EXPERTS
Dr Vandana Shiva is a world-renowned environmental thinker, activist, feminist, philosopher of science, writer, and science policy advocate, is the founder of the Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology (India) and President of Navdanya International. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Western Ontario, Canada, on ‘Hidden Variables and Non-Locality in Quantum Theory’. She has received many awards, including the 1993 Right Livelihood Award, known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’, and was named one of the top five ‘Most Important People in Asia’ by AsiaWeek in 2001.
Prof. Dr Rowan Williams, Baron of Oystermouth, is acknowledged internationally as one of the greatest thinkers, writers, and teachers. He was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury and, as a life peer, remains a member of the House of Lords. For many years the ‘Master of Magdalene College’ at Cambridge University, he is still one of the most eminent scholars today. His main areas of interest are moral, ethical, and social issues and, increasingly, contemporary cultural and interreligious topics. He has published extensively on questions around anthropology and the political life.
Prof. Dr Dr Thomas Fuchs was awarded the Erich Fromm Prize in 2023 for his “outstanding achievements in preserving or restoring humanistic thought and action.” He is one of the worlds leading figures in the field of 5E cognition and has published widely on anthropology, consciousness, artificial intelligence and humanism. As a psychiatrist and philosopher he currently holds the Karl-Jaspers-Professorship of Philosophical Foundations of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at Heidelberg University Hospital. He also is Chairman of the German Society for Phenomenological Anthropology, Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (DGAP).
Yvonne Hofstetter is a multiple AI entrepreneur and has been named by US magazine Technology Innovators as one of the 50 most influential people in AI in 2021. She has been CEO of leading companies, first in financial market AI and now in intelligent weapons systems. She is also a prolific author of books on the subject, most recently ‘The Invisible War’. She is also a visiting professor for digitalisation and society at the University of Bonn-Rhein-Sieg (H-BRS). In 2018, she was awarded the 53rd Theodor Heuss Prize for her democratic contribution to the discourse on the risks of unguarded artificial intelligence.
Prof. Dr Gerd Gigerenzer is one of the most influential psychologists in the German-speaking world. He is emeritus director of the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Development, director of the Harding Centre for Risk Literacy at the University of Potsdam, vice-president of the European Research Council (ERC), and founder and partner of Simply Rational – The Institute for Decision. He has received numerous awards, including the Association of American Publishers Prize for the best book in the social sciences. His award-winning books ‘Gut Feelings’ and ‘Risk Savvy: How To Make Good Decisions’ have been translated into 21 languages. The Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute named Gigerenzer one of the 100 most influential thinkers in the world.
Prof. Dr Sarah Spiekermann is a major thought leader in ethical AI and IT Innovation, having conceived and chaired the world’s first global standard on ethical system design published in 2022 (ISO/IEEE 24748-7000). She authored internationally renowned books on ‘Value-based Engineering’ and ‘Ethical IT Innovation’ and has been involved in major policy projects with the OECD, European Commission for two decades. She holds the chair for IS & Society at Vienna University of Economics and Business.
Prof. Carmody Grey is a Professor of Catholic Theology at Durham University and adjunct Professor in Ethics at the University of Bern (Switzerland). She works mainly in the areas of philosophical theology and theological ethics, with a focus on science, nature, and the environment. Carmody has degrees in Theology from Trinity College Oxford, King’s College Cambridge, and the University of Nottingham, as well as a postgraduate degree in conservation biology from Edinburgh. She has worked on national and international conservation projects, teaches and speaks publicly in various arenas, is a columnist for The Tablet, and sits on the Advisory Board of Las Casas Institute (Blackfriars Hall, Oxford). She is engaged in the research collaborative titled “Contesting Computer Anthropologies” headed by the Center for Faith & Society at the University of Fribourg.
Dr Nick Spencer is a leading public theologian and Senior Fellow at the think tank Theos. He formerly served as its Research Director from 2006 to 2018. He is the author of several books, including “The Political Samaritan: How Power Hijacked a Parable.” Dr Spencer is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Faiths and Civil Society Unit, Goldsmiths, University of London, and a Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion.
Dr Darshana Narayanan is a neuroscientist, journalist, producer of the World Science Festival, founder of the Computational Democracy Project, and Director of research at Pymetrics. Her research interests include neuroethology, developmental systems, evolution and social behaviour. She is also known for her critique of world-bestselling author Yuval Noah Harari.
Prof. Dr Raymond Tallis is a clinical physician, scientist, philosopher, poet, novelist, and cultural critic. He previously served as Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester. Tallis is a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal College of Physicians, and the Royal Society of Arts. In the Economist’s Intelligent Life Magazine (Autumn 2009), he was listed as one of the top living polymaths in the world. He has written extensively on anthropology, humanism and AI.
Dr Oliver Dürr is a theologian, historian, author, podcaster, and filmmaker. He is the director of the Center for Faith & Society at the University of Fribourg and a PostDoc researcher at the University of Zurich. His work focuses on transhumanism, AI, critical posthumanism, and anthropology more broadly. He is concerned with the notion of “human nature” and the kinds of values that could ground our joint efforts at creating a better future.
Prof. Dr Wolfgang Koch is the head of the Sensor Data and Information Fusion Department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics (FKIE), part of Europe’s largest applied research institute. He is the author of more than 200 publications and co-editor of ‘Novel Radar Techniques and Applications.’ He is a Professor of Applied Computer Science at the University of Bonn and actively participates in the NATO Science and Technology Organisation. Prof. Koch is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He also co-chairs the Working Group on the Responsible Use of New Technologies in a Future Combat Air System, Europe’s leading military project.
Prof. Dr Johannes Hoff is a philosopher and theologian. He is currently Professor of Theological Dogmatics at the University of Innsbruck. He was previously Professor of Philosophical Theology at Heythrop College, University of London, and Saint David’s College, University of Wales. Johannes is a widely published author, not least with a comprehensive monograph on the anthropology of the digital transformation, the “Defence of the Holy.”