MEET OUR SPEAKERS

Dr. Non Arkara is an award-winning innovator, urban designer and thought leader recognized globally for his human-centered approach to smart city development. With a diverse background spanning architecture, urban planning, anthropology and public policy, Dr. Non brings multidisciplinary expertise to addressing complex urban challenges. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from Harvard University, a Master’s in Architecture Studies from MIT, and a Bachelor’s in Architecture.

As a Smart City Expert at Thailand's Digital Economy Promotion Agency, Dr. Non has spearheaded numerous digital transformation and smart city initiatives nationally. This includes launching Thailand's first smart city program, delivering training to 5000+ officials, and winning an award for an AI platform managing water infrastructure.

With over 15 years of experience spanning 6 countries, he is a frequent speaker at global conferences and events. Dr. Non also gives back through academic reviewing, educational mentoring and pro bono consulting. Driven by a passion to create equitable, resilient and people-centric cities, Dr. Non is a solutions-oriented visionary constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. He thrives on leveraging technology responsibly to improve lives worldwide.

Ms Catherine Lian was appointed as Managing Director for IBM in Malaysia in 2019. In this role, she is responsible for all strategic and operational matters related to IBM's sales, services, and delivery operations in Malaysia.

Catherine leads the IBM Malaysia team to help key stakeholders and clients put smart to work in their organisations by applying IBM’s leading AI, cognitive solutions, and cloud platform to advance digital transformation.

A Northern University of Malaysia graduate, Catherine's stint with leadership roles began at Dell Technologies, where she worked for the past two decades before joining IBM Malaysia. Her last role was the Senior Director & Managing Director for Dell Indonesia, based in Jakarta. She has also held various management roles within Dell Technologies, covering the South Asia markets, including Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indochina, and Cambodia. Throughout her career, Catherine has been consistently recognised as the key leader in the IT industry, helping and enabling clients to innovate and succeed.

Catherine is a strong advocate for women in leadership in the IT Industry and was recognised at the Channel Asia Women in ICT Awards 2020 as the Highly Commended winner under the Achievement Category in the ASEAN region. She continues to mentor aspiring talents, believing that by leading the way, aspirants are empowered to create thriving and sustainable communities.

Catherine has been appointed as the PIKOM (The National Tech Association of Malaysia) Councillor in 2021. She has held key positions in the association, including Chairman for Women in Tech 2022, Chairman for Tech Fest 2022 and Deputy Chairman for IR 4.0 SIG 2022.

In 2022, Prestige Magazine Malaysia recognised Catherine as one of the 100 nation's most influential Women of Power.

She is also recognised as the winner of the Channel Asia Women in ICT Awards under the Achievement category. Catherine won this award in recognition of a management career spanning more than two decades in Malaysia and South Asia, built on the foundations of business growth, customer success and individual mentoring.

Recently, Catherine was recognised by Tech Wire Asia as one of the five Most Influential Women in Technology

Datuk Ir. Khalilur Rahman Ebrahim graduated with Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Brighton Polytechnic U.K. in 1973. He obtained his Master of Science in Electronics from University Technology Malaysia in 1993.



He started his career in 1973 as a maintenance engineer in the communication department of Malaysian National Electricity Board.  He joined Sapura  Holdings in 1984 as Head of R&D, where he was responsible for the development of many innovative products like the PABX, mobile phones, pagers and feature phones, which won national awards.

Datuk Khalilur started System Consultancy Services (SCS) in 1993, and now runs a group of 4 companies with 230 personnel dealing with Defence Technologies, Industrial Automation,  Building Security Systems and Composites.  

DK Composites pioneered in composites domes, which became well recognised landmarks in Malaysia, Singapore, UAE and Las Vegas, manufactures sailing yachts for the international market.  In 2005, DK won the prestigious Christofle Asian Boating Award for Best Asian Boat Builder.

For his contribution to the industry he was awarded the Entrepreneur Award by the Malaysian Malay Chamber of Commerce in 2005 “Anugerah Usahasama Tulen” and “Darjah Mulia Seri Melaka” which carries the title “Datuk” in 2008.

He is currently :

• Executive Chairman, System Consultancy Group of Companies
• Member of the Board of Governors, The Malay College Kuala Kangsar
• Member of the Board of Trustee of The Malay College Foundation
• Board Member, Malaysia Industry – Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT)
• Member of the Board of Governors of UNITEN.
• Chairman of VentureTECH Sdn Bhd

Kenneth co-founded The Learning Curve in 2017 that help schools in Kuching establish organized STEM associations through streamlined training, infrastructure upgrades, and annual science fairs. Having more than 8,200 students in Sarawak, TLC specializes in effective STEM communication to children and young adults, seeding their early interest and passion to pursue studies/careers in Science and Engineering through curated workshops, rural outreach programs and STEM communities.

Ida is a firm believer in diversity and inclusion. She advocates that access to finance, health, and education should never be curtailed by credit, color, or creed. She firmly believes that blockchain technology provides the means to execute and deliver this.

Previously, Ida was an M&A and corporate commercial lawyer in London. With a passion for entrepreneurship, she has founded and built three startups, all of which were deployed on the blockchain. One of these startups was successfully exited.

Ida is also highly regarded as a thought leader in digital assets, CBDC, stablecoin, and blockchain payments. She is frequently invited as a keynote speaker in these areas and contributes her analysis and perspective to the blockchain scene. She also sits on and contributes to various documents for the Global Assets and Cryptocurrency Association, including a recent response to the range of proposals and measures initiated by the US SEC affecting crypto central exchanges and decentralized exchanges.

Her tireless work in increasing and improving women's diversity in the blockchain and Web 3 space has earned her recognition and awards, including the Tatler Asia Front and Female 2023, Global Top 100 Women of the Future in Emerging Tech (2023), and Most Inspirational Women in Web 3 (2022).

Hiroshi Ishiguro received a PhD from Osaka University, Japan in 1991. He is currently Professor of Department of Systems Innovation at Osaka University, Visiting Director of Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratories at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute (ATR), Project Manager of MOONSHOT R&D Project, Thematic Project Producer of EXPO 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan, and CEO of AVITA, Inc.

His research interests are interactive robotics, avatar, and android science. Geminoid is an avatar android that is a copy of himself. In 2011, he won the Osaka Cultural Award. In 2015, he received the Prize for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. He was also awarded the Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Award in Dubai in 2015. Tateisi Award in 2020, and honorary doctorate of Aarhus university in 2021.

Adrian Gaffor is an entrepreneur, board member and the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Esports Business Network, the leading esports marketing group in Southeast Asia. Gaffor’s passion stems from improving the esports industry ecosystem for brands and communities. He specializes in esports marketing, growth strategies, revenue diversification and through EBN, aims to legitimize and expand the esports ecosystem globally and provide the ultimate platform for brands and advertisers to connect with the esports community.

Bobby Liu is the Director of EIR at Touchstone Partners, an early-stage Vietnam-focused VC fund. This ensures that while looking at deal flow, he's still very much in the mix with founder development.

Prior to Touchstone Partners, he was a Senior Director of Topica Edtech Group and the Executive Director of the TFI, an early-stage accelerator.

The founder of Hub.IT, a co-working space/incubator, which was the inertia into the tech startup ecosystem. It was a space that provided young entrepreneurs a conducive environment to innovate and share collective experiences, and in the process contributed to building a great entrepreneurial ecosystem in Hanoi and Vietnam.

Bobby Liu actively mentors and advises startups in Southeast Asia. He is also an accredited mentor for the Google Developer Launchpad Accelerator and other startup programs.

Thaddeus is a co-founder @ e27 and also the company's Head of Programs. He is currently tasked to revamp and revitalise e27's Programs especially the Echelon and TOP100 Series. He has successfully executed and relaunch Echelon Asia Summit 2023, with 5,000pax supporting the return of the renowned large scale conference for Southeast Asia markets.

After more than a decade in broadcast television with TV3 Malaysia and CNBC, Keith dived into the intersections of technology, gaming and consumer tech services, in marketing and business development roles with multinationals, SMEs and start-ups. He is the Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Publishing for games company GCL Global and an international news presenter for CNA.

Ms Aster Wei is the Founder and Managing Director of Otti, the pioneer of brain-based training solutions to ignite human potential in the digital era. Under her leadership, Otti grew into a multimillion company within 3-years, becoming the trusted partner by organisations and government bodies in Malaysia to develop future-ready talents and leaders.

Aster’s background is in Neuroscience, specialising in Educational Neuroscience at University College London (UCL). Her expertise enables Otti to deeply integrate brain science research into human-centred learning design.

“As technology advance and start to humanise, what does it mean to be human?” With this guiding question, Otti innovates on training solutions in Digital Leadership and Human Agility to empower people to adapt and thrive in the modern digital era by developing agility, innovation and unique value creation.

With nearly a decade of experience in the education and social impact scene, she leads a purpose-driven team to shape a progressive future by synergising the potential of technology and humans.

Wan Dazriq is the Non Executive Director of ETHIS Ventures Sdn Bhd. (ETHIS Malaysia) a recognised equity crowdfunding platform by the Securities Commission of Malaysia. ETHIS is also recognised as the first shariah compliant equity crowdfunding platform in Malaysia with an ambition to circulate good through ethical investments.

Aside from fintech and his passion for social entrepreneurship, Dazriq has experience in areas of digital ventures and innovation led transformation initiatives that includes multi stakeholders interests. His experiences include driving large scale transformation projects, implementing digital innovation efforts as well as change management initiatives with government linked companies in Malaysia as well as several Fortune 100 companies where he served most of his corporate career with a leading global technology management consulting firm.

Over 42 years of Technology passionate, through his wide spectrum of position in multinationals and local Technology corporate he has gained his skills in leading organizations to achieve the shareholders vision and to achieve set targets.

Eng. Taha through the years of managerial positions in different industries outside and inside Egypt. He is currently the General Manager at Citex Systems Ltd, and the Co-founder for Projecta Consult Co., covering Financial & Technology services.

He was the General Manager of Orascom Technology Solutions for five years, where he was responsible for all systems integration & Professional Consulting Services.

Prior to that he was the :

- General Manager “Advanced Computer Technology (ACT)” ,

- Regional Manager for North Africa at General Electric Information Services (GEIS) and

- Manager of Products Support and Services IBM/ SBM Saudi Arabia

- and the CIO of Sahara Petroleum Services Group.

Eng./ Taha has received a variety of achievements and awards both nationally and internationally, and recently during the WCIT2022 he was elected as a Board member in “WITSA” World Information Technology and Software Alliance.

Currently he serve as the Vice Chairman of Witsa for the MENA Region.

Locally in Egypt he is one of the founders for the largest Technology NGO “Eitesal”, Treasurer and Board member.

In addition, he was the vice-chairman of the Solar Energy Association SEDA.

Eng. / Taha graduated from faculty of Electrical Engineering, Alexandria University, and he also received a Diploma in Marketing Profitable Business and Trading from the British College in Jersey, Britain.

He combines his passion for Nature through his activity to Navigate and explore the Red Sea Treasures and Off Road Desert Mysteries with his beloved family & friends.

Freda Liu is a Broadcast Journalist, Author and Adjunct Professor. She currently hosts The Shift (a show on sustainability) . She has interviewed thousands of thought leaders from Mohammad Yunus of Grameen Bank to Alex Stubb, former Prime Minister of Finland. She has authored 7 books including the best-selling "How Dare They" and is an adjunct professor for the School of Media, Art & Design at UNITAR International University. She is highly sought after as a moderator for major events.

Hazwan is the General Manager for Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation, where his team focuses on building a robust ecosystem that supports local start-ups and entrepreneurs, and providing digital empowerment opportunities in all corners of the state. He also leads several Sarawak STEM initiatives, as well as a founding committee member of the Malaysian Business Angel Network, Sarawak Chapter. He started his career in upstream oil & gas operations with PETRONAS, before expanding his skillsets working at a unicorn tech startup, and starting an education-focused social enterprise. As a member of the International Development Design Network (IDIN), he has carried out short-term development design projects globally. He was educated at Melbourne and Oxford in engineering, and loves all things tech.