Dr. Kumar Chellapilla is a General Manager at Amazon Web Services and leads the development of ML/AI Services that involve humans and machines working together. Prior to AWS, Kumar was a Director of Engineering at Uber ATG and Lyft Level 5 and led teams using machine learning to develop self-driving capabilities such as perception and mapping. He also worked on applying machine learning techniques to improve search, recommendations, and advertising products at LinkedIn, Twitter, Bing, and Microsoft Research.

Kumar has a Ph.D from University of California at San Diego wherein he worked on teaching computers to learn by themselves to play games like chess and checkers. At Microsoft Research, Kumar developed the very first GPU based algorithms (2004) for training Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). He then used them to demonstrate that CNNs surpassed human capabilities at single character recognition by breaking several commonly used CAPTCHAs.

Referred to as “the most famous astronaut since Neil Armstrong,” Colonel Chris Hadfield is a heavily decorated astronaut, engineer, and pilot who has become a worldwide sensation. Formerly NASA’s director of operations, Hadfield spent more than three decades working for NASA and the Canadian Space Agency.

Throughout his distinguished career, he has flown three space missions, built two space stations, performed two spacewalks, crewed the Shuttle and Soyuz, and in 2013 commanded the International Space Station for six months off planet. His many awards and recognitions include the Order of Canada, the Meritorious Service Cross, and the NASA Exceptional Service Medal.

His TED talk “What I Learned from Going Blind in Space” has been viewed more than 11 million times. He is also the co-host, with actor Will Smith, of National Geographic’s One Strange Rock, which was directed by Darren Aronofsky.

Lieutenant-Colonel Dave Serapins is the Digital Transformation Officer of the Canadian Army’s 2nd Canadian Division, leading the team that helped fight wildfires throughout Quebec. His 18 years of army experience began with a posting as a medic with the 51st Field Ambulance team while employed as an EMT at Urgence Santé in Montreal. He commissioned as an Infantry Officer with the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada in 2009, where he has accumulated over a decade of experience leading soldiers throughout the organization, including on exercise, and both domestic and expeditionary operations.

His current team, working within the 2nd Canadian Division headquarters, are innovation catalysts: They are collaboratively breaking barriers, supporting the re-writing of policy and governance, and are focusing on actionable, deployable solutions that increase the operational capability and effectiveness of the army.

Kirsten Robinson is a senior business leader with 25 years’ experience in sales, consulting, and business operations. Having joined AWS in 2018, she currently serves as Federal Government Leader, where she focuses on shaping and delivering strategies to enable government digital transformation. Prior to joining AWS, Kirsten held senior leadership positions with both public and private sector organizations, spanning multiple roles within tech startups, enterprise firms, and academia. 

Kirsten is the past co-chair of Technation’s Cloud Working Group, and the co-author of a Government of Canada whitepaper titled “Governments Embracing Cloud: An Opportunity for Modernization, Innovation and Transformation”. An avid gardener and traveler, she lives in Ottawa with her husband, son, and dog, Bailey.

Ray Hession leads AWS Canada’s national security and defence practice, drawing on over 25 years of experience as a consultant, trusted advisor and sales executive in the IT, IM and BI/Analytics sectors.

Before joining AWS in 2016, Ray served key Government of Canada departments as a Key Account Executive at cloud data protection leader Commvault. Previously, he has held roles at SAS, HP, and other world-leading firms in the areas of data management, predictive analytics, and IT Service Management & Operations management software.