Our Team

April Boyd-Noronha has over 20 years of experience in academia and advanced technologies. April is a global keynote speaker, thought leader, and global advisor on emerging trends and the future of work with a particular focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion in XR and cybersecurity.

April was named 2018 Educator of the Year by the International Consortium of Minority Cybersecurity Professionals. Because of these distinct roles and experiences, she’s uniquely positioned to connect academia, corporations, and industry leaders with NextGen talent, especially tomorrow’s workforce that are of color and most times under positioned for success. She is a distinguished author who has been sharing her experience and expertise via publications and books such as “The Top 5 Rules of Engagement for Parents Raising a Girl in STEM”.

XRSI’s Global Diversity & Inclusion Advisor, April Boyd-Noronha serves as the Chief Engagement Strategist at The STEM Broker, LLC and advises many boards such as FinTech4Good, United Way, MindDrive, and Suburban Balance. April is based in North America with her family that includes three future STEM technologists including Cybersecurity Analyst (daughter), Behavior Analyst (daughter), and Drone Pilot (son). As a Professor, she advocates the use of immersive technologies to advance curriculums in Health Information Management (HIM), Cybersecurity, and Computer Information Systems (CIS).

April actively serves her community as an advocate and mentor for girls and youth via virtual reality hackathons, drone racing and events promoting diversity and emerging technologies bringing her real-life experiences and challenges to inspire many generations around the world.

Rachel Michelson is a Medical XR advisor at XRSI, helping to remove obstacles in incorporating Virtual and augmented reality into regulated segments like healthcare while keeping it safe, secure, ethical, and inclusive. Rachel’s specific focus is on cybersecurity.

Rachel’s experience is a potent combination of software development for public safety, followed by cybersecurity evaluation of medical and other IoT devices. This allows her to see the trade-offs of cybersecurity risk management from multiple angles. As an evaluator, Rachel strives for solutions that are fully compliant to the best industry standards. As a hands-on software developer, she  is used to operating within real-time constraints of legacy components, limited device resources, budget and scheduling challenges facing a manufacturer and an integrator alike,

Rachel spent 20 years at Motorola, mostly working on adding security (audio and data encryption and authentication) into multiple components of Motorola’s two-way radio systems for public safety. She traversed the technical ladder from a software developer to a software architect. Rachel has led her products through FIPS 140-2 certification and other regulatory approvals. To build upon this experience, Rachel then joined UL to evaluate other manufacturers’  medical devices against appropriate standards, such as IEC 62304 and UL 2900. This includes device testing and documentation and corporate processes reviews alike. Rachel is fascinated by an opportunity to witness and perhaps influence multiple designs from established and up-and-coming manufacturer’s

Rachel holds a Bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from MIT and a Master’s degree in the same discipline from National Technological University (currently Walden, one of the first online universities). Rachel volunteers with MIT’s Educational Council.

Mr. Peter Cassidy is Secretary-General of the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) which he co-founded in 2004. Since then, Mr. Cassidy has developed the institution’s programs of intervention against cybercrime. Mr. Cassidy founded the annual Symposium on Electronic Crime Research (authoring the initial CFP in 2006), the only peer-review research conference dedicated exclusively to cybercrime studies which has published more than 110 papers from leading research laboratories from across the globe. Mr. Cassidy also founded the annual Symposium on Global Cybersecurity Awareness, which has been hosted by the European Commission and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime over the years. Mr. Cassidy is also co-founder and principal architect of the STOP. THINK. CONNECT. cybersecurity awareness campaign, which has been launched by national cabinet-level ministries and national NGOs as a national cybersecurity awareness campaign in 22 countries since 2010.

Amber Rose Kandarian (Ամբեր Ռոուզ Կանդարյան) is an Armenian-American filmmaker, founder of Impact International Pictures. Kandarian is a graduate of the University of California, Irvine and was selected to be a video/multimedia artist scholar at Seven Degrees in Laguna Beach. Kandarian was one of the first ArtsBridge scholars in the Picturing Peace project. Amber Rose is an active global real estate advisor with Engel and Völkers Commercial, Capital and Residential Real Estate. She has travelled all over the world from New Zealand to Armenia in the journey to make knowledge more sexy and accessible to the world. 

She founded DocuMovement and created three brands: DOCUinc for businesses; DocuThesis for universities and Sexy Knowledge as Crowd-Funding platform where humans can support knowledge and researchers. She dreams of a World where Nobel Prize Winners would be more celebrated and known than pop-star icons. Amber is bringing this wealth of knowledge and experience to the world of XR and in order to help create awareness around risks associated with these brave new worlds.

David Clarke FBCS C|CISO is highly experienced Head Of/CTO/Cyber Security, Data Protection Consultant operating across FTSE 100, SME and start-ups within Financial Services, Government, FinTech, Telecoms, Technology and Utilities sectors.

Author of GDPR, Breach and Marketing Accredited global online courses by CEPAS.APMG/GCHQ.

Contributing Author to a number of GDPR and Cybersecurity books

Founder of The Linkedin GDPR Technology Forum – Founder LinkedIn Forum   17700 + Members

• Top 10 influencers by Thompson Reuter top 30 most influential thought-leaders and thinkers on social media, in risk management, compliance and regtech in the UK.
• Top 50 Global Expert by Kingston Technology,
• No 2 by  Thinkers360 in  Cybersecurity
• Listed in the (Data protection World Forum) DPO Top 200.
• Listed in the Telensa Top 50 Smart City Influencers

Brian D. Wassom is a partner in the law firm of Warner Norcross + Judd LLP, where he litigates disputes and counsels clients in a wide range of commercial and intellectual property matters. Mr. Wassom is also a globally recognized thought leader in the brand-new legal issues raised by augmented reality and other cutting-edge emerging media, including through his blog at AugmentedLegality.com and his book Augmented Reality Law, Privacy, and Ethics (Elsevier 2015). He has achieved victories for his clients in federal and state trial and appeal courts across the country, including in Candy Lab AR v. Milwaukee (E.D. Wis. 2017), the first case to apply First Amendment freedoms of speech to location-based augmented reality games.

Steve Hunt is a speaker, investor, advisor, and most of all, a teacher.

He has motivated and inspired leaders around the world by helping over 400 global organizations to optimize success by guiding leadership and operations toward performance excellence. He is also passionate about mentoring the next generation of security leaders. Steve served on the ISSA International Board of Directors, has served as a judge at RSA Conference, founded the Communities of Excellence, was inducted into the ISSA Hall of Fame, and CSO Magazine presented him with the “Industry Visionary” Compass Award.

He also appeared as an analyst on CNBC, Fox News, CNN, and other news programs. His analysis has appeared in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Business Week, and other global publications and trade magazines. Steve earned certifications CPP and CISSP, attended Elizabethtown College and was a graduate fellow at University of Chicago. Steve’s diverse background lends a fresh perspective on business and society and careers in security.

Sanchari Das is an award winning cybersecurity professional with prime focus on privacy and data protection in cyberspace including emerging technologies. She is currently a doctoral researcher at Indiana University Bloomington and Information Security Engineer for American Express. Besides her engineering skills Sanchari also plays a role of Technical Project Manager on various American Express internal security and privacy projects where she uses her research to solve identity and access management related challenges.

Growing up in india, Sanchari observed the lack of cyber awareness leading to critical privacy threats which are still often ignored in technical implementation design. While she excelled in her studies all her life, she also developed a deep sense of understanding around how various technologies impact everything around us, both negatively as well as positively.

Through her passion and research, Sanchari established various user privacy and security solutions that combine the following:

• Technical implementation with channelized risk communication
• Implementing user risk mental models in security and privacy by design
• Enhancing trust management through transparent policy management 

Sanchari is an international speaker with tremendous experience in public speaking via multiple academic and industrial conferences including BlackHat, RSA, BSides, FC, SOUPS, and many more. She is also an advocate for diversity and inclusion where she not only represents but also guides and uplifts others in the field of science and technology. 

Tamas is an instinctive, meticulous, and forward-thinking security professional with years of leadership experiences that have created a passion for implementing effective cyber security programs, best practices, strategies and technologies via a combination of exceptional thought leadership and innovative directions. Solid history utilizing out-of-the-box approaches, adapting to new business environments, and negotiating win-win agreements. Skilled strategist recognized for ability to incorporate innovative management techniques that result in enhanced business practices, increased productivity, and increase in security posture.

Through his career Tamas has held various roles across various security disciples and launched numerous successful programs that aimed at effectively reaching its goal vs “checking the box”. With his work in Third Party Security he aimed at not only minimizing risks unilaterally but to work with third parties to increase their security posture and help them be a better digital citizen. Across other disciplines he fought against CEI in collaboration with We Are Thorn and collaborated with the Technology Coalition to help distribute technology to companies to fight CEI.  

Tamas has a passion for gaming and he is actively involved in various gaming communities like Minecraft. There he helps with the Modding community on Security, Privacy and general business direction. Secondly, Tamas works with YouTube, Twitch and Mixer content creators to enable them to connect with various businesses, advise on go to market strategies and analytics for community growth.

Sonya Haskins is a respected voice and journalist in the field of XR. Sonya discovered virtual reality in 2017 and began spending a lot of time in virtual reality when she realized that it reduced her pain. She had spent several months in the hospital following the birth of her fifth child and the next decade was incredibly difficult as she had to learn to walk again, go to countless doctor’s appointments, and take medication to stay alive. She was grateful to find something that helped.

Later in the summer of 2017, Sonya became the first female player as well as the first seated player to compete at the VR League North American Regionals. Rather than continue to play competitively, she decided to use her skills as a journalist to promote the technology that was bringing her so much joy and healing her physically.

Sonya has worked extensively with an objective to encourage the growth of positive, inclusive social environments. To further this goal, she serves as a board member for VR Community Builders, LLC, a community-driven platform focused on outreach, an organization she also helped get started.

Sonya Haskins has written thousands of articles and eight books. For the past two years, she has specialized in covering XR topics, with a particular focus on VR Esports, gaming, and XR community. She helped launch the VR Esports department of VR Fitness Insider and serves as their VR Esports Editor. She believes XR technology can have positive impacts on healthcare, education, mental health, business and every other aspect of our lives, but we must responsibly explore the capabilities and limitations.

A seasoned CTO, with experience in AI, Blockchain, Cloud Computing, Cyber Security, Disaster Recovery, Bigdata, &managed services professional focused on business value. Jorge As delivered advice in several AI, ML, ICO, STO with comprehensive understanding of technology disruption effects caused by both Artificial Intelligence & Blockchain technology.

He created the process A⁶ of security: Assess, Architect, Apply, Administer, Awareness and Agility. He architects practical & business focused solutions using standards and industry best practices, designed SLAs to meet today’s business resiliency using cloud computing & managed services business requirements. Mr. Sebastião has been the speaker at numerous international conferences with topics including: Blockchain, AI, Cloud Computing, Cyber Security, Big Data, & Managed Services.

Jorge is action and results oriented with passion to deliver a results…

Jessica Outlaw, M.S., is a culture and behavior researcher and founder of the Center for Immersive Technology at Concordia University. She does research in digital worlds, app design, and gives trainings to new and experienced designers. She uses behavioral science to help XR companies build and test experiences that put the user first. She is a 2017 winner of Oculus Launch Pad.

Jessica brings a unique perspective to the field of immersive technologies. Rather than helping to feed the hype cycle, Jessica gently asks us to step back and delve into the fundamental human motivations that drive everyday activities, the need for connection, and ways in which people try to make sense of their world.