Carolin is a Partner at Plug and Play Ventures. She has been in the Venture industry for over 7 years. Since joining Plug and Play in 2019, she has led over 30 investments for the firm and oversaw 100+ investments since establishing PnP’s EMEA IC. She has a strong thesis on companies that deliver direct business impact in terms of efficiency, cost cutting or driving revenue. Being an advocate for diversity in the ecosystem, she is supporting multiple female-focused initiatives as a mentor and has backed 10+ female founders in 2022 alone.

She has always been passionate about entrepreneurship and supporting founders with a bold vision and willingness to challenge the status quo. During her studies at ESCP Europe, where she graduated as Valedictorian of the MiM class, she specialized in venture capital, mentoring multiple startups and founding a student-led tech conference. Prior to Plug and Play Carolin spent 3 years at Next47 and 2 years as an operator at Siemens.

Over the last decade, Anisah has become a well-respected voice in the tech industry, working at the intersection of technology, impact and capital. She is the founder of 23 Code Street, a coding school for women at 23 Code Street. She is also a reporter at Sifted, where she writes the Startup Life newsletter for Europe’s operators. The common thread in her work has been her steadfast belief that tech can be a force for good if we have a workforce that represents the diversity of our society. She was awarded an MBE in the King’s 2023 New Year’s honors for services to diversity in tech, is a Forbes 30 under 30 honouree and is listed in the Financial Times’ 100 most influential BAME leaders in tech.

Jone Vaituleviciute is a founding partner of FIRSTPICK – an early-stage venture capital fund focusing on Baltic tech founders. Prior to establishing her own fund, Jone was a partner at Startup Wise Guys – one of the largest European accelerators. Jone is also a board member of the Lithuania Venture Capital Association where she is contributing towards female inclusion-focused projects.

Maryam Najafi is a business developer and venture capitalist. She is an active player in the regional and global startup ecosystem and strongly believes that entrepreneurs are the fuel of economic and social growth in all countries. She found angel investment a very powerful platform to foster entrepreneurship and support startups. As the first executive manager of Karaya Angel Investors, she built up all requirements of creating an angel investor group, which led to the formation of the biggest angel network in Iran. She is also the CEO and Board Member at Finnova – a coworking space, accelerator and VC fund based in Tehran, Iran.

Sara Rywe is a partner at byFounders – a €110M early-stage, community-powered, founders-led VC fund. Sara is an entrepreneur at heart with experience from a range of tech startups and has also worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and led the global strategy implementation at Danske Bank.

James Appathurai was appointed to this post in September 2021. As DASG, he works on policy development and implementation in the fields of Emerging and Disruptive Technologies, cyber security, counter-terrorism, the security implications of climate change, and hybrid defence. Mr. Appathurai previously served as DASG for Political Affairs and Security Policy, as well as Special Representative to Central Asia and the Caucasus. He was NATO’s Spokesperson from 2004 to 2010. He served as Deputy Head and Senior Planning Officer in the Policy Planning and Speechwriting Section of NATO’s Political Affairs Division from 1998 to 2004. He served in the Canadian Defence Department from 1994 to 1998.

Philip Lockwood is the Head of the Innovation Unit, Emerging Security Challenges Division, NATO HQ. He led the establishment of DIANA—NATO’s new transatlantic innovation agency—and the NATO Innovation Fund. Philip also leads the team responsible for NATO’s strategies around emerging and disruptive technologies, including the Alliance’s AI Strategy. Philip was previously a tech lawyer with a large international law firm and served in the Canadian Armed Forces for 16 years.

Siim Alatalu is the CEO of Foundation CR14 since March 2022. CR14 is an Estonian cyber defence and security innovation centre, based on more than 11 years of military-grade cyber range experience in cybersecurity training, exercises, testing, experimentation and validation. Siim joined CR14 from the Estonian Information System Authority RIA where he was the founding Director of the European Union Cyber Capacity Building Network – or EU CyberNet. His previous career includes being the Head of International Relations of the NATO CCDCOE, Deputy Director of Policy Planning at the Estonian MOD, a diplomatic tour as Assistant Defence Counsellor at the Estonian Delegation to NATO. During the 2017 Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU Siim acted as the Vice Chair of the Horizontal Working Party for Cyber Issues.