Ognjen Rudovic
Bo Stjerne Thomsen
Bo Stjerne Thomsen is the Head of the Centre for Creativity, Play and Learning at the LEGO Foundation, responsible for the Foundation’s experience development, ambassador network, research partners and the research agenda on the long-term impact of children’s play on creativity and lifelong learning. Prior to the LEGO Foundation, Bo Stjerne was heading up the LEGO Learning Institute in the LEGO Group as part of the consumer insights and experience development
Bo Stjerne has a background in design, architecture and engineering, and owned a design consultancy for 8 years working in USA, Mexico, China, Middle East and Northern Europe with the development of architecture, design and integrated technologies to support creative communities. He obtained his PhD from Aalborg University on the role of interactive technologies in learning experiences, and was awarded an Elite Research Scholarship from the Danish Ministry of Science and Technology. Bo has been a visiting scholar at the MIT Media Lab in Boston, worked in the Danish Technological Institute with the design and development of integrated robotic systems.
Publio Arjona
Publio Arjona Díaz, born in Panama, studied, until he reached the university where, in the middle of his career as an engineer, his life changed to being quadriplegic (without neck movement down) due to a car accident. After overcoming many frustrations, difficulties and proposing new goals, he gets supported in the technology to develop professionally as a graphic designer creating his own company of Advertising and Corporate Image. Currently with his experience developing systems in Support Technology for People with Disabilities based on computers and different types of devices, he manages to reach a technical level that he uses in personal equipment and that he also shares with other people with reduced mobility.
Arletty Pinel
Dr. Arletty Pinel is Founder and CEO of Genos Global Consulting. She has navigated all aspects of global public health, from direct patient care to complex national and international policymaking to providing financial and technical support to countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Dr. Pinel is internationally known for her outstanding ability to develop strategies and find creative solutions to bridge global health, technology and development. Her professional trajectory encompasses leadership positions at major global organizations, such as: Director, Telemedicine and eHealth at iCarnegie, a subsidiary of Carnegie Mellon University; Chief, Reproductive Health at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA); and Founding Fund Portfolio Director for Latin America and Eastern Europe at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Dr. Pinel’s most recent project includes spearheading international efforts for designing digitally inclusive environments for aging and rehabilitation. Dr. Pinel holds a Medical Degree and is a certified Psychiatrist from the University of Sao Paulo.
Lisa Armstrong
Lisa Armstrong is a registered nurse and currently works as a nursing supervisor at the hospital in her hometown of Chanute, Kansas. She is also the founder and administrator of the NGO, Fellow Man
International of Honduras. For fourteen years, she lived and worked in the mountains of northcentral Honduras helping to assure access to comprehensive medical care for an impoverished population of more than 110,000 people. Her greatest joy and most prized title, however, is that of mom. She is the mother of two wonderful children, Jessica and Juan. Juan has ASD and is mostly non-verbal. A chance encounter with an article published from the proceedings of New Friends in 2015 profoundly and irrevocably changed Lisa’s and her children’s lives. Today, social robots have become an integral and indispensable part of daily life in the Armstrong home.