Speakers
ALEXANDRA BECH GJØRV
President and CEO, SINTEFAlexandra Bech Gjørv is CEO of SINTEF, one of Europe’s largest research institutes. Gjørv has a long executive career in Norsk Hydro and Equinor behind her, including renewable energy and low carbon solutions, automotive parts, as well as staffs and corporate governance. Gjørv has experience as chair and board member of a number of Norwegian and foreign companies. She is a lawyer and was a partner in the law firm Hjort before joining SINTEF. She chaired the independent July 22. commission.
BERND LIEPERT
President, EU RoboticsDr. Liepert earned his diploma in mathematics in 1990 from the University of Augsburg and his honorary doctor degree from University of Magdeburg in 2011. From February 1990 until June 2019 Dr. Liepert has worked in changing positions for KUKA. From 1990 to 1996 he worked as mathematician and developer at KUKA Schweissanlagen + Roboter GmbH before he took charge as head of development of the newly founded company KUKA Roboter GmbH until 1997. From 1998-1999 he was a member of KUKA Roboter GmbH Board of Management, responsible for development and design. From 2000-2009 Dr. Liepert was the CEO of KUKA Roboter GmbH. From 2010 to January 2015 he was the CTO of KUKA AG, responsible for technology and development of the whole KUKA Group and from February 2015 until June 2019 Chief Innovation Officer of KUKA AG, being responsible for expanding innovations at KUKA where he was able to apply his vast robotics experience at the interface between technology and the market. From 2008-2012 Dr. Liepert was President of EUROP, the European Robotics Technology Platform, and subsequently President of euRobotics AISBL – the European Robotics Association. euRobotics was founded in September 2012 and has become the private side of SPARC, the European Public-Private Partnership in Robotics in 2013. As president of these associations Dr. Liepert has been leading the European robotics community and representing it at high political levels.
CAMILLA STOLTENBERG
CEO, NORCE ResearchCamilla Stoltenberg is the CEO of NORCE Research, an independent research institute that conducts research to facilitate informed and sustainable choices for the future. Camilla is a medical doctor and holds a Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of Oslo. From 2001, she was a part of the top management at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH), first as Executive Director of the division of epidemiology, then as a Deputy Director General, and from 2012-2023 as Director General. As Director General of NIPH, she was responsible for national strategic projects related to infrastructure for science and analysis. In the period 2020-2023, she was NIPHs spokesperson in the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. She also studied sociology at University of Oslo and social anthropology/medical anthropology at the University of California Berkeley and San Francisco (UCSF). She was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oslo and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in 1998-2001 and visiting scholar at Harvard School of Public Health and Columbia University in New York from 2000-2001. Camilla Stoltenberg has been a professor at the University of Bergen, Department of Global Public Health and Primary care, since 2012, and she remains active within research. She has led several research projects with funds from the EU, The Norwegian Research Council and National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US. She is socially engaged and broadly involved in research and research strategy and has held numerous national and international positions and assignments.
FRANCESCO FERRO
CEO, Co-Founder, Owner PAL RoboticsFrancesco obtained a MSc degree in Telecommunications Engineering in 2002 at the Politecnico di Torino. He began a PhD in Computer Vision, but left in 2004 to found PAL Robotics. He started working with the development of stereo vision algorithms and later joined the autonomous robot navigation team in order to implement various SLAM algorithms. In 2008, he became the manager of PAL Robotics´ software department. He obtained an MBA at the UB university in Barcelona in 2011 and became CEO of PAL Robotics, in charge of the company’s humanoid robot development.
GABOR SZIEBIG
Research Manager, SINTEF IndustryGabor Sziebig is currently a Research Manager with SINTEF Industry. He received the M.Sc. degree in computer science from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary, in 2007, and the Ph.D. degree in production engineering from the Norwegian University of Science (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway, in 2013. His research fields are automation, robotics, computer vision, and control theory. During his Ph.D. studies, he was focusing on novel programming methods for Flexible Manufacturing Systems and have developed a concept called small-scale intelligent manufacturing systems (SIMS). He is the Chair of the IEEE IES-Technical Committee on Control, Robotics and Mechatronics, and the Secretary of the IFAC TC on Robotics.
HEDI KARRAY
Programme Manager for Artificial Intelligence, European Innovation CouncilHedi Karray is an experienced professional in semantic AI and ontology-based engineering, with over fifteen years in applied informatics. He holds a Ph.D. in applied informatics from the University of Franche-Comté, France (2012), a Master’s in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management from the Business Administration Institute of Besançon (2013), and the Habilitation to Lead Research (HDR) from the National Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse (2019). Before joining the EIC, Hedi was a Full Professor of Applied Informatics at the University of Technology of Tarbes (UTTOP) in France. He led the international master’s programme on Industry 4.0 and the Planning, Interoperability, and Coordination of dynamic Systems (PICS) research group, contributing to research in ontology-based engineering, semantic interoperability, and AI-driven decision support systems. He has published over 80 papers in international journals and conferences. In 2016, Hedi was a visiting professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo (UB), focusing on ontological research. This led to his role as a senior scientist at the National Center for Ontological Research (NCOR.us) and co-founding the Industrial Ontologies Foundry hosted by NIST. Hedi has been actively involved in the professional community, serving as the president of the French chapter of the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society and co-founding the International Semantic and FAIR Knowledge Graph Alliance. He served as an expert for the European Commission’s Horizon Europe programme, advising on AI and semantic technologies. Through his collaborative research projects and consulting work with companies like TotalEnergies, Airbus, Thales, etc. Hedi has helped to apply academic research in industrial settings and has provided invaluable insights into the deployment of Semantic AI in complex industrial environments, contributing to the digital transformation of key sectors. He is committed to responsible AI and advancing the global AI ecosystem, with a focus on technologies that benefit both industry and society. Hedi’s work continues to influence the future of AI in Europe and globally.
NABIL BELBACHIR
Research Director, NORCE ResearchNabil Belbachir has almost three decades of experience with computer vision, AI and robotics, as engineer, scientist, visionary leader and strategist, contributing with sustainable innovative concepts, products and solutions. Nabil Belbachir is a research director at NORCE, director at eu-robotics Aisbl and strategy advisor for ADRA Aisbl and the European Commission, for coordinating European Strategic Research, Innovation and Deployment Agenda and contributing to HEU work programme 2025-2027 in AI, Data and Robotics. He has a PhD (2005) in computer science from TU Vienna (Austria). He edited the single-source Springer book “Smart Cameras (2009)”, translated into Chinese by China Machine Press (2014) and has over 140 scientific publications, 3 patents. Actually, he is coordinating COGNIMAN, and iBot4CRMs, two Horizon Europe Innovation projects on AI-powered robotics, respectively for Flexible Manufacturing and for recovery of Critical Raw Materials from electronic waste. He is also leading the Agder CARM centre developing novel robotics solutions on urban mining.
STINE VEMMESTAD VATNEBERG
Vice President Facilities & Operations Technology - EquinorStine V. Vatneberg leads O&G Facilities and Operations Solutions within the Technology, Digital, and Innovation business area at Equinor. With 15 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, she has held multiple professional and leadership positions. Stine previously led the Autonomy, Interoperability, and Robotics Project, a flagship program accelerating the adoption of digital technologies across Equinor’s assets. Passionate about innovation, she focuses on how collaboration and technology can drive the transformation of the energy sector.