Dr. Naveed Sherwani is a world-renowned semiconductor expert, entrepreneur, and leader in chip design. He holds a PhD in computer engineering from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and his career spans academia, industry leadership, and entrepreneurship. Early in his career, he served as a professor at Western Michigan University before joining Intel in 1994, where he focused on design automation for complex chips.

Dr. Sherwani has founded or co-founded numerous influential semiconductor companies, including Open-Silicon, Brite Semiconductor, PeerNova, and Rapid Silicon. His ventures have been instrumental in advancing semiconductor technology, raising over $1 billion in funding across these projects. A key figure in the RISC-V movement, he has led the growth of companies like SiFive and SemiFive, contributing to the global rise of RISC-V technology.

In addition to his leadership roles in the private sector, Dr. Sherwani is the Chairman of the National Semiconductor Hub of the Kingdom, where he works on fostering innovation and semiconductor advancements at a national level. He continues to influence the global semiconductor landscape through his contributions to the RISC-V ecosystem and domain-specific FPGA innovations at Rapid Silicon.

Dr. Sherwani has authored multiple textbooks, including the widely-used “Algorithms for VLSI Physical Design Automation,” and has published over 125 technical papers. His leadership in both academia and the industry has earned him numerous accolades, including the Sitara-e-Quaid-e-Azam awarded by the President of Pakistan in 2019.

A Semiconductor industry veteran with over three decades of experience in semiconductor manufacturing and capital equipment companies, holding various engineering and leadership positions at Texas Instruments, Micron Technology and KLA Corporation. Frequent keynote speaker at industry events and featured in several technical publications, awarded with VLSI Semiconductor All Star in 2020. Oreste is currently Senior Advisor at KLA, imec, KronosAI, AlixPartners, and ISIG and he serves the board of Aion Silicon and Synergie CAD group as independent director. Oreste earned his master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University La Sapienza in Rome, Italy

Dr. Mohammed Tmimi is a strategy and market research consultant specializing in semiconductors, with a focus on supporting investment decisions. He earned his Ph.D. while working at STMicroelectronics, where he gained hands-on experience in advanced semiconductor design. He has deep insights into the semiconductor industry from his role as a technology and market analyst at Yole Développement, where he strengthened his expertise in the semiconductor and deep-tech sectors. As a former corporate development/investment specialist at AAC Technologies (listed in HK), he specialized in analyzing inorganic growth opportunities, researching and evaluating technologies and companies in semiconductors sectors.

Chloe Jian Ma is Chief Business Officer at EPIC Semi, leading global partnerships, strategy, and go-to-market to build a KSA-rooted silicon portfolio for AI deployment from cloud to edge. A veteran of Arm, Intel, Mellanox, SiFive as well as tenure in networking system companies including Cisco System and Juniper Networks, she blends deep technical fluency (AI/ML, silicon, systems, robotics) with commercial execution. At Arm she led Edge AI & Robotics GTM and ecosystem growth; at Intel and Mellanox she drove cloud compute and networking solution marketing across the Super 7 hyperscalers. A frequent keynote speaker and recognized industry voice, Chloe holds an MBA from Wharton and an MSEE from USC.

Steve Stoffels is an entrepreneur and technology leader with over 20 years of experience in deep-tech, medtech and integrated photonics. He is CEO and co-founder of Aluvia Photonics, the world’s first company dedicated to aluminum oxide photonic integrated circuits, advancing applications in telecommunications, quantum computing, AR/VR, healthcare, and AI data centers. Previously, he founded and served as CTO of Pulsify Medical, developing wearable ultrasound for continuous organ monitoring. Steve holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, an M.Sc. in Applied Physics (Magna Cum Laude), and was a visiting scholar at Stanford University. He is inventor on 10+ patents, author of 150+ papers, contributor to the European roadmap for power semiconductors, and a frequent invited speaker.

Aly Mashaly is the Founder and CEO of Verotera, a German company pioneering next-generation power semiconductor technologies. With over 20 years of experience in power electronics, Aly is a renowned expert in power electronic systems and semiconductors. He holds several patents in the field and is a keynote speaker at numerous international conferences.

Aly earned his degree in Electrical Engineering with a focus on Power Electronics from Ain Shams University in Cairo and moved to Germany in 2002 to pursue his master’s degree at the University of Hanover.

He began his career pioneering the development of power electronic systems for avionic applications before focusing on advancing power electronics for electric mobility. In his most recent role as Technical Director at ROHM Semiconductor Europe, he played a key role in driving the company’s vision to become a global leader in power devices and contributed to growing the business through multi-billion-dollar projects.

Dr. Giorgia Longobardi, founder and CEO of Cambridge GaN Devices (CGD), is an accomplished engineer and business leader with nearly two decades of experience in power semiconductors and high-efficiency power electronics. As the inventor of several high-impact patents in GaN power devices, she combines deep technical expertise with strong commercial acumen—one of her greatest strengths.

Driven by curiosity and a passion for making a positive impact, Giorgia founded CGD to bring advanced, energy-efficient power electronics solutions to market. She now leads a diverse team of 60+ employees across Europe, Asia, the US, and Canada. Under her leadership, CGD has raised over $65 million in private and public investment and launched multiple GaN-based power device products into mass production. Her vision includes one day driving an electric vehicle powered by CGD technology and using ICeGaN to help make AI more sustainable by reducing its environmental footprint.

Giorgia serves on the Energy Management Committee of the Power Sources Manufacturers Association (PSMA) and the Advisory Board of the International Semiconductor Industry Group (I.S.I.G.).

Kieran Harney is CEO of sensiBel, a deep tech optical MEMS company. He has worked in the MEMS industry for over 30 years with over 20 years in the MEMS microphone business. He has held senior management positions at Analog Devices, InvenSense and TDK.

Kieran joined Analog Devices in 1986 in Ireland as a semiconductor packaging engineer. He was engineering manager in ADI Philippines for three years and then joined the ADI MEMS group in Cambridge Massachusetts in 1997 with responsible for assembly and test operations for MEMS accelerometers and gyroscopes. In 2004 he started a successful MEMS microphone product line that was sold to Invensense in 2013. He held senior management roles in Invensense and TDK in the MEMS microphone group.

He joined sensiBel in 2022 and served as COO before becoming CEO in 2025.
Kieran is from Limerick Ireland and has a Bachelor of Engineering and MBA from the University of Limerick.