Warren Fernandez is Senior Fellow and Head of the National Security Studies Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), and Editor of RSIS Publications. He also serves as Senior Advisor at NTU’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI).

A former Editor of The Straits Times and CEO of Edelman Asia Pacific, he has over three decades of leadership experience in media and communications. He contributes to public service through roles that include Board Member of the National Arts Council and National Library Board, and Member of Singapore’s Public Service Commission. Warren holds degrees from Oxford University and Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Loh Chin Ee is Associate Professor at the English Language and Literature Department and Associate Dean (Impact and Partnerships) at the Office for Research at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. Her research focuses on young people’s reading at the intersection of globalisation and technological changes as well as the role of school libraries in fostering reading for pleasure and lifelong learning. Her most recent books are The Reading Lives of Teens: Research & Practice (Routledge, 2025, UKLA Academic Book Award) and Little Things: An Anthology of Poetry (2nd Edition, Ethos, 2025).

As publisher, Kah Gay focuses on making books and supporting an environment for literature, the arts and culture in Singapore and Southeast Asia. The passionate and experienced team is part of a growing ecology of independent agents producing and circulating fiction, non-fiction and poetry that speak to our times, including critical concerns such as climate action.

Sarah Ichioka leads and advises places, communities, and organizations to chart paths toward thriving futures. Her work has explored the intersections of cities, society and ecology with and for prominent institutions of policy, culture and research across four continents. A board steward, author and public speaker, she has been recognised as an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Designing Cities for All Fellow of Pakhuis de Zwijger (Netherlands), and Treseder Fellow of the Melbourne School of Design (Australia).

Setsuko Yokoyama is Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities at Singapore University of Technology and Design. Trained as a literary historian, her work concerns the sociopolitical history of speech-to-text technology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and its implications for our contemporary discourse on fairness in automated speech recognition systems.

With over 30 years of experience in Infocomm Technology, Bee Kwan is CEO of Assurity Trusted Solutions and has previously held senior leadership positions in various public sector organizations including cybersecurity and digital governance, as well as headed the Government Infrastructure, overseeing the entire spectrum of ICT systems for public sector.

Jian Gang is the Head of Model Development in AI Singapore, and leads the team that develops the SEA-LION family of models, including safety models and embedding models, as well as the team that develops the SEA-HELM evaluation suite and maintains the SEA-HELM leaderboard. He and his team also has formalised their work into various research publications, including ‘SEA-LION: Southeast Asian Languages in One Network’, ‘SEA-HELM: Southeast Asian Holistic Evaluation of Language Models’, ‘SEA-Guard: Culturally Grounded Multilingual Safeguard for Southeast Asia’, ‘SEA-SafeguardBench: Evaluating AI Safety in SEA Languages and Cultures’, and ‘SEA-BED: Southeast Asia Embedding Benchmark’.

Dr Grincheva is 2026 Digital Statecraft Academic Cambridge Fellow and a leading Digital Humanities scholar and practitioner who specializes in data-driven cultural policy and diplomacy. Her work actively shapes the emerging field of digital statecraft, bridging the gap between cultural insight and data-driven governance. Her career spans from foundational work on the UNESCO’s 2005 Convention to pioneering the Data To Power platform. Her publications include three monographs Geopolitics of Digital Heritage (Cambridge University Press: 2024), Museum Diplomacy in the Digital Age (Routledge: 2020) and Global Trends in Museum Diplomacy (Routledge: 2019).

Aaron Tay is Head of Data Services at Singapore Management University Libraries, with over 15 years of experience in academic librarianship. His work spans research support, open access, analytics, bibliometrics, discovery systems, and emerging technologies. He is the author of Musings about Librarianship, a long-running blog where he reflects on librarianship issues, with a recent focus on AI-powered academic search tools. Aaron is especially interested in how libraries are responding to current AI trends, including how librarians can critically evaluate AI and data-intensive tools, separate genuine value from hype, and support researchers in using them responsibly.

Chern Chern has more than 2 decades of experience across academic library functions. She has held leadership roles spanning cataloguing, projects, user services, outreach and operations, driving transformation initiatives including self-service library innovations.

Her current work focuses on library automation, records management and integrating AI-enabled resources and services to support curriculum design and higher-order learning outcomes. She is passionate about advancing libraries as strategic partners in applied education, digital transformation, and lifelong learning.

Miaw Miin began her career as a librarian with the Geylang East Branch Library and has since immersed herself in more than three decades of practice spanning public libraries, reference services, media literacy instruction, and career development of library and archives professionals. She has played a key role in the development and implementation of NLB’s library & archives competency framework, specialist career framework, and specialist career development pathways. She also serves on the project team developing and implementing the Library Association of Singapore’s Competency Framework for Information Professionals. Miaw Miin believes in building a future-ready library profession through purposeful career pathways and competency-driven development.