Guests of the Mainstage

On the Mainstage of WMF, personalities and guests from all over the world came together and shared inspirational talks, visionary speeches, and case studies with the audience.

The Festival, which returned to Rimini on June 15-17, featured top-tier personalities and inspiring voices on the Mainstage, including world-renowned sociologist Manuel Castells, AI expert and Silicon Valley pioneer Jerry Kaplan, Rika Nakazawa of Americas NTT, Monica Orsino of Microsoft, and the comeback of Robot Sophia. The Mainstage also hosted representatives from internationally renowned companies such as INTEL, IIT - Italian Institute of Technology, ESA - European Space Agency, and WWF, institutional figures such as CINECA President Francesco Ubertini, INFN President Antonio Zoccoli, Swedish Ambassador Jan Björklund, and successful creators including Breaking Italy, Camihawke, and Pow3r.

Discovered the Mainstage guests who attended the WMF!

Guest of honor

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is the special guest that will be live on the Mainstage of the eleventh edition of WMF - We Make Future, International Trade Fair and Festival on Tech and Digital Innovation, scheduled to take place at the Rimini Expo Centre from June 15 to 17, 2023.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee OM, KBE, FRS, FREng, FRSA. Named one of Time Magazine’s ‘100 Most Important People of the 20th Century,’ he is the co-founder and CTO of Inrupt, which uses pioneering Solid technology to put individuals in control of their data and give organizations new opportunities to create value for customers in an open marketplace of innovation.

In 1989 while at CERN, Sir Tim invented the World Wide Web. Sir Tim is the Founder and Director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which makes technical standards for the Web and the World Wide Web Foundation whose mission is that the World Wide Web serves humanity.

He co-founded and is President of the Open Data Institute in London and is a Professor of Computer Science at Oxford University, and an Emeritus Professor Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 2013, Sir Tim, along with Vinton Cerf, Robert Kahn, Louis Pouzin and Marc Andreesen, was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering for "ground-breaking innovation in engineering that has been of global benefit to humanity."

In April 2017, Sir Tim was awarded the Turing Prize, considered the "Nobel Prize of Computing”. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science and the National Academy of Science. He has been the recipient of several honorary degrees and awards, most recently the Seoul Peace Prize in 2022 for his work promoting data sovereignty and leading the movement to “decentralize” the web.

Rika Nakazawa is a Digital Transformation veteran: she held executive roles in strategy, consulting, and marketing at companies such as Fortune 500, Accenture, NVIDIA, Sony, American Express, and Silicon Valley startups on Blockchain, Cybersecurity, and AI. She is Global Vice President at NTT, where she is working on building sustainable innovation practices for emerging technologies.

AI expert, serial entrepreneur, innovator, educator, bestselling author, as well as Silicon Valley veteran: Jerry Kaplan is one of the most prolific inventors of the last 35 years. He has founded several startups, two of which have gone public, registered a dozen patents and published more than 20 papers in academic journals. He is currently a lecturer and researcher at Stanford University.

Manuel Castells, a U.S. naturalized sociologist and politician, is a leading analyst of the digital revolution that has affected individual, social, and work dynamics worldwide. Today he is an ACC professor of Communication at the USC. He has been awarded the Balzan Prize for Sociology and has been Minister of Universities in the Spanish government.

Since 2018 S.E. Solvita Āboltiņa has been Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Latvia in Italy, San Marino, Malta and Albania, as well as Permanent Representative of Latvia at FAO. She has many years of experience in the diplomatic and political-institutional arena, having been Minister of Justice and Speaker of the Latvian Parliament twice.

David Hanson is a robot designer, founder and CEO of Hanson Robotics. David is the father of Robot Sophia, the world's most famous social robot android, that will be our co-host. His life long quest is to create true living, caring machines by combining visual arts, cognitive science, and robotic engineering. He has received several international awards from NASA and other major institutions.

Luisella Giani, EMEA Industry Transformation Director at Oracle, focuses her work in digital strategy and transformation. With a background in AI, she has worked with iconic brands like Skype and Netlog and assisted global companies in their digital transformations. She helps businesses continuously innovate and realize new digital experiences.

Chiara Putaturo is the inequality and tax policy advisor at the Oxfam EU office. She advocates for a fairer tax system and for the mainstreaming of equality in the EU development cooperation. She will present on the WMF MainStage the Oxfam report "Survival of the richest - How we must tax the super-rich now to fight inequality" which she has co-authored, exploring the crises affecting the world.

Nestor Maslej is a Research Manager at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI). His most important work is the AI Index which explores technical advancement, ethical concerns and policymaking about AI. Nestor has also testified to the Canadian Parliament on access to Information, Privacy and Ethics on the use and impact of facial recognition technology.

Sophia is the world's most advanced humanoid robot. Produced by Hong Kong company Hanson Robotics, it is able to converse naturally with humans, sense movements, and exhibit expressiveness. It is the first android in history to be granted citizen status, and the first non-human to receive a title from the United Nations, as "Innovation Champion.”

Pegasus Tech Ventures partner, entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Bill Reichert works with innovative companies in the fields of Al, quantum computing, healthtech, energytech, ed and fintech, such as Trademark Software and The Learning Company. He was a founder and president of the Churchill Club and a founder of the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs.

Alessandro Masala is an Italian content creator and creator of Breaking Italy, one of the most followed programs on YouTube Italia. He uses new media to develop innovative formats that mix information and show, becoming a popularizer in every respect. His is a multimedia project in which he tackles topics ranging from current events to foreign affairs, technology, politics and video games

Jan Björklund is the Ambassador of Sweden to Italy and San Marino and the Permanent Representative of Sweden to FAO, WFP and IFAD. After a long military career, he has been the leader of the Liberal Party for over 10 years. He has held many institutional positions, such as Deputy Mayor of Stockholm, Minister of Education and Research and Deputy Prime Minister.

Elena Malitskaya is Ukrainian Entrepreneur, Financier, and Investment Executive. She founded the Leading Accelerator in Ukraine and CEE ISE with a mission of building the future through great projects that create positive social change through education, technology, and innovation. She has managed PE Fund with USD 400m portfolio and she has received many international awards.

Jakidale, aka Jacopo D'Alesio and born '99, belongs to that elite of Internet users who managed to turn his passion into a job, with over 2million subscribers on Youtube. He builds the most unbelievable gimmicks, with his camera he explores the most extraordinary and fascinating places on the planet, always with that genuine curiosity with which he drags you along on the adventure.

Favij, aka Lorenzo Ostuni, was born in Borgaro Torinese on April 7, 1995. At the age of 4, he began to foster a passion for video games, inherited from his father. After graduating high school, he devoted himself completely to YouTube, quickly becoming the most watched channel in Italy, with more than 6 million subscribers, becoming a symbol of an whole generation.

Agnieszka Wykowska leads the unit “Social Cognition in Human-Robot Interaction” at IIT. She is President of ESCAN, member of ELLIS and member of Association of ERC Grantees. Delegate to the ERA Forum, in her research she combines cognitive neuroscience with human-robot interaction to understand the human brain mechanisms in interaction with natural and artificial agents.

Full professor of the Department of Computer Science at Bocconi University and researcher at the University of Oxford, Francesca Buffa is one of the world's leading biotechnology scientists. Her focus is on combining genomics and AI, putting the immense computational capabilities of AI at the service of analyzing biological data to find innovative cures.

Pablo Trincia is a journalist, TV host, podcaster and public speaker. After studying in African Languages and Literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, he began working with newspapers such as La Stampa, La Repubblica, and Panorama. In 2017 he was the first to bring the serial podcast to Italy, and today he is the creative director of Chora Media.

Stefano Quintarelli, creator of Spid and the Public Administration IT strategy, has made a fundamental contribution to the country's modernization process. He is member of the scientific committee of the Leonardo Foundation, of the Expert Group on AI of the EU Commission, the Steering Committee of the UN-SDSN, and chairman of AGAT for CEFACT for UN.

Tey ElRjula is a visionary entrepreneur, technologist, and author of Syrian origin who is dedicated to driving financial inclusion and social change. He has written the book "The Invisible Son", that sheds light on his experiences growing up amidst war and displacement, and how he has utilized technology and blockchain to empower individuals and challenge societal barriers.