Former NBA player turned philanthropist Alonzo Mourning focuses his energy on empowering others through advocacy, education, and enrichment. Mourning founded the Mourning Family Foundation, which has raised more than $25M for various programs that aid in the development of children and their families. He further contributes to family wellness as a member of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition. He continues his involvement with basketball as Vice President of Player Programs and Development with the Miami Heat and Chair of the McDonald’s All-American Game Advisory Committee. A seven-time NBA All-Star and two-time Defensive Player of the Year, Mourning has been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Shortly after winning an Olympic gold medal, Mourning was diagnosed with Focal Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), a rare genetic kidney disease and underwent a successful kidney transplant. In addition to his philanthropy, Mourning is a highly respected business leader and has numerous business development projects in the Miami area. A leader in all his pursuits, Mourning’s inspiring story encourages audiences to dream big.

Consistently recognized for his charitable efforts, Mourning has received numerous awards, including the NBA’s Community Assist Award, National Urban League’s Outstanding Community Service Award, Silver Medallion Community Service Award by the National Conference for Community and Justice, and NBA’s J. Walter Kennedy Sportsmanship Award, The Children’s Trust Excellence Award for Public Policy, and more. Mourning has been sought after as an orator to inspire audiences ranging from sales teams to nephrologists.

During his tenure as NASA’s longest-serving Administrator, The Honorable Dan S. Goldin transformed America’s aeronautics and space program. He is credited with the re-emergence of NASA after the Cold War. Despite lower budgets, his “faster, better, cheaper” approach enabled the Agency to deliver programs of high value to the American public without sacrificing safety. Prior to his tenure at NASA, Mr. Goldin served as a leading national security executive, producing systems of high national priority. As the founder of Cold Canyon, an innovation advisory company, and as a senior advisor to Cerberus Capital Management, his career spans space exploration and science, aeronautics, air traffic management, national security systems, semiconductors, advanced sensors, hypersonic, communications, and artificial intelligence. With his accumulated experience, Mr. Goldin is a highly sought-after leader in advancing American technologies and businesses. Mr. Goldin has recently spoken at SXSW, the Space Symposium, Purdue University, the International Aviation Women’s Association, and many more.

Mr. Goldin is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering, and the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy. He is a Fellow of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics and the American Astronautical Society, and an Honorary Board Member of the Explorers Club.  Mr. Goldin has received the Goddard Memorial Trophy, the premier award from the National Space Club and Foundation, and the General James E. Hill Lifetime Space Achievement Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Space Foundation. Mr. Goldin holds 18 Honorary Doctorates from the world’s great universities. As a deep tech champion, Mr. Goldin brings firsthand expertise to the stage, empowering audiences to navigate and harness cutting-edge technologies for transformative business growth and innovation. 

Conor Grennan is Chief AI Architect at NYU Stern School of Business, where he builds generative AI fluency across the institution, including MBAs, faculty, and administration. Prior to that role, he served as Dean of Students for the past 10 years. Outside of NYU, Grennan is the CEO and Founder of AI Mindset, an AI consulting company that trains professionals, leaders, and organizations on a new and effective framework for generative AI. Grennan is also the Head GenAI Trainer for the Chief Executive Group and LinkedIn Learning’s instructor for AI for Business. He has keynoted on generative AI at the Generative AI World Conference, Generative AI Week, PWC’s Trust Leadership Academy, MetTel’s Innovation Conference, Correlation One’s CHRO Insights event, the Franchise CEO Summit, the Chief Executive Annual Summit, and many other large-scale events.

Grennan is also a New York Times #1 bestselling author, TEDx speaker, and executive coach.  His AI insights have been featured in Entrepreneur, Business Insider, Vox, and other media outlets. He co-hosts the AI Applied podcast (top 20 in Business News) and is a Top Voice in Public Speaking on LinkedIn, where he has over 65k followers that track his generative AI insights. Grennan is singularly primed to bring audiences insights on AI usage and applications.

In addition to being a mild-mannered physics professor, Dr. James Kakalios is an award-winning, internationally recognized expert on Superhero Science. Dr. Kakalios is the Taylor Distinguished Professor in the University of Minnesota’s School of Physics and Astronomy and the author of three popular science books: The Physics of Superheroes, The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics, and The Physics of Everyday Things. He has given hundreds of fun and engaging public presentations to audiences whose age ranges from eight to eighty. Using humor and wit, he explains real science using superhero comic books as examples – focusing on those cases where the heroes get their science right!

Dr. Kakalios’ science communication efforts have been recognized by national awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute of Physics, and the American Association of Physics Teachers (previous winners of these awards include Neil deGrasse Tyson, Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, and more). He served as the science consultant for the Warner Bros. superhero film Watchmen (his short video, “The Science of Watchmen,” won a Regional Emmy award) and the Sony film The Amazing Spider-Man. His YouTube videos, discussing the physics in superhero movies, have garnered millions of views.

Dr. Kakalios has been invited to inspire audiences at schools, commencement ceremonies, and STEM-related private industry meetings as the keynote or after-banquet speaker, including the 92^nd Street Y, Library of Congress, ComicCon International, and more. His talks are not just entertaining, but also educational! He has been reading comic books longer than he has been studying physics.

MIT-trained engineer and tech entrepreneur Krisztina “Z” Holly, curator of the first ever TEDx event, has been at the forefront of innovation throughout her career. She started her career as a serial tech entrepreneur in Boston and Silicon Valley before spending over a decade building pioneering innovation centers at MIT and USC. The White House subsequently invited her to help spread her novel model across the United States. Today, she invests in early-stage complex science and technology startups as an operating partner at Good Growth Capital and is a sought-after advisor and speaker to organizations around the world. She has been recognized by Rolling Stone, Forbes, WIRED, and Entrepreneur Mag for her ability to scout and cultivate talent and catalyze global initiatives. With a proven track record of fostering innovation, Z’s insights come from real-world experience.

Z has spoken at Davos, the White House, YPO Entrepreneurial Energy, NBC Universal, and the National Academy of Sciences Innovation Summit; she has facilitated numerous sessions for the World Economic Forum with heads of state and CEOs of Fortune 100 companies. She regularly appears as a public expert and interviewer, leading conversations with tech “rockstars” such as Biz Stone and Tim O'Reilly, interviewing world-famous extreme athletes, and facilitating panels with university presidents and global leaders. Z’s authentic style and tailored messages resonate with a wide range of audiences, from students and aspiring entrepreneurs to academics and top executives. 

Dambisa Moyo is a member of the United Kingdom’s House of Lords sitting as Baroness Moyo of Knightsbridge . She is a principal of Versaca Investments - a family office focused on growth investing globally. She serves on a number of global corporate boards including Chevron, and the Oxford University Endowment Investment Committee. She is a member of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Moyo is respected for her unique perspectives, her balance of contrarian thinking with measured judgment, and her ability to turn economic insight into investible ideas. 

Dr. Moyo is the author of five bestselling books on the global macroeconomy and geopolitics. She holds a PhD in economics from Oxford University and a Masters degree from Harvard University. Dr. Moyo was named to the list of TIME’s "100 Most Influential People" in the world; writes for the Financial Times, WSJ, Barron's, and Harvard Business Review. Dr. Moyo is a pre-eminent thinker whose insights empower key decision-makers in strategic investment and public policy.

De Kai is a pioneering AI scientist who is widely regarded as “the Statesman of AI.” A founder of the contemporary AI field as known today, three decades ago De Kai invented and built the world’s first global-scale online language translator. De Kai continues to push boundaries in AI research, alongside speaking to philosophical questions about the fears and possibilities of humanity's new technology and how we can be empowered to shape our future. In his book Raising AI, De Kai brings decades of experience to help audiences make sense of our interactions with AI at both personal and collective levels—ethically and responsibly. De Kai is Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at HKUST and Distinguished Research Scholar at Berkeley’s International Computer Science Institute. His cross-disciplinary works relating AI, cognition, language, music, creativity, media arts, ethics and society centers on enabling cultures to relate, and stems from a liberal arts perspective emphasizing creativity in both technical and humanistic dimensions.

De Kai’s groundbreaking projects have spurred the paradigm shift toward today’s state-of-the-art statistical natural language processing technologies. He has done research at Berkeley, UCSD, University of Toronto, Bell Laboratories, Columbia University, TU Munich, and Toronto. He founded HKUST's internationally funded Human Language Technology Center which launched the world's first global-scale online language translator over twenty years ago.

De Kai is among only 17 scientists worldwide named by the Association for Computational Linguistics as a Founding ACL Fellow and has been named one of the 100 most influential figures of Hong Kong. His TEDx Talk was named an editor's pick. He serves on the board of AI policy think tank TFS (The Future Society), which is heavily involved in drafting the European Union’s forthcoming AI Act. In 2018, Google named De Kai as one of eight inaugural members of its AI Ethics council, ATEAC (Advanced Technology External Advisory Council). Over the past decade, De Kai has given hundreds of talks worldwide on AI ethics, society, and safety.