Keynotes

Paul Watson, Professor of Computer Science, Newcastle University

The title of Paul’s talk is The UK National Innovation Centre for Data – Lessons from enabling 170 companies to exploit AI. 

Paul Watson FREng FBCS CEng PhD is Professor of Computer Science at Newcastle University, UK and was Director of the UK’s National Innovation Centre for Data from 2022 to September 2026. He began his career at Manchester University before moving to industry to design parallel database servers. He then joined Newcastle University where his research and teaching has focussed on scalable data engineering and AI. Professor Watson is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the British Computer Society, and a Chartered Engineer. He received the 2014 Microsoft Jim Gray eScience Award.

Professor Sylvia Schwaag Serger, President of Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA)

The title of Sylvia’s talk is Technology as a Geopolitical Force.

Professor Sylvia Schwaag Serger has spent 20 years designing, implementing and studying science and technology policy in Europe and China.

She has been commissioned as expert by the OECD, was chair of the board of the Swedish Foundation for Internationalization of Higher Education and Research (STINT), member of the Swedish Prime Minister’s Innovation Council and one of the lead authors of the Heitor Report. She chairs the Scientific Council of the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (Formas) and is deputy chair of the Austrian Council for Science, Technology and Innovation. Sylvia has an MA from Johns Hopkins SAIS and a PhD from the LSE.

From 2018-2020 she was Deputy President of Lund University. Since 2024, she is President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA).

Per Alfredsson, Senior Vice President Global Biologics Operations & President AstraZeneca AB

Per Alfredsson is currently Senior Vice President, Global Biologics Operations and President AstraZeneca AB. In this role, he leads the AstraZeneca global biologics supply network and is the President of AstraZeneca in Sweden.

Per has a strong track record of delivery and significant global experience across manufacturing and supply. Prior to assuming his current role in 2019, he successfully led the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Supply region through a period of change. Under Per’s leadership, the region strengthened its focus on manufacturing excellence and people development.

Throughout his 30 years within AstraZeneca, Per has held a number of positions of increasing responsibility within Operations. He previously served as VP Global Supply Chain & Strategy, VP Sweden Operations and President and General Manager, iPR Pharmaceuticals. Per holds a master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

Dag Lindbo, CTO, Sferical AB

The title of Dag’s talk is Sovereignty in Industrial AI at Scale.

Dag Lindbo is CTO for Sferical AI since June 2026, having spent 12 years in Ericsson R&D before that. He was Head of AI and Emerging Technologies in Networks and SW Lead for 5G prototypes among earlier roles. He holds a PhD in Numerical Analysis from KTH (before WASP was founded). 

Ödgärd Andersson, CEO, Zenseact AB

The title of Ödgärd’s talk is Building physical AI products in regionalizing world where tech scales across industries.

Ödgärd Andersson is the CEO of Zenseact, a leading physical AI company in the Volvo Cars Group building trustworthy car safety software and AI, enhancing Volvo Cars global safety leadership as cars are moving from software to AI defined.

She is a member of the Traton SE Supervisory Board and the board of the Chalmers University of Technology Foundation. She is also a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA).

Ödgärd has a background as Chief Digital Officer at Volvo Cars and spent 20 years in
telecommunications at Ericsson AB, located in Sweden and Silicon Valley. She has