Rise25

Arvind Narayanan is a professor of computer science at Princeton University and the director of the Center for Information Technology Policy. He is the coauthor of AI Snake Oil, a book that picks apart AI hype and presents a sober view of what AI can and can't do. He previously led the Princeton Web Transparency and Accountability Project to uncover how companies collect and use our personal information. His work was among the first to show how machine learning reflects cultural stereotypes. Narayanan is a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

Deborah Raji is a Mozilla fellow and CS PhD student at University of California, Berkeley, who is interested in questions on algorithmic auditing and evaluation. In the past, she worked closely with the Algorithmic Justice League initiative to highlight bias in deployed AI products. She has also worked with Googleʼs Ethical AI team and been a research fellow at the Partnership on AI and AI Now Institute at New York University working on various projects to operationalize ethical considerations in ML engineering practice. Recently, she was named to Forbes 30 Under 30, MIT Tech Review 35 Under 35 Innovators and TIME100 Most Influential People in AI.

Irene Solaiman is the Head of Global Policy at AI company Hugging Face, where she is conducting social impact research and leading public policy. She serves on the Partnership on AI’s Policy Steering Committee and the Center for Democracy and Technology’s AI Governance Lab Advisory Committee. Irene also advises responsible AI initiatives at OECD and IEEE. Irene formerly initiated and led bias and social impact research at OpenAI, where she also led public policy. She also previously built AI policy at Zillow Group.

Irene’s research includes release strategies, value alignment, social impact, and combating misuse and malicious use. She was recently named one of MIT Tech Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35 in Artificial Intelligence in 2023 for her research.

Audrey Tang, a TIME100 Most Influential People in AI honoree, was Taiwan’s first digital minister and the world’s first nonbinary cabinet minister.

As a child, Tang practiced Taoism to moderate all strong emotions to survive a cardiac condition. After attending 10 educational institutions in 10 years, she left formal schooling to pursue self-education at age 14. In her 20s, Tang rose to prominence as a leader in free and open-source software, revitalizing the Haskell and Perl programming languages.

During her 30s, Tang played a crucial role in shaping g0v (gov-zero), one of the most prominent civic tech movements worldwide. In 2014, she helped broadcast the demands of Sunflower Movement activists, and worked to resolve conflicts during a three-week occupation of Taiwan’s Legislature. Tang became a reverse mentor to the minister in charge of digital participation, before holding the role from 2016 to 2024 during the Tsai Ing-wen administration.

Tang helped develop participatory democracy platforms such as vTaiwan and Join, bringing civic innovation into the public sector through initiatives like the Presidential Hackathon and Ideathon.

Other accomplishments for Tang include shaping Taiwan’s internationally acclaimed COVID-19 response, as well as safeguarding the country’s 2024 presidential and legislative elections from cyber interference.

Ambassador Philip Thigo, MBS, is an award-winning technology and public policy expert and thought leader. He is the Special Envoy on Technology for the Republic of Kenya and the Executive Director for Africa at the Thunderbird School for Global Management. He was recognized by Apolitical as one of the World’s 100 Most Influential People in Digital Government in 2018 and by Africa Com as one of Africa’s Top 100 Most Influential African Leaders in Technology and Telecommunications in 2023.

Mr. Thigo was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General in 2023 to the High-Level Advisory Board on Artificial Intelligence (HLAB). On December 12, 2023, at Kenya’s 60th Independence Day Anniversary, he was awarded a Presidential Commendation — Moran of the Order of the Burning Spear (M.B.S) — for his distinguished service to the country.