Dr. Khizer Khaderi

Stanford professor and founder of Symbiotics

Dr. Khizer Khaderi is a Clinical Associate Professor at the Byers Eye Institute at Stanford University. Khaderi is the Founding Director of the Stanford Human Perception Laboratory (HPL) and the Stanford Vision Performance Center (VPC). He also serves as faculty at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI and the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance (HPA).

Khaderi is a renowned Neuro-Ophthalmic surgeon, technologist and futurist. Dr. Khaderi is pioneering the field of Symbiotics, defined as the convergence of human science + computer science. Khaderi developed the discipline of Symbiotics following initial interest from CS students interested in his research at the Stanford Human Perception Lab. Symbiotics involves a deep understanding in the principles of human systems and applying these principles computationally, to design and develop the next generation of human-centric technologies, where machines perceive, understand and respond to optimize the human experience. Dr. Khaderi envisions the application of Symbiotic principles as the key to unlocking ambient intelligence.

Khaderi has extensive domain expertise in artificial intelligence (AI), spatial computing (virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MxR)), wearables, gaming, IoT, Web3, applied neuroscience, human factors, and human-machine interfaces/interaction. His research interests include developing personalized human intelligent systems based on the human brain and sensory systems, developing technologies to optimize human performance, and combining biological and computational principles to expand our capabilities in research, clinical practice, and everyday life. Dr. Khaderi's approach to advance research interests and develop practical applications for everyday use is building technology, companies and collaborative partnerships across academia and industry.

Dr. Khaderi’s experience across industry sectors include consumer electronics, gaming, retail, life science, sports/Esports health care, Pharma, e-commerce, to name a few. He has developed novel technologies in these areas, and generated multiple invention patents. Selected as a “40 under 40”, he contributed to President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology regarding vision technology and the aging population. He also advises multiple companies, venture firms and organizations including Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Riot Games, Intel, Activision, Unity, Epic Games, NBA, Glaukos, the Global Esports Federation, the World Health Organization, the International Olympic Committee, the International Telecommunication Union, and the World Bank.

HRH Prince Faisal Bin Bandar Al Saud

Chairman of Saudi Esports Federation, Vice Chairman Savvy Games Group

His Royal Highness Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Sultan is the Chairman of the Saudi Esports Federation (SEF), the Arab Esports Federation, and GCC Esports Federation. He is also the President of the International Esports Federation (IeSF). As well as the Vice Chairman of Savvy Games Group since its establishment.

Under his leadership, the federation quickly grew the range of its activities to become the leading Saudi entity in charge of growing the National Gaming and Esports Strategy. Initially, the federation focused on providing gamers with platforms to become athletes. Now, Saudi Esports lives at the center of the Saudi Esports ecosystem, to open doors and enable all that want to grow it.

His vision for the federation is to create an impact that generates a ripple effect, evolving sectors and services that were traditionally thought to be unrelated to Esports.

He moved the federation from its original model of one-time large events to a sustainable and long-lasting model of creating IPs that will grow with time and provide a stable career path in the many disciplines that surround professional competitive gaming.

As a result, today the Saudi Esports Federation is seen as the subject matter expert in gaming and esports that is coordinating government action, guiding investors, and providing gamers with platforms to compete and socialize in Saudi Arabia.

Dr. Mehmood Khan

Chief Executive Officer of Hevolution Foundation

Dr. Mehmood Khan’s distinguished career has included several senior corporate roles, including Vice Chairman and Chief Scientific Officer of Global Research and Development at PepsiCo, and President of Global R&D at Takeda Pharmaceuticals.

Before moving into the private sector Dr. Khan was a faculty member in endocrinology at the Mayo Clinic and Medical School, where he served as Director of the Diabetes, Endocrine and Nutritional Trials Unit. He also led programs in diabetes, endocrinology, metabolism, and nutrition in Minneapolis.

Dr. Khan is a member of the Board of Directors of Reckitt Benckiser and of the Saudi Research, Development, and Innovation Authority (RDIA), a member of the Saudi National Biotechnology Strategy Steering Committee, and Steering Committee, past Chairman of the Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology of the United States’ National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and past Executive Chairman of Life Biosciences.

Dr. Khan earned his medical degree from the University of Liverpool School of Medicine, England, and completed a fellowship in clinical endocrinology and nutrition in the Department of Medicine and Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London, a Fellow of the American College of Endocrinology, and an Elected Fellow in the Department of Pharmacology at University of Oxford.

Kevin J. Anderson

International Speaker, Bestselling Author, Publisher WordFire Press, Creative Consultant

Kevin J. Anderson has published more than 190 books, fifty-eight of which have been national or international bestsellers. He has written numerous novels in the Star Wars, X-Files, and Dune universes, as well as the unique Clockwork Angels steampunk trilogy with legendary Rush drummer Neil Peart. His original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series, the Wake the Dragon and Terra Incognita fantasy trilogies, humorous Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. series and The Dragon Business series.

He has 24 million copies in print in thirty-four languages. He has edited numerous anthologies, written comics and games, and composed the lyrics to three rock albums. Anderson is the director of the graduate program in Publishing at Western Colorado University, and he and his wife Rebecca Moesta are the publishers of WordFire Press. In his lifelong goal of combining science and stories, he has an undergrad degree in Physics/Astronomy from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Lindenwood University.

He worked on the recent films Dune: Part One and Part Two from Legendary Entertainment, as well as the HBO series Dune: Prophecy, which is based on his novel Sisterhood of Dune (with Brian Herbert).

His most recent novels are Nether Station, Horn Dogs, Persephone, and Princess of Dune (with Brian Herbert).

Dr. Steffen Sommer

Director General, Misk Schools

Polyglot and High Performance Learning expert, Dr Sommer has over 25 years’ school leadership experience across Europe and the Middle East. He joined Misk Schools in 2022 from Doha College, where he was Principal for seven years. He has led top international schools in The Hague, Paris, and Lausanne, and was Head of Languages at Rugby School, one of the UK’s top independent boarding schools. Dr Sommer is active on the world education stage, is Vice Chair, COBIS and was named one of The PIE’s 50 Voices 2025 – International Schools Edition. He holds a PhD in Translation Studies.

Emal Dusst

Managing Director and Head of ETS Capital

Emal Dusst is a global education executive and investor with extensive experience building and scaling education and workforce companies globally. He serves as Managing Director and Head of ETS Capital, managing a portfolio of over 15 leading education investments worldwide, and previously was a senior investment professional at Sterling Partners, a prominent global private equity firm specializing in education and workforce investing. He helped found Cintana Education, a global education platform established with Arizona State University and now operating in over 25 countries, and has served on boards of major educational companies including Coursera (NASDAQ: COUR), the world’s largest online education platform. Emal is a contributing author at Brookings on education and a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Eric Iverson

Partner & Chief Technology Officer (CTO) @ United Talent Agency

Eric has a proven track record of leading strategic, imaginative, and global-scale delivery projects in various roles, such as the Chief Technologist for Media & Entertainment at AWS, the CIO/CTO for CAA, and the CIO for Sony Pictures Television. Eric also successfully managed mergers and acquisitions, organizational change, personnel development, and cybersecurity. My skills and expertise include OTT, SVOD, production technology, IPM, MDM, ERP, AI & Data Sciences, blockchain, sports, and music.

Aarti Tandon

CEO of Smart City Expo USA

Aarti Tandon is the CEO of Smart City Expo USA where she convenes global leaders, government officials, CEOs, NGOs, and top innovators harnessing AI, big data, blockchain, and the $1.6 trillion global smart city marketplace to build future-ready, globally competitive, and sustainable 21st century cities. A seasoned lawyer, filmmaker, and producer, Aarti has been working at the intersection of entertainment + technology + justice for two decades. She is most well-known for having secured a rare Presidential Commutation at just 33 years old.

Aarti began her career as an information technology lawyer and then a decade in media and entertainment representing Grammy-nominated artists, filmmakers, magazine publishers, and more. She worked with India’s leading events company, Wizcraft, and oversaw the tours of the world’s most famous Bollywood stars. She has organized high-level delegations for the U.S. State Department in advance of the 2014 World Cup, consulted for Derek Jeter’s The Players’ Tribune, and worked on will.i.am’s sustainable joint venture with Coca-Cola, EKOCYCLE. Aarti facilitated the City of Columbia, SC giving Jay-Z a key to the city, and José Andrés’s World Central Kitchen feeding the most vulnerable in Augusta, GA during the pandemic. Most recently, served as Head of Strategic Partnerships for will.i.am’s AI platform, fyi.ai.

Dan Schwartz

Dean of the Graduate School of Education and the Nomellini & Olivier Professor of Educational Technology Graduate School of Education

Daniel L. Schwartz is the I. James Quillen Dean and the Nomellini & Olivier Professor of Educational Technology at Stanford Graduate School of Education. He is also the Halper Family Faculty Director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, a major university-wide interdisciplinary initiative advancing the science and design of learning to bring effective and equitable solutions to the world. An expert in human learning and educational technology, Schwartz also oversees a laboratory that creates pedagogy, technology, and assessments that prepare students to continue learning and adapting throughout their lifetimes. He has taught math in rural Kenya, English in south-central Los Angeles and multiple subjects in Kaltag, Alaska. He is author of "The ABCs of How We Learn: 26 Scientifically Proven Approaches, How They Work, and When to Use Them" and the co-host of the GSE podcast, "School's In."

John Tomik

Managing Director of Slalom Element Labs

Slalom Element Labs is an innovation group exploring the intersection of emerging technology and human experience. His work spans AI, robotics, digital humans, and smart systems—all grounded in solving real-world challenges. He has led visionary projects with partners ranging from first responders to futurists, always asking: how can we design a future that works better for everyone? At Symbiotic Summit, John brings insights from Hollywood sci-fi and hands-on innovation to explore the ethics and opportunities of human-machine collaboration.

Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg

Professor and Chair of Ophthalmology and Director of the Byers Eye Institute at Stanford University

Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg is Professor and Chair of Ophthalmology and Director of the Byers Eye Institute at Stanford University, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine. His clinical effort is focused on patients in need of medical or surgical intervention for glaucoma and other retinal and optic nerve diseases, as well as cataract. His research is directed at neuroprotection and regeneration of retinal ganglion cells and the optic nerve, a major unmet need in glaucoma and other optic neuropathies, and his laboratory is developing novel molecular, stem cell and nanotherapeutics approaches for eye repair.

Tara Graham

Executive Director, CrunchLabs.org and Head of Class CrunchLabs

Tara is the Executive Director at CrunchLabs.org, where she leads the launch of Class CrunchLabs, a free curriculum resource designed for the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and delivered by viral YouTuber Mark Rober. With over 15 years of experience at the intersection of education, technology, and media, Tara has led product and business line development at both public and private edtech companies. She is the recipient of Fast Company’s ‘2022 World Changing Ideas’ award for a curriculum sharing marketplace her team launched at the height of the COVID pandemic to support higher ed faculty and students. Her early career spanned higher education instruction and curriculum development at UC Berkeley, as well as founding roles in digital journalism and media startups.

Steven Le

Stanford Human Perception Lab, HPL Alumni, Symbioticist

Steven Le is a Design Engineer at Snap Inc., where he develops augmented reality experiences for the Spectacles platform. He holds both a Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Computer Science from Stanford University, specializing in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Steven is a 6x hackathon winner, earning prestigious prizes at Stanford and MIT. His work focuses on translating the principles of HCI and AI into real-world applications in augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), advancing the way humans interact with spatial computing systems. He develops interdisciplinary projects at the intersection of health, cognition, and interactive media. At Stanford, Steven was the first student to work under Dr. Khizer Khaderi in the pioneering field of Symbiotics, the convergence of human and computer sciences. As part of the inaugural Symbiotics cohort, he contributed to early research exploring the integration of perceptual science and intelligent systems to enhance human performance.

Mohan Reddy

Associate Director of Technology at the Stanford Human Perception Lab, Symbioticist

Associate Director of Technology at the Stanford Human Perception Lab, Mohan Reddy, is a distinguished expert in computational neuroscience, specializing in human-machine perception and holding over 20 patents in Machine Learning, Deep Learning, scalable systems, and robotics. As Chief Scientist at Innovation Labs, CSOD, Mohan has successfully founded eight startups and exited three startups and managed three venture funds, creating billions of dollars in value throughout his 28-year career. His leadership roles at Zynga, IBM, Schlumberger, and Expedia/Travelocity/Sabre enabled the development of technology platforms supporting hundreds of millions of users and trillions of daily transactions. Mohan's academic background includes degrees in Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, computational finance, and advanced studies in computational neuroscience, making him a sought-after speaker and lecturer at prestigious institutions.

Kevin Tran

Associate Director of Operations at the Stanford Human Perception Lab, Symbioticist

Kevin Tran is the Associate Director of Operations at the Stanford Human Perception Lab. He recently graduated from Stanford University with dual degrees: a B.S. in Psychology with a concentration in Neuroscience and an M.S. in Computer Science specializing in Artificial Intelligence.

Kevin brings a unique blend of deep industry and research experience to the field of Symbiotics. Beginning in high school, he has spent four years at Google, where he currently develops internal infrastructure for the Office of the CTO. His interdisciplinary research includes publishing work on simulated neurodegeneration, presented at prestigious conferences at MIT and in Washington, D.C., and building a state-of-the-art sentiment analysis tool for Stanford’s Culture and Emotion Lab. He also co-founded a startup that achieved an $8 million valuation.

As part of the inaugural group of Symbiotics students, his work at the HPL now focuses on creating robust applications that enable the rapid processing and integration of biometric data from wearable sensors with psychometric data. Furthermore, he is creating a foundational AI trained on Symbiotics data to accelerate research and guide the next generation of students in the field.