Blaise Aguera y Arcas leads a team at Google focusing on machine intelligence for mobile devices — including both basic research and new products. His group works extensively with deep neural nets for machine perception, distributed learning, and agents, as well as collaborating with academic institutions on connectomics research. Until 2014, he was a distinguished engineer at Microsoft, where he worked in a variety of roles, including inventor and strategist, and led teams with strengths in inter­ac­tion design, pro­to­typ­ing, computer vision and machine vision, augmented reality, wearable com­put­ing and graphics. He has given TED talks on Sead­ragon and Pho­to­synth (2007, 2012) and Bing Maps (2010). In 2008, he was awarded MIT’s prestigious TR35 (“35 under 35”).

As vice president of Business Intelligence and Data Services at Starbucks, Ayele provides strategic direction for the company’s data strategy, advanced analytics services, next generation big data enablement and EIM practices.

She has extensive experience with global technology transformation across multiple industries with deep emphasis in customer relationship management, analytics and retail technology. Prior to joining Starbucks in 2005, she held several leadership positions with other companies: the Coca-Cola Company, Attachmate Corporation, Hyundai Motor America and CIBA Geigy Pharmaceuticals.

Ayele holds a B.S. in computer science and an MBA in international finance.

Devindra Chainani manages a team of program managers in the engineering team for Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Skype for Business. In this role, Chainani and his team help drive the engineering system and customer feedback programs for Microsoft’s collaboration services. Chainani has worked at Microsoft for over two decades, managing engineering teams for products such as Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft Azure.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Chainani worked as a lecturer at the College of Engineering, Pune, teaching courses in microprocessor systems. He graduated with an engineering degree in Bio-Medical Instrumentation from the same college. Besides engineering, Chainani has a passion for science and technology education. He worked closely with researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on programming systems for kids, a field in which he now holds a couple of patents. He now serves on the Technology Advisory Board, the Next Generation Learning Committee and the Board of Trustees for University Prep Academy, Seattle.

Chandan Chauhan is co-founder and CEO of ClockTree Systems Inc. Previously, he was co-founder and Senior Vice President of Product Management at Intelius from its inception in 2003 until 2014. From 2000 until 2002, Chauhan was Vice President of New Technologies at InfoSpace, Inc. From 1987 until 1999, Chauhan held several senior management positions at Microsoft Corporation in the Windows Operating System and MSN divisions.

Chauhan holds an M.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Technical University of Nova Scotia, Halifax.

Bob Davis is responsible for driving Microsoft’s growth in Skype for Business voice and conferencing services, letting customers collaborate with anyone, anywhere, on any device, with the security and control they need.  He is also responsible for ensuring a great Office 365 experience throughout the lifecycle for customers and partners of all sizes, including commercial, education, and public sector customers.  He represents the OPG engineering teams with customers and partners and at large events.  Davis played an integral part in founding the first version of Office 365 and has occupied leadership positions since its inception as it's become a fast-growing multibillion-dollar business with millions of customers.   

Davis joined Microsoft in 1993, and prior to helping lead Microsoft’s transformation to the cloud, had responsibility for Microsoft’s global IT infrastructure. That included computer systems, datacenters, and networking worldwide where Microsoft IT played a unique role as first and best custome,r providing valuable input, feedback, and real-world experience to the Microsoft product groups developing enterprise products. 

Between his undergraduate and graduate education, Davis was a White House intern.  During his internship, he was a member of White House Press Office and worked with the administration’s spokesman.

Davis attended the University of Washington where he met his wife, Larina, and graduated with a B.A. (hons) in economics. He earned his M.Sc in economics (European Studies) at the London School of Economics (LSE).

Davis is active in the community, where he serves on the University of Washington Foundation Board of Directors and co-chairs the nominating committee.  He also serves as chair of the iSchool's efforts during the UW $5 billion “Be Boundless – For Washington, For the World” campaign.  He also served on the UW Athletics Board during the campaign to rebuild Husky Stadium.

Davis and his wife live in the Seattle area and are avid outdoors enthusiasts with a special passion for climbing and backcountry skiing in the North Cascades.

As chief of staff at Microsoft for its Quantum Computing group, Kim Hargraves leads business operations and serves as a trusted advisor to her team, driving high-quality execution against business plans, and collaborating across the business, driving results. Previously, Hargraves was the director of business operations and compliance management following her role of director of trustworthy computing strategy. Hargraves was responsible for providing integrated systems audit support services for operations audits, systems development and process re-engineering. In addition, she led a team of program managers, staffing consultants, and business operations managers driving compliance, release management, business operations and staffing.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Hargraves held positions at PricewaterhouseCoopers related to security consulting and financial auditing. She also conducted financial analysis for Specialty Brands.

Hargraves is a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, the Institute of Internal Auditors and the Information Systems Audit and Control Association. She holds CIPP, CPA, and CISA certifications.

Dr. Jessie Hey has a wide international experience of providing knowledge management services to users, and particularly researchers, both in research laboratories and in academia. She has a Master's degree in Physics from Oxford followed by postgraduate qualifications in Education and in Library and Information Science. She managed the Library and Learning Centre Programmes for IBM's research and development lab in the UK for 10 years.

Following her more recent work in providing and researching hybrid libraries - joining the traditional and electronic worlds - she gained a Ph.D. in resource discovery in digital libraries in the Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia Group at the University of Southampton in the UK. She has been active in the worldwide community of Open Access to Research and Scholarship for over 10 years researching practical and innovative ways of developing archives, including the now established institutional repositories, in collaborations between librarians, computer scientists, authors and end users.

Her recent research projects, such as TARDis, PRESERV, MURLLO, and CLADDIER have been addressing a wide spectrum of repository issues such as practical models, long term curation and preservation, and linking with e‐learning and research data.

Judge Horowitz has been active in the justice and legal systems for almost fifty years, and continues to be fully involved in efforts to improve the quality and delivery of justice to all. For many years he has chaired the Access to Justice Technology Committee of the Washington State Access to Justice (ATJ) Board, and has been a member of the ATJ System Impediments Committee. Judge Horowitz is a former Superior Court and Juvenile Court Judge in the State of Washington and for over thirty years has served as a mediator and arbitrator. He has also served as Senior Assistant Attorney General for the State of Washington, the first Chief Counsel for the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, where, among other accomplishments, he authored significant legislation such as Washington State's Crime Victim Compensation Act, and Child Abuse Reporting Law. He later served as that Department's Deputy Secretary.

Judge Horowitz received his B.A. from Columbia University and his L.L.B. degree from Yale Law School. He has been a member of the Washington State Board of Bar Examiners, an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Puget Sound (now Seattle University) Law School, and an instructor for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Seattle University. He currently serves on the founding advisory board to the University of Washington Information School, the advisory boards of the Center for Law, Commerce and Technology at the University of Washington Law School and of the Access to Justice Institute of Seattle University School of Law, and on the National Advisory Board of the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at Seattle University School of Law. He is a Technical Support Member of the Washington State Minority and Justice Commission, and serves on various committees of the Washington State Bar Association and the Washington State Access to Justice Board.

He is a founder, past Board Chair and current Board member of Seattle SCORES, an after-school program for grade school boys and girls in low resource communities and schools that combines soccer, literacy through creative writing, and community service to empower at-risk children, enable them to discover their self-worth, and teach them the skills to obtain a meaningful education and live a successful life.

Suresh Krishnan serves as Managing Director, IT Common Services for Alaska Air Group. In this role, he provides leadership for the airline’s Data Services, Middleware Services,  Mobile COE, Quality Engineering and IT PMO departments.

Krishnan has extensive experience with technology transformations across multiple industries and has successfully delivered numerous large-scale technology initiatives. Prior to joining Alaska Air Group, Krishnan has held IT leadership positions at multiple companies including Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, HP-EDS, and Verizon Wireless.

Krishnan has a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology and a MBA from the University of Texas at Arlington.

Eric Larsen currently serves as CEO of SIDx Inc. An experienced entrepreneur, Larsen works with emerging Northwest companies seeking to scale by leveraging his broad experience in engineering, technology, finance, and business operations. He advises several companies and has led multiple fundraising rounds.

Previously, Larsen held several senior leadership positions at Quellos and BlackRock.  He initially joined Quellos in 1998, a leading alternative investment manager (fund of hedge funds and private equity funds). During his tenure at Quellos he led the technology team, building the proprietary, world-class research, operations, and customer management system Quasar that became a key strategic advantage for Quellos. Larsen developed processes and technology to scale the business from 17 employees with $324 million in assets, to 350 employees with $25 billion in assets. He concurrently was the head of Financial Risk Management through 2003, analyzing portfolios and conducting research on quantitative hedge fund strategies. For the Quellos Financial Ventures program he advised emerging hedge funds on risk management, operations, and technology. 

Ed Lazowska holds the Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. Lazowska's research and teaching concern the design, implementation, and analysis of high-performance computing and communication systems.

He is a member of the Technical Advisory Boards for Microsoft Research, Voyager Capital, Ignition, Frazier Technology Ventures, Madrona Venture Group, and Impinj, and of the Boards of Directors of Data I/O Corporation and Lguide.com. He is a member of the ACM Council, the Boards of Directors of the Washington Software Alliance and the Technology Alliance of Washington. He also serves on the Washington State Information Services Board, for which he was recognized in 2002 by Government Technology magazine as a member of the inaugural "GT 25" national leaders of information technology in state government.

Lazowska received his A.B. from Brown University in 1972 and his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1977, when he joined the University of Washington faculty.

Brian Lent is an industry-recognized technology pioneer in big data analytics. He brought more than two decades of technology, entrepreneurial and product leadership to HERE Technologies. In 2004, he co-founded mobile analytics pioneer Medio Systems. Lent served as its CTO, Chairman of the Board and founding CEO. Prior to the creation of Medio, Lent was the founder and CEO of Intelligent Results, a leading business analytics enterprise software company later acquired by First Data Corp. He also held the position of Director of Information Technology at Amazon.com. Before joining Amazon, Lent worked at Silicon Graphics and IBM Almaden Research Center and served as Principal and Director of Applications at Junglee Corporation, the first company to launch a shopping comparison search and recommendations engine, which was acquired by Amazon in 1998. While in the Ph.D. program at Stanford University, he co-founded MIDAS (Mining Data at Stanford), the same lab that incubated the Google crawler and search engine. Lent holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Nevada, Reno and a master's and Ph.D. candidacy in Computer Science from Stanford University.

Mark Mader serves as president and CEO of Smartsheet, a high-growth software company transforming the way organizations plan, track, automate, and report on work at scale. Based in Seattle, Mark leads a high-performing team of over 800 employees bringing to market a SaaS platform used by millions of people at over 74,000 customers, including more than half of the Fortune 500.

Mark is a recognized leader in the technology community, having been named Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year in Technology for the Pacific Northwest, and GeekWire’s CEO of the Year. Under his leadership, Smartsheet was named Washington’s Best Workplace by the Puget Sound Business Journal, and Seattle’s Next Tech Titan by GeekWire. Mark also serves as a board member of the University of Washington Information School, one of the world’s top information science programs.

Passionate about entrepreneurship and tech innovation, Mark is a contributor to media outlets like CNBC and Entrepreneur, and has been a featured speaker at many events, including Startup Grind, YPO Innovation Week, and the NYSE Tech Leadership Summit. Prior to Smartsheet, Mark served as senior vice president of global services for Onyx Software, leading the consulting and customer-facing teams in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. A dual-citizen of Germany and the United States, he has spent considerable time working and living abroad and applies that global perspective to the products and services that Smartsheet delivers. Mark graduated with a B.A. in Geography from Dartmouth College.

Twitter - @MarkMader
LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/markmader/

Chris Miller guides the development of technical infrastructure and applications architecture for Avanade. He also works closely with Microsoft to ensure Avanade's position as an aggressive early adopter of Microsoft enterprise technologies.

Miller joined Avanade after 16 years at Accenture, where he served as a senior director for Accenture's Collaboration 2.0 program. In this role, Miller oversaw a multi-year, award-winning initiative to enable 180,000 global employees with next generation collaboration capabilities.

Miller's prior experience spans a wide range of technology and consulting functions, focused on leveraging Microsoft technology on a true enterprise scale for Accenture and its clients. Miller has held various positions in the IT organization with responsibility for providing the IT products, services and support for many of Accenture's internal business practices, including HR, marketing, facilities, and legal. Miller also spent 10 years with Accenture's consulting practice directing large solution-oriented projects at global retail and pharmaceutical clients.

Miller has a bachelor's of science degree in finance, with minors in mathematics and history, from Indiana University.

Tom Morgan leads the Information Technology Division at BECU, the fourth largest credit union in the United States and the largest in Washington state. With more than 30 years of financial services industry experience, Morgan is a seasoned senior executive in the areas of technology, operations and finance. 

Prior to joining BECU in 2014, Morgan was Home Lending Chief Information Officer at both Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase and served on the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Residential Technology Steering Committee.  During his tenure in the home lending segment, he oversaw the largest U.S. servicing conversion, including development and implementation of strategies that simplified and streamlined home lending originations, capital markets, and servicing platforms.   Previously, Morgan served as CIO in Corporate Technology for Washington Mutual and FleetBoston Financial, where his background included managing the acquisition, integration, and divestiture of over 30 financial institutions. 

While earning his Bachelor of Sciences degree at the University of Maine, Morgan began his banking career serving as Treasurer of the UMO Student Federal Credit Union.  He is also a graduate of the Harvard Business School Executive Education Program and holds a Six Sigma Champion certification.  Presently, Morgan is a member of the Founders Council of The Williams Institute, a non-profit foundation that is part of the UCLA Law School and is on the Board of Directors of ArtsWest, a non-profit theater company in West Seattle.  ArtsWest produces artistic events that provide conversation, incite the imagination and uses live theater as a powerful agent of change. 

Paul Moulton joined Costco in 1985 as a store Manager in Portland, Oregon. He moved to Costco's corporate headquarters in 1988 as the Vice President of Finance and Corporate Treasurer and was promoted to the Senior Vice President of International operations in 1992. In that capacity, he was based in the U.K. and opened Costco Europe. In 1995 he moved to Asia to start Costco operations in Korea, Taiwan and Japan. He returned to the U.S. in 1997 to become the head of Costco's information technology. Subsequently, Moulton became the Executive Vice President of Ecommerce, Marketing and Member Services until moving to become the EVP in charge of Real Estate Department in 2001 where he remained until 2010. He now serves as the Executive Vice President, CIO of Costco Wholesale.

Moulton is currently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Heritage University in Toppenish, Washington, is an elder at his church, and serves on two committees for Agros International of Seattle.

He received his undergraduate degree from the University of San Diego.

Chris Putur serves as the Chief Information Officer for Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI), where she is responsible for establishing the strategic direction of the technology organization and for ensuring REI has a robust, secure environment for daily operations. She also serves on the Board of Directors for the Information Services Group and speaks regularly at industry related leadership forums.

Previously, Putur joined Coach in 2013 as the Chief Information Officer. While there, she shaped a multi-year investment plan to transform core business processes and technical platforms from aged, geographically diverse solutions to a global, simplified, standardized, scalable foundation. Prior to Coach, she served as the CIO of Staples, where she focused on transforming the organization from optimizing within each business unit to a global team focused on delivering the highest value for the company.

Putur holds a Bachelor of Arts in Administrative Science and Math from Colby College and a Master of Science Degree in Management Information Systems from the Boston University Graduate School of Management.

As Nordstrom's Chief Innovation Officer, Geevy Thomas and his team support forward-thinking efforts to evolve stores and better serve customers for the future.

Prior to this role, Thomas had served as president of Nordstrom Rack since 2009. He supported the company’s Nordstrom Rack stores, including operations, merchandising, strategy, finance and store planning.

Thomas joined Nordstrom in 1983 as a salesperson in men’s furnishings and worked his way through college. After graduating from the University of Washington, he went on to hold numerous positions throughout the company including store, regional and buying management. After working as regional manager for Los Angeles, Thomas served as vice president from 1998-2000, and then executive vice president and general merchandising manager for full-line stores from 2000-2002. In 2002, he was promoted to executive vice president, south regional manager for full-line stores where he served from 2002-2009 before assuming the role as president of Nordstrom Rack.

Nick Whiting is Technical Director and Studio Head of the Bellevue studio at Epic Games, working on various aspects of the Unreal Engine, which powers a wide range of applications from gaming to film to the enterprise space.  He focuses his technical work on programming and scripting languages, as well as on virtual and augmented reality applications.  Over the past 10 years at Epic, in addition to his work on the core technologies of the engine, he has also shipped several award-winning game titles, such as "Fortnite," "Robo Recall" and "Gears of War 3."

Previously, Whiting served as the first chair of the OpenXR working group, which works to create an open standard for virtual and augmented reality applications and hardware.  He graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Japanese, and with a certificate in Biomedical Engineering.