Cybersecurity Innovation Forum at George Mason University

PLEASE RSVP HERE AND IN MEETUP

CIOs, AI and IT Modernization Outlook Conference

December 9th and 10th, 2025,
George Mason University Fuse, Arlington, Virginia

In conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the founding of the International Academy of CIO.

Please join George Mason University’s (GMU) Center for Excellence in Government Cybersecurity Risk Management and Resilience (CRC), the Center for Assurance Research and Engineering (CARE), the Donald G. Costello College of Business, the Financial Technology & Cybersecurity Center, and the International Academy of CIO (IAC) in partnership with IBM, CAST Software, Emergent and Red Hat on December 9th and 10th in Arlington, Virginia.

BACKGROUND

AI is providing a new foundation and invigoration to IT Modernization initiatives worldwide and correspondingly is having major impacts on workforces and careers.

The conference brings together government and private sector executives and academia to review and discuss the latest IT Modernization possibilities, impacts and challenges and project the outlook for the coming years. The discussions will include CIO and leadership and governance considerations; policy and regulation philosophies, alternatives and ramifications; and society, workforce and career dynamics.

Please join our fantastic speakers for a dynamic and informative two days on December 9th and 10th at George Mason Fuse in Arlington, Virginia:

Speakers include:

Elizabeth Hackenson, Senior Vice President and CIO, Schneider Electric;
Jaimie Holcombe, Vice President, Commerce, US AI; fmr CIO, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office;
Dr. William Hazel, M.D., CEO, Claude Moore Opportunities, fmr Secretary of Health, Commonwealth of Virginia;
Milos Manic, Ph.D, President, IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, Director, Virginia Commonwealth AI Convergence Labs;
Megan A. Barnett, Vice Provost for Pan-University Initiatives, University of Virginia;
Daniel Sui, Ph.D., Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation, Virginia Tech;
Andre Marshall, Ph.D., Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact, George Mason University;
Luiz DaSilva, Ph.D., Executive Director, Commonwealth Cyber Initiative;
Cheng-Ming (Ken) Wang, Director General, Ministry of Digital Affairs, Republic of China, TAIWAN;
Brian Peretti, fmr. Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Department of Treasury;
John Carlson, Senior Vice President, Cybersecurity Regulation and Resilience, American Bankers Association;
Joel Martin, Ph.D., Chief Digital Research Officer and Chief Science Officer, National Research Council of Canada;
Larry Medsker, Ph.D., Chair, ACM U.S. Technology Policy Committee; Research Professor, Physics, University of Vermont;

and with a discussion of the Commonwealth of Virginia AI Initiative - Mission and Future Prospects.

Topics and speakers also include:

CIOS, AI AND IT MODERNIZATION

Sak Segkhoonthod, Ph.D., Senior Advisor, Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA), Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, fmr. President and CEO, Digital Government Agency, THAILAND; Lin Wells, Ph.D., Executive Advisor for the C5I Center, Mason College of Engineering and Computing; Fmr CIO, U.S. Department of Defense; Dongwook Kim, Ph.D., Director, Center for Intelligent Society and Policy, Seoul National University, KOREA, Naoko Iwasaki, Ph.D., Professor, Waseda University, JAPAN; Andrew Beklemishev, Vice President, Commonwealth of Independent States Region, IDC, KAZAKHSTAN

Application Transformation in the AI Era - Luis Benavides, Partner, Federal, Hybrid Cloud & Data, IBM; Marc Jones, Senior Vice President, Public Sector, CAST Software

AI AND FINANCIAL SERVICES

Bob Ledig, Managing Director of the Financial Technology & Cybersecurity Center

INNOVATION AND RESEARCH

Serge Adouaka, Director, Central African Republic Technology and ICT Entrepreneurship Accelerator, CAR; Pierre El Haddad, Ph.D., Professor, Management, INSEEC Grand Ecole, FRANCE; Abhishek Ray, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Information Systems, Costello College of Business, George Mason University; Sundar Balakrisha, Ph.D., Special Secretary - Information Technology & Communication, APTOnline, Government of Andhra Pradesh, INDIA

INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF CIO (IAC) CORE COMPETENCIES AND BODY OF KNOWLEDGE FRAMEWORK AND AI MATURITY MODEL

Poomporn Thamsatitdej, Ph.D., Assistant Dean for Digital and Future Workforce, College of Innovation, Thammasat University, THAILAND

"WINNING THE RACE: AMERICA'S AI ACTION PLAN", AI AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY FOUR PART ARTICLE SERIES

Gary Rinkerman, Partner, Pierson Ferdinanand, LLP

UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSITY EGOV AND DIGITAL GOVERNMENT TRANSFORMATION

YoungSik Kim, Senior Associate Expert, UNU-EGOV. Project Manager for KOICA/KDS Kyrgyzstan Capacity Building Project; Saleem Zoughbi, Senior Research Consultant, UNU-EGOV, Project Manager, West Africa Digital Government Forum and Central Asia Digital Government Forum

AI AND HEALTHCARE / MEDICINE

James Sullivan, Strategic Advisor, Healthcare Industry Solutions & Services, NTT DATA; Mitchell Goldburgh, BSCS, FSIIM, Senior Director, Industry Solutions, Accelerating AI in Imaging Sciences, NTT DATA Services; Jean-Paul Gonzalez, M.D., Ph.D., professor Georgetown Graduate School of Biomedical Education, fmr. Director, Pasteur Institute International Network and the French Institute of Research for Development; Luca Buccoliero, Ph.D., Professor of Marketing, Bocconi University, ITALY; Elena Bellio, Ph.D., Professor of Marketing, Bocconi University, ITALY

AI AND WORKFORCE / EDUCATION

Christopher Mammen, Ph.D., Managing Partner, Womble Bond Dickinson; Brian Wendroff, CPA, Managing Partner, Wendroff and Associates, CPA; Nirup Menon, Ph.D., Professor, Academic Co-Director, Chief Data and Analytics Officer Executive Program, Donald G. Costello College of Business, George Mason University; Beju Rao, Ph.D., Founder and President, Amruta

AI, QUANTUM COMPUTING AND HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING CONVERGENCE AND OUTLOOK

J.P. Auffret, Ph.D., Director, Center for Assurance Research & Engineering; Director, Research Partnerships, Costello College of Business, George Mason University

And with technology demos including by IBM.