2025 Jury

Irini Papadimitriou is a curator and cultural manager, whose practice
draws on interdisciplinary and critical discourse to explore the impact of technology in society and culture, and the role of art in these conversations. Currently Director of Exhibitions at Diriyah Art Futures, she was previously Creative Director at FutureEverything, Digital Programmes Manager at the V&A and Head of New Media Arts Development at Watermans. In 2023 she was the Artistic Director for Busan Biennale’s Sea Art Festival. Recently curated exhibitions include: AI: Who’s Looking After Me? Science Gallery London; Flickering Shores, Sea Imaginaries, Sea Art Festival 2023, Busan; FutureFantastic, Bangalore; Plásmata: Bodies, Dreams, and Data and You and AI: Through the Algorithmic Lens, Onassis, Athens; [Digital] Transmissions, Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman; Artificially Intelligent, V&A.  Irini has served as a jury member for Prix Ars Electronica, Lumen Prize, EU STARTS and ACM Siggraph.

Veronica D’Souza is an award-winning social entrepreneur, multidisciplinary artist, speaker, and independent advisor working towards a regenerative, inclusive, and aspirational future. She is the founder of CARCEL, a pioneering fashion label that operated on principles of social impact and sustainability. CARCEL’s garments, crafted by women in prison in Thailand and Peru using 100% natural materials, provided valuable skills, paid employment, and opportunities for a better future. The brand’s commitment to ethical production and design earned it global recognition, including opening Copenhagen Fashion Week in 2020 and coverage in The New York Times, Vogue, Forbes, and i-D.

Veronica is also the co-founder of Ruby Cup, a social enterprise offering sustainable menstrual products to women and girls in East Africa and GEIST Agency, an independent consultancy, where Veronica collaborates with organizations to drive impactful strategies, communications, and business development for positive societal change. She is a Board Member of The Danish Design Council, Global Shaper alumni (World Economic Forum), and Board Member of The Soulfuls, and a jury member for the INDEX Award. Veronica is also a Humanity In Action Senior Fellow, and a UWC Adriatic alumnus and recipient of several awards such as EY Social Entrepreneur, Creative Business Cup, Elle Style Awards CSR Prize, Wessel and Wett Design Award.

Based in Copenhagen with Indian, East African, and Danish descent, Veronica has 15 years of experience spanning private companies, nonprofits, and impact ventures. Her career is marked by an intersectional approach to driving positive change, focusing on diversity, climate, and social justice, with a global footprint that includes East Africa, Latin America, Thailand, the US, and Europe. Proficient in Danish, English, Italian, and Spanish, Veronica holds a background in International Business and Politics from Copenhagen Business School and Executive Education in Social Entrepreneurship from INSEAD Singapore.

Thomas Gegenhuber is currently responsible for the topics innovation & economic affairs in the City government of Linz. He is also a professor on leave at the Linz Institute for Transformative Change at JKU Linz and a visiting professor Leuphana University Lüneburg. His professional and academic interests include topics such as (open) social innovation, digital and sustainable transformation, and new forms of organizing.

Francesca Bria is an innovation economist working at the intersection of technology, geopolitics, and society. She is Honorary Professor at UCL’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose and a Senior Fellow at Stiftung Mercator in Berlin, where she leads the EuroStack Initiative on Europe’s digital sovereignty (euro-stack.info).

She advises the European Commission and chairs the New European Bauhaus Expert Group to help advance Europe’s Green Deal. She is also a member of Spain’s International Council on Artificial Intelligence. Previously, she served as President of Italy’s National Innovation Fund (CDP Venture Capital), was a board member of RAI, and held the role of Chief Digital Technology and Innovation Officer for the City of Barcelona (2015–2019), where she led the city’s digital transformation and participatory democracy initiatives.

Francesca founded the EU’s flagship DECODE project on data sovereignty and co-founded the United Nations Cities Coalition for Digital Rights. She has advised governments, the UN, and international organizations on innovation policy and its socio-economic and environmental impacts.

She has been recognized by Forbes, Apolitical, Politico, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and was awarded the title of Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

Asako Tomura is General Manager of Content Technology & Alliance Group, HQ Technology Strategy Division of Sony Group Corporation. After earning master’s degrees in chemistry and media arts, she began her career in advertising at Shiseido. She joined Sony Corporation in 2001 and oversaw the launch of the digital content distribution business for film and animation at Sony Pictures Entertainment (Japan) and Aniplex, Inc. She then served as Head of CSR Innovation at Sony headquarters, where she collaborated with international NGOs on projects using technology to address social issues. Since 2016, she has overseen advanced content development, entertainment technology promotion, and sustainability technology strategy. In addition, she served as the planning director for Ars Electronica 2021 Garden TOKYO and as a jury member for the European Commission’s STARTS Prize 2022. She is also an advisor for the Project to Support Emerging Media Arts Creators, Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan, 2017-2025. Since 2021, she is a Visiting Researcher at the Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies at the University of Tokyo.

Rosario Talevi, born in Buenos Aires in 1983, is a Berlin-based architect, curator, editor and educator interested in critical spatial practice (Rendell) and transformative pedagogies. Her work advances architecture as a form of agency – in its transformative sense and in its capacity for acting otherwise (Schneider) and as a form of care – one that provides the political stakes to repair our broken world (Tronto). Rosario is a graduate of the School of Architecture, Design & Urbanism at the University of Buenos Aires and has held teaching and research positions at various universities (Universidad de Buenos Aires, Technische Universität Berlin, Universität der Künste Berlin, Freie Universität Bolzano). She was a visiting professor for Social Design (2021-22) at the University of Fine Arts (HFBK) in Hamburg. She is a founding member of Floating University and Soft Agency. In 2022 she was a fellow at the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles, California. She speaks about her practice internationally, in both institutional and non-institutional contexts, and her work and writing has been widely published. Single mother of Florentina Talevi (born 2003).

Jussi Parikka is Professor in Digital Aesthetics and Culture at Aarhus University, Denmark as well as (visiting) research professor at University of Southampton. Founding co-director of the Environmental Media and Aesthetics research program at Aarhus University, he has worked extensively on environmental media, history of technology and science, as well as on various interdisciplinary topics , not least on media archaeology. Some of his books include Insect Media: An Archaeology of Animals and Technology (2010), A Geology of Media (2015), and Operational Images (2023). He has co-authored such books as The Lab Book (2022) and Living Surfaces (2023) as well as worked in various editorial roles. Over the past years Parikka has been active as a curator too, including collaborations such as the Weather Engines and Climate Engines exhibitions (with Daphne Dragona), as well as serving on the curatorial team of Helsinki Biennial 2023, as well as transmediale 2023. He is currently a board member of the transmediale festival in digital art and culture as well as serving on the advisory board of the LG & Guggenheim initiative on art and technology. Parikka’s books have been translated into 12 languages.

Starting her career in Sydney as a banker, Deborah Rey-Burns later pivoted in London to become a cultural entrepreneur and the founder of Propela, an innovative speaking agency globally known for its commitment to frontier thinking. With a mission to bridge the gap between the creative sector and the business world, Deborah established the British agency over a decade ago. Propela’s roster features a selection of international innovators who have been keynote speakers at major conferences, Fortune 500 companies, and leading brands. Among Propela’s clients are Neil Harbisson, the world’s first Cyborg, along with Oscar-nominated set designers Katie Spencers and Sarah Greenwood (Barbie), artist and technologist James Bridle, Designer Dr. Nelly Ben Hayoun, Speculative Architect Liam Young, Bas Van Abel, the founder of Fairphone, a world leader in sustainability and ethics, and Dr. Sian Proctor, the world’s first black female spaceship pilot. Beyond Propela, Deborah has curated programs for institutions such as the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Design Council’s COP26 conference, along with organisations such as Google, Airbnb, and Spotify. Furthermore, she has founded ReDesign Business and The Future Of_, two conference brands dedicated to showcasing art, creativity, innovation, and business.

Known as the ‘Abogamer’, Micaela Mantegna is a video game lawyer and activist who is internationally renowned for her expertise in digital ethics, extended reality (XR) policy, and the complex relationship between artificial intelligence, creativity, and copyright law. In 2022, Micaela was chosen for the prestigious TED Fellowship, and her TED talk on the metaverse earned 1.5M+ views globally. Currently she is an affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University, while also serving on Chatham House’s Responsible AI Taskforce, the World Economic Forum’s Metaverse Council, and the Scientific Committee of UAMetaverse Chair, positions that highlight Micaela as a global thought leader in Generative AI, ethics, videogames and metaverse policy. As a keynote speaker, she has presented across the globe in conferences like GDC, TED, GamesBeat Summit, Ada Lovelace Festival,  Vancouver Biennale, More Than Just a Game, RightsCon, DLD, Internet Freedom Festival, and many more, in over 28 countries. Author of “ARTficial: creativity, AI and copyright” (2022) and the upcoming “Braindancing in the Metaverse: a capitalism of cognitive surveillance” (2024), her work explores in depth the implications of digital capitalism, at the intersections of intellectual property, AI, art, and ethics. She earned the 2017 Google Policy Fellowship for her work creating an algorithmic governance framework. Her work and insights have been featured in outlets like The Verge, WIRED, and Le Monde. Micaela curates the popular Substack newsletter “This week in the #Metaverse”, offering weekly insights into the latest trends and policy developments on the metaverse, AI, neurotech, crypto and gaming.

Alex Quicho is a theorist and research director in London. Her practice incorporates critical writing, performative lectures, and moving image, with a focus on how emerging technologies warp social reality and vice-versa. Her work has been featured in Wired, Frieze, Dazed, Vogue, Spike, The Face, MIT Technology Review, and more. Alex collaborates with arts institutions including Singapore Art Museum, Power Station of Art Shanghai, Julia Stoschek Collection, Fondation Pernod-Ricard, Rennie Museum, and Nationalgalerie Berlin. She teaches narrative theory for MA Narrative Environments at Central Saint Martins, and studied Critical Writing at the Royal College of Art.

Yun-Cheng Chen (Lucky) is an artivist and strategist specializing in creative institutionalization and digital innovation, reshaping cultural and nonprofit organizations with strategic foresight. He led the transformation of a struggling nonprofit dance company into a resilient, 17-member performing arts cooperative within six months. Additionally, he is deeply engaged in Guishan Island’s relocation controversy, collaborating with local communities and the whale-watching industry to integrate participatory democracy, SDGs governance, and blockchain technology in building a marine cultural database and the digital twin of Guishan Island. Through this initiative, he aims to foster non-anthropocentric, regenerative economies, facilitating sustainable transitions in remote communities through commoning. As a connector across industry, government, academia, and communities/DAOs, he currently serves as the Strategy Director of Les Petites Choses Production and Seabelongings, while actively contributing to g0v. His expertise in performing arts, deliberative democracy, regional revitalization, and digital transformation has earned him key roles in leading impactful projects since 2016. Many of these projects have received international awards and have been showcased in Singapore, France, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Germany, the UK, and Japan.

Behnaz Farahi is an award-winning designer and critical maker working at the intersection of fashion, architecture and interactive design. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor at the MIT Media Lab where she leads the Critical Matter research group. Trained as an architect, Farahi’s work focuses on fostering empathetic relationships between the human body and its surrounding environment. For this she draws upon emerging technologies and morphological and behavioral principles inspired by natural systems. Her projects  address critical issues such as feminism, emotion, bodily perception, and social interaction. She specializes in computational design, interactive technologies, additive manufacturing, and digital fabrication technologies. Farahi is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum Digital Design Award, Innovation by Design Fast Company Award, and the World Technology Award. She has co-edited ‘Interactive Design: Towards a Responsive Environment’ (Birkhäuser Verlag, 2023) and ‘3D Printed Body Architecture’ (Wiley, 2017). Her work has been included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. It has also been exhibited internationally at Ars Electronica, Linz and Context Art Miami, SIGGRAPH, La Piscine Museum in France and A+D Architecture and Design Museum in LA. It has also been featured in several magazines and online websites including WIRED, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, Frame Magazine, and many more.

Kamya Ramachandran, Founder-Director of BeFantastic, spearheads pioneering initiatives at the intersection of technology, art, and societal impact. With a dynamic career spanning the UK, USA, India and currently Singapore, she orchestrates experiments in transdisciplinary pedagogy focusing on pressing issues like emerging technology on the one hand and climate change on the other. She helms this nascent field for South and South East Asia with deep experience in strategic curation and thoughtful execution of programs including Fellowships and a marquee Festival series in Bangalore India.

Dreaming Beyond AI (DBAI) is a collective and platform that critically explores the intersections of technology, marginalization, and imagination. Using AI as a portal, DBAI curates visionary fiction, speculative art, and community-driven discourse to challenge dominant narratives and center feminist, decolonial, and care-driven perspectives. The core team consists of Sarah Diedro Jordão, Iyo Bisseck and Nushin Yazdani. DBAI was created in collaboration with ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen. Shaped by artists, researchers, writers, activists, designers, scientists, and community organizers, DBAI examines the social impact of technologies. Through two residencies, it investigates AI’s influence on temporality and our experience of time while fostering artist-activist coalition-building. Influenced by feminist thinkers and movements, DBAI seeks to de-center technology, reimagine futures, and cultivate experimental spaces for resistance, solidarity, and radical possibility.

Christian Rauch is the director of Berlin Science Week, one of Europe’s largest science festivals, and the founder of the art-science initiative STATE. As a Ph.D. physicist and an expert in innovative collaborations between science, art, and society, he advises companies, research institutions, foundations, and the public sector on transformation processes. He is a lecturer at the European Center for Executive Education and a Responsible Leader at the BMW Foundation.

Tere Badia is an art historian and cultural strategist with an MA in Information and Knowledge Society from the IN3 (Internet Interdisciplinary Institute) at the UOC. With a career spanning analytical research, policy development, cultural management and curation and cross-sectoral collaboration, she specialises in the intersection of art, science, technology, networks and cultural rights.  She directed Hangar (Barcelona’s centre for artistic production and research) and served as Secretary-General of Culture Action Europe in Brussels, contributing to cultural policies at a European level. She is now leading HacTe—Barcelona’s Hub of Art, Science, and Technology— to promote experimentation and knowledge creation at the intersection of these fields.