White Paper Executive Summary

Jeff Bullwinkel
Associate General Counsel and Director of Corporate, External & Legal Affairs, Microsoft Europe

Yiannos Tolias
Legal Officer
European Commission’s DG SANTE

Meni Styliadou
VP Distinguished Fellow, Data Science Institute, Takeda
Founder & Co-Lead, H2O

Jeroen Tas
Director Gaia-X

Heidi Beate Bentzen
Researcher at the Centre for Medical Ethics, University of Oslo
WP8 Advisory Group Member, TEHDAS

Julian Isla
Chairman and Co-founder, Foundation 29

Elena Bonfiglioli
Regional Business Leader Health and Life Sciences EMEA, Microsoft

Elisa Ficarra
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia

Francis D’Silva 
Director, CGI Norge

Ricard Martinez Martinez
Director of the Chair of Privacy and Digital Transformation, University of Valencia

Bleddyn Rees
Chair at The Digital Health Society

Andrea Puligheddu
Privacy & Information Security| Lawyer – SLP

Emanuele Baglini
Former CTO at Pillo Health

Stefano Sedola
Partner and founder, StratejAI

Andrea Pescino
Partner and founder, StratejAI

Jeff Bullwinkel

Since July 2017, Jeff Bullwinkel assumed role of associate general counsel and director of corporate, external and legal affairs at Microsoft. Bullwinkel’s role includes providing astute legal, corporate affairs and community affairs support for Microsoft’s regional sales, marketing and services organisation. He is also responsible for managing regional enforcement strategies developed to address internet safety and cybercrime attacks, intellectual property protection and compliance issues.

In his previous Microsoft role he served as associate general counsel and director of corporate external and legal affairs, for Asia Pacific and Japan. Prior to his 18 years at Microsoft, Bullwinkel served as a trial attorney within the US Department of Justice Criminal Division, holding responsibility for bilateral and multilateral efforts to promote international collaboration in connection with criminal matters.

Yiannos Tolias

Yiannos is a legal lead on AI and AI liability in Healthcare in the European Commission (DG for Health and Food Safety). He works in the team that developed the European Health Data Space (EHDS) legislative initiative. He is also a member of the EC teams that developed the AI Act and developing the EU liability frameworks.  He was a Senior Emile Noel Fellow at NYU Law School carrying out research on machine learning in medicine and law (particular focus on AI liability).

 Prior to joining the European Commission he was an Assistant Professor of EU law at the Universities of Edinburgh and Dundee. He holds a Ph.D. in EU Constitutional law from the University of Edinburgh and was a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (Edinburgh University).  

Meni Styliadou

Meni is the Founder and Project Leader of the H2O, a public private partnership among 23 organisations funded through the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI). The goal of the H2O is to set up independent entities in 4 countries that equip patients with digital tools to monitor their outcomes in a standardised manner while being in control of their data.
Meni joined Takeda on the 1^st of October 2015 as VP Public Policy and Government Affairs for Europe & Canada (EUCAN). Her focus has been to help Takeda take advantage of public policy trends and create win-win business models for society and the company. In this context, Meni has been pioneering the creation of a PPP between the healthcare industry, healthcare providers and public sector to leverage digital technologies in order to create transparency of health outcomes and improve efficiencies in healthcare.
Prior to joining Takeda, Meni worked for 9 years for Novartis in several roles in public policy and ethical leadership. Prior to that, Meni held a number of international positions in both the public and private sectors focusing on how to accelerate broadband in Europe and how to create a public policy environment that would allow Europe to enter successfully into the digital era.
Meni started her career in the European Commission in 1991 as a legal expert focusing on telecom law and policy. She studied law in Greece and Belgium and she specialised in anti-trust law.

Jeroen Tas

Jeroen is the former Chief Innovation & Strategy Officer of Royal Philips, responsible for the digital transformation of the company. He is an entrepreneur who co-founded and grown Mphasis to a S billion+ company. When leading Citi’s tech lab in the nineties his team was the first to launch internet banking and global consumer payment systems.  He won several IT industry awards (2004 E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Information technology category for the New York region, Dutch CIO of the year 2013 Award, NASSCOM Global CIO Award 2014, the World Innovation Congress 2014 CIO Leadership Award, CIONet European CIO of 2014 Award, IT Executive 2014 Award and the Accenture 2015 Innovator of the Year award). Currently he is investing and supporting ventures in the technology space.

Heidi Bentzen

Heidi Bentzen is a Researcher in law at the Centre for Medical Ethics at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, and an Academic Affiliate at the HeLEX Centre for Health, Law and Emerging Technologies, University of Oxford. She researches the legal regulation of large scale health and genetic data sharing and secondary use both within and outside the EU/EEA. Bentzen was a member of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy’s Task Force on privacy and the protection of health data, and was part of drafting the global Recommendation on the protection and use of health-related data. Bentzen provides legal advice on international data transfers to the Cancer Registry of Norway, co-chairs the legal working group of the Nordic Society of Human Genetics and Precision Medicine, is Bioethics Advisor for four medical Horizon 2020 financed research projects, and is on the advisory board of two further EU funded projects, including TEHDAS WP8 on Citizens’ data sharing attitudes and awareness.

Julian Isla

Julian Isla is Resource Manager for Artificial Intelligence group in Microsoft Consulting Services. He is software engineer by training and has 28 years of experience working on international IT companies. He has experience helping customers on digital transformation and leveraging the capacity or artificial intelligence to move organizations into automation. He is also co-founder of Foundation 29, a NPO focused on how artificial intelligence can empower people to make decisions about their own health, based on the evidence provided by data and supported by automated interpretation systems.
Julian is also the Chief Scientific Officer of the European Dravet Syndrome Federation, an European organization of patients with Dravet Syndrome. Julian is the father of Sergio, a young boy thirteen years old who has Dravet Syndrome.   Despite of not having a neuroscience or medical background he gained the skills to be member of the Orphan Drug Committee at European Medicines  Agency (EMA) as patient representative. Julian is also part of the Therapeutic Advisory Group for Eurordis, the biggest organization of rare diseases in Europe. In Spain he is member of Ciberer (Spanish Network for research on rare diseases) scientific advisory group. Julian holds a great combination of skills combining technology, medicine, science, clinical processes, patient engagement and regulation.

Elena Bonfiglioli

As leader for Microsoft Health and Life Sciences business across the EMEA region, Elena Bonfiglioli is responsible for partnerships, commercial go-to-market strategy and execution across public health organizations, payors and pharma. A signature outcome of her work – together with a core team across engineering and research – was the design and launch of the AI partnership with Novartis in 2019 and the AI for Leprosy initiative with Novartis Foundation.  Bonfiglioli co-chaired the Health Cloud Council for Microsoft and partners from 2015-2019. She led the initiative on secondary use of health data and championed the work on data collaboratives, leading to the creation of the first global data collaborative in cardiovascular population health. Bonfiglioli has been working in the health sector for 15+ years, first in health policy at EU level and then as regional business leader in the global healthcare team. In July 2017, Bonfiglioli was elected to the HIMSS Europe Governing Council. In 2020 she was nominated one of the top 50 AI Innovators by Intelligent Health.

Elisa Ficarra

Elisa Ficarra is Full Professor in Computer Science and Bioinformatics at the University of Modena e Reggio, in the Department of Engineering ‘Enzo Ferrari’ (DIEF). She acts as scientific coordinator, previously for Politecnico di Torino and currently for the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, of various European and Italian funded projects . Overall, she has active scientific collaborations with medical research centres and molecular biology labs across Europe and the USA mainly on the development of bioinformatics and machine learning/deep learning methods to overcome chemotherapy resistance and improve cancer clinical decision making. Moreover, she works in Wellcome Trust funding projects on AI methods for human monoclonal antibodies design.

Francis D’Silva

Francis D’Silva is an experienced technology strategy consultant with more than 35 years as a practitioner. He has deep expertise in the design of tactical and strategic use of technology in public service agencies and commercial enterprises across different industries. His specialisation is in organizational technology – tools for collaboration-driven activities within and between enterprises. He has a deep understanding of the Norwegian Public Service and the Norwegian healthcare landscape – public service agencies, non-profit organisations and commercial enterprises and their associations. He is passionate about shaping solutions that respond to opportunities and challenges at the intersection of technology, markets and societal development. Francis advises executives and board members of business enterprises and public service agencies in the operationalization of innovation strategies and strategies for collaboration and data sharing.

Ricard Martinez Martinez

Ricard Martinez Martinez is an associate Professor in the Department of Constitutional Law and Political Science at the University of Valencia. There he also acts as Academic Delegate of the Rectorate on Data Protection, and head of professorship of Privacy and Digital Transformation. He is part of the Work Group for Digital Rights of Citizens organised by the Ministry of Energy, Tourism and Digital Agenda. He coordinates another Work Group established by the Spanish Conference of University Rectors to bolster the new Data Protection Legislation. Head of Area of Transparency and Open Government (Diputación de Valencia).

Bleddyn Rees

Bleddyn is an experienced commercial and international healthcare lawyer with over 30 years’ experience advising on outsourcings, privatisations, complex contracting and projects. In healthcare he has advised on healthcare regulations, commissioning, procurement and contracting for healthcare services, partnerships, alliances and collaborations in the health and care sectors in the UK, Europe, Middle East and the US.

He has unique experience for a private sector lawyer having spent almost four years seconded to the Commercial Directorate of the UK Department of Health as General Counsel in the early 2000’s

He is Deputy Chair of the European Connected Health Alliance and Chair of the Digital Health Society. Both these organisations are helping to transform health and care services internationally. Bleddyn Chairs the Digital Working Group of All Policies for a Healthy Europe. He has a special interest in Digital Health and Medtech.

Andrea Puligheddu

His legal practice is strongly focused on data protection, cybersecurity and media law. He is a research fellow of the Italian Center for Privacy and New Technologies (CSPNT) and former researcher of the Italian Army Studies Center (CSE) as tech legal expert. Since 2016 he becomes Partner at SLP Law Firm (https://www.studiolegaleprivacy.com/en/), a boutique Firm specialized privacy and data protection. Senior lecturer at several EM (Executive Master’s) on UNI ISO 11697:2017 and UNI PdR 43:2018, data protection standard controls, he acts as Data Protection Officer for healthcare software providers. During 2021 he has been certificated in Coding for lawyers and Artificial Intelligence legal applications in law at Legal Tech advanced program held by University of Milan – La Statale. Candidate at KU Leuven Intellectual Property & Information Communication Technology Law LL.M  program, held in Brussels and managed by CITIP.

Emanuele Baglini

Emanuele is one of the creators of Pillo, the first intelligent healthcare robot in the world. Pillo Health was acquired by Stanley Black+Decker in 2020 and changed the product name to Pria. Emanuele has over 20 years of experience in engineering (hardware, software, and manufacturing). After graduating in computer engineering, he worked in the robotics research group of the University of Genoa. He has deepened his knowledge of embedded systems, sensor networks, and, more generally, various fields of robotics. Emanuele managed research and development teams and gained profound experience in managing, developing, and manufacturing complex products. He has been responsible for the operational and financial management of small businesses, for which he held the CEO position. He is co-author of academic articles and inventor of international patents. Emanuele was CTO of Pillo Health, where he directed the research and development of the product, taking it from an idea to a product made in thousands of units. He is currently one of the co-founders of Ermit and holds the CEO position.

Andrea Pescino

More than 20 years’ experience in leading multidisciplinary teams in digital transformation projects and AI adoption  in private, public and NGOs sectors. Participated in several projects in the field of Artificial Intelligence in a prominent leading role (e.g. entrepreneur, Team leader, advisor, researcher)
More than 20 years practical experience in setting up the technical infrastructure  for the development and use of AI systems focusing on cognitive computing, data analytics (including sentiment analysis), Internet of things, Smart Working, Big Data Analytics and Cloud Transformation.
Wrote several articles and papers in the field of AI (more on the blog- http://andreapescino.com). Andrea is also a member of GAIA X healthcare working group.

Stefano Sedola

More than 20 years strategic consulting for major multilateral donors (e.g European Commission, UN).  As chief technical advisor for the UN and business development director for international consulting firms, he facilitated and succeeded structural and policy reforms in several countries across the world (e.g. Eastern Europe, North Africa, Middle East, Africa, Asia). He is currently, as partner of Stratejai,  advising several organisations and governments in drafting and implementing their AI policies and data driven journeys. Stefano is also a member of GAIA X healthcare working group.