How technologies converge to improve our daily lives.

November 30, 2023
Woodruff Arts Center
1280 Peachtree St NE, Atlanta

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2023 Highlights

Click here for the full 2023 library


Innovate | Enable | Grow

We all are “connected” by inclusive and innovative technologies that provide us greater access, opportunity and prosperity. From our day to day personal and professional lives, technology helps to drive us forward in so many ways.

Strategic business growth is reliant upon independent lines of accelerating technology converging with other technologies for better outcomes.

Join us as we explore these intersections and the advances that are realized from a wide range of inclusive, integrated technologies. Deep-dive content sessions will explore the following topics:

  • Smart Homes/Smart Cities
  • ESports
  • Media & Entertainment
  • InfoSec
  • Tech for Good
  • Cloud
  • Generative AI
  • Workforce & DE&I

Watch Converge 2021 on demand

2023 Mainstage Featured Speakers

Michael Bailey

Michael Bailey is currently a Professor and School Chair in the the Georgia Institute of Technology’s new School of Cybersecurity and Privacy (SCP). Created in 2021, SCP represents a revolutionary new approach to “Creating security for everyone and everything, every day.” SCP’s faculty share a common belief that societal challenges require multi-disciplinary solutions, rigorous research can be inspired by everyday problems, developing tomorrow’s leaders requires revolutionizing security education, and that together we can create a more secure future. Prior to Georgia Tech he was a Professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and a Research Associate Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His industry experience includes employment at Amoco Corporation, Andersen Consulting, and three startup companies. In his role as Director of Engineering at Arbor Networks he led a team of developers whose software has now been deployed for almost two decades and is currently protecting more than 50 percent of the world’s largest networks from Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

Wendy Thomas

As CEO, Wendy Thomas leads Secureworks to fulfill our purpose of securing human progress via innovative, battle-tested security solutions. Wendy is committed to raising awareness of cyber literacy, cyber resilience and cyber as a board priority.  

She first joined Secureworks in 2008 and as Strategy lead and Chief Product Officer, she developed the vision for Secureworks’ future, fueling the team that built and launched Secureworks® Taegis™.

Wendy leverages over 25 years of experience in strategic and functional leadership roles, and has worked across multiple technology-driven companies such as FirstData, BellSouth, and Internap Network Services, Inc. Wendy is a graduate of the University of Virginia, with a double major in Economics and Foreign Affairs, and she holds an International MBA from the University of South Carolina School of Business.

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Catina Wilson

Demonstrated success in executive leadership roles, with hands-on experience leading and managing teams, operations, and major projects/programs for organizations ranging from $2M start-up to $170+ billion dollar corporation. Expertise built on 18+ years of solid experience and knowledge across a variety of industries including: FinTech, Automotive, Media, Banking, and Software. Extraordinary cross-functional management background and documented achievements including: increased operational efficiencies,improved transparency and delivery execution, improved ROI, optimized enterprise knowledge and and innovative strategies to increase productivity.

Specialties: High Performing Teams, Leadership, Business Optimization, Go-to-Market Strategies, Operational Readiness, Product Launch Readiness, Operations Management, Change Management, Transformations, Business Integration, Project/Program/Portfolio Management, Technology, Vendor Management, Resource Management and Software Technical Sales.

Paul Root Wolpe, Ph.D.

Paul Root Wolpe, Ph.D. is the Raymond Schinazi Distinguished Research Chair of Jewish Bioethics, Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Neuroscience and Biological Behavior, and Sociology, and the Director of the Center for Ethics at Emory University. Dr. Wolpe served for 17 years as the first Senior Bioethicist for NASA, and was the first National Bioethics Advisor to Planned Parenthood Federation of America. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience and he sits on the editorial boards of over a dozen professional journals in medicine and ethics. Dr. Wolpe is the Past President of the Association of Bioethics Program Directors, past President of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, a Fellow of the Hastings Center, and a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the country’s oldest medical society. He received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Judaism in 2019.

Dr. Wolpe publishes in medicine, technology, and ethics, and has contributed to many encyclopedias on ethical and bioethical issues. Trained as a social scientist – rare for an ethicist – Dr. Wolpe’s work focuses on the social, religious, ethical, and ideological impact of medicine and technology on the human condition. A founder of the field of neuroethics, which examines the ethical implications of neuroscience, over the last decade he has shifted his attention to the ethics of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data. He founded BEINGS, “Biotechnology and the Ethical Imagination: A Global Summit,” which brought together thought leaders from around the world to reach consensus on a set of ethical principles and policy standards for human genetic engineering. He has also been active in fields such as reproductive ethics, genetics, artificial intelligence, ethical leadership. Dr. Wolpe also writes and teaches in Jewish Bioethics, and co-authored the guide to Jewish end-of-life issues, Behoref Hayamim: In the Winter of Life. He is the bioethics advisor to JScreen, the national Jewish Genetic Screening Program.

Dr. Wolpe was a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Responsible Science Committee that revised the canonical volume “Responsible Science,” and Co-Chaired the American Psychological Association’s Ethics Commission that examined the APA’s ethics procedures in light of its participation in ‘enhanced interrogation’ collaboration with the CIA and Department of Defense. He has been a member of the Selection Committees of the Canadian Networks of Centres of Excellence, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

Dr. Wolpe sits on national and international boards and is a consultant to the biomedical industry. He has twice testified to the President’s Commission on the Study of Bioethical Issues in Washington, D.C. A dynamic and popular speaker internationally, Dr. Wolpe has been chosen by the website Faculty Row as a “SuperProfessor” and by The Teaching Company as a “Superstar Teacher of America,” and his courses are distributed internationally on audio and videotape. A sought after consultant on business ethics and the ethics of philanthropy, Dr. Wolpe was named one of Trust Across America’s “Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior.” He won the 2011 World Technology Network Award in Ethics, has recorded a TED Talk with over 1.5 million views, and was profiled in the November, 2011 Atlantic Magazine as a “Brave Thinker of 2011.” Dr. Wolpe is a frequent contributor and commentator in both the broadcast and print media, having been featured on 60 Minutes and with a personal profile in the Science Times of the New York Times.

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Beverly Wright, Ph.D., CAP

Beverly Wright, PhD, CAP serves as Head of Data Science & AI Solutions at Burtch Works. With a career spanning over 30 years across utilities, financial services, telecommunications, consulting, and academia, Beverly has led numerous teams and established herself as a data science & AI thought leader, executive professor, national speaker, podcast host, and a trailblazing advocate for data science for good.

She also serves as Director of Data Science Executive Programs at University of Georgia, Board Chair for TAG Data Science & AI, Board Member for Georgia Institute of Technology’s Master of Science in Analytics program, President of the Analytics Society at INFORMS, and podcast host for TAG Data Talk.