Panel

Ignacio G. López-Francos is a Staff Research Engineer at the NASA Ames Research Center's Intelligent Systems Division, situated in the heart of Silicon Valley, California. He thrives on tackling complex NASA challenges that lie at the intersection of various disciplines. Currently, his expansive research encompasses areas such as assured robotic autonomy, vision-based navigation, 3D scene reconstruction, geospatial mapping, and Generative AI.

Ignacio's research has significantly contributed to various NASA missions, including VIPER, NASA's pioneering lunar robotic rover mission scheduled for 2024, enabling safer and more efficient science and operations planning. His work has been published in top journals and presented at leading conferences, including CVPR, NeurIPS, AGU, and Nature Communications, and has been featured in media outlets like Scientific American and The Economist.

Before joining NASA, Ignacio held instrumental roles at the crossroads of innovation, AI, and strategy in companies like Meta and United Airlines. He holds degrees in Industrial Engineering & Operations Research from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) and the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), with a specialization in automation, robotics, and supply chain management. A native of Spain, he grew up in Granada, a place he cherishes and visits whenever possible.

Francisca Merchan is the Head of Sales for Small & Medium Business (SMB) at AWS Iberia, where she is helping digitally determined SMBs to accelerate their digitalization, providing cloud services to increase innovation, reach new customers while reducing their costs.

She is the executive sponsor for Generative AI at AWS SMB Iberia leading conversations with Corporations and Private Equities to unlock the potential that Generative AI and classic AI are bringing to society.

Before joining AWS, Francisca worked in Amazon.es developing programs to integrate small and independent publishers and media creators as Amazon vendors, and later she was managing the stock for the launch of the new Consumables department.

She is passionate about how technology can change our lives for the better, and has worked for the European Innovation Council external evaluator for innovative startups and SMEs.

Francisca holds and MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a master in Music Computing from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and MSc. in Telecommunications Engineering from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

Javier Sánchez Moneedero is a Distinguished Researcher "Beatriz Galindo" at the AYRNA research group in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Córdoba and an affiliate researcher of the Data Justice Lab (Cardiff). Previously, he joined the University of Cardiff with the European Research Council project DATAJUSTICE, directed by Lina Dencik.

His current research aims to fill the knowledge gap between social and media researchers and technology as well as to perform technological auditing and design proposals in the intersection of intelligent information systems and social justice. He recently served on the Committee of Experts on algorithms in the workplace of the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy as well as in advisory boards of other institutions and projects.