutualism.

He is the founder of the Team Human podcast and movement, which brings together artists, technologists, and activists committed to redesigning society in ways that amplify human connection and systemic empathy. He is the founder of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at CUNY/Queens. As Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at CUNY/Queens and a former CNN technology and media commentator and Frontline documentarian, he combines rare academic depth with mass cultural reach.

Rushkoff’s unique ability to synthesize critical theory, narrative foresight, and actionable cultural critique makes him a vital voice in envisioning the post-industrial, post-linear, post-algorithmic world the Bridge Era Institute seeks to midwife. He brings decades of experience interrogating not just what systems are built—but why they are built, for whom, and at what narrative cost.

University Professor and Karen Ostrum George Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering, Rice University; Member: U.S. National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Moshe Y. Vardi is one of the world’s foremost authorities on logic in computer science, automated reasoning, and the formal foundations of intelligent systems. At Rice University, he holds the title of University Professor—the university’s highest academic rank—and leads seminal research on the logical underpinnings of computation, multi-agent systems, and the epistemology of automated knowledge.

He is widely recognized for pioneering the automata-theoretic approach to verification, which transformed how we ensure the correctness of complex computational systems, and for his foundational work in reasoning about knowledge, co-authoring the field-defining text of the same name. His contributions have deeply influenced how scholars and engineers model inference, reliability, and coordination under uncertainty.

Vardi is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and several foreign academies. He has received the Knuth Prize, the Gödel Prize, and the EATCS Award, among many others, recognizing his impact on both theoretical and applied computer science.

Beyond academia, he is a leading public intellectual on the societal implications of computing. As a Fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, Vardi advises on the ethical and institutional dimensions of AI, automation, and digital systems. His interdisciplinary voice is sought globally for its rare combination of technical rigor and civic foresight—grounding complex systems in logic while interrogating their broader social legitimacy.

Research Affiliate & Visiting Lecturer, MIT Sloan and Fellow; Former Vice President of Technical Strategy and Innovation, IBM

Irving Wladawsky-Berger is a leading architect of technological transformation whose career spans five decades at the intersection of computing, innovation, and institutional change. At IBM, he served as Vice President of Technical Strategy and Innovation, where he was instrumental in guiding the company’s early internet strategy and its global embrace of open-source platforms, including Linux and grid computing. He also led IBM’s technical and policy engagements around e-business, cloud infrastructure, and emergent digital ecosystems.

He currently serves as a Research Affiliate & Visiting Lecturer at MIT Sloan, where his work explores the implications of advanced technologies—particularly AI, blockchain, and cybersecurity—on economic structures, labor systems, and societal trust. He is also affiliated with the Imperial College Business School, where he contributes to research on innovation, resilience, and organizational adaptation. Additionally, he is a Fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences and helped run the Linux Foundation Research Advisory Board.

A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and participant in global forums such as the World Economic Forum, Wladawsky-Berger has advised governments, corporations, and research institutions on navigating technological disruption with institutional integrity. He is widely regarded as a translator between deeply technical domains and strategic foresight communities.

Throughout his career, he has championed a multidisciplinary approach to digital transformation—one that prioritizes systemic coherence, long-range thinking, and ethical stewardship at scale. His writings and talks continue to shape how leaders across sectors understand the technological foundations of institutional legitimacy in a rapidly changing world.

Founder & CEO, Prescient; Former CEO, World Future Society; Former Strategy Foresight Leader, Deloitte; Professor of Foresight Strategy, Georgetown University

Amy Zalman, Ph.D., is a globally recognized futurist, strategist, and educator whose career bridges foresight, national security, and corporate transformation. She is the Founder & CEO of Prescient, a consulting practice that equips leaders to anticipate change and design strategies for complex, uncertain environments, and a Professor of Foresight Strategy at Georgetown University. From 2014 to 2016, she served as CEO of the World Future Society, revitalizing the world’s oldest futures-focused organization into a platform for innovation and global dialogue.

Dr. Zalman is also a former Principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP, where she led foresight and strategy projects for Fortune 500 companies and public sector clients, and previously served as Chair of Information Integration at the U.S. National War College. Her insights on emerging technology, geopolitical change, and human systems have been featured in The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic.