Innovation Board members appointed

Exclusive group of innovators to advice NorwAI on innovation

Entering it’s second year in operation, NorwAI made its choices for innovation advisors.

The AI Innovation Board (IB) will provide advice on how to create innovations from research for the NorwAI partners. IB will follow up on the innovation results on a regular basis and help to monitor the overall progress following SFI success criteria for innovation and commercialization. The Innovation Board is planned to meet with the Center director and the innovation director twice a year. Ieva Martinkenaite, Vice President, Analytics and AI at Telenor lead the Innovation Board.

The board of the SFI was happy to welcome a generous mix of international recognized experts from both US and Norway. The Norwegians are well connected to core industry in NorwAI. The Americans are core members of the AI community on the US East Coast. 

Ieva Martinkenaite

VP Telenor Research, Chair of the Innovation Board

Ieva Martinkenaite is among the key figures at Telenor Group contributing to building AI research and innovation ecosystem in Norway. She leads a team of data scientists and Machine Learning engineers in Telenor and several high profile regional and national appointments in AI. As Vice President of Telenor Research and Head of Analytics and AI team, Ieva is responsible for advancing research and driving research-based innovation in Telenor within data analytics, AI and IoT. Her work also involves advisory to Telenor executives and business leaders on digital technologies and innovation strategy. Concurrently, Ieva leads a joint AI task force of Europe’s largest telecommunication operator association ETNO and GSMA Europe. She has more than 15 years of experience in product development, business research and advisory, and holds several Board memberships positions. During 2018-2020 Ieva represented Telenor in the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence that provided ethics guidelines for Trustworthy AI and recommendations on the implementation of European Strategy on AI.Ieva holds a PhD in Strategic Management from BI Norwegian Business School.

Sophie V. Vandebroek 

Board Director, Trustee, Advisor

Sophie is a founder of Strategic Vision Ventures LLC and serves on several corporate and non-for-profit boards, among those are IDEXX Laboratories, Inari Agriculture and Wolters Kluwer. She is a trustee at the Boston Museum of Sciences and serves as a member of the international advisory board of the Flanders AI Research Program. Recently she was appointed Honorary Professor at the KU Leuven Facultry of Engineering Sciences. Her last corporate positions were Chief Operating Officer of IBM Research, and for over a decade she was Xerox’s Chief Technology Officer leading Xerox’s global laboratories, including PARC, Inc. She was also the MIT Inaugural School of Engineering Visiting Scholar. Sophie is a Fellow of the Belgian-American Educational Foundation and a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers. She was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame and elected into the Royal Flemish Academy of Arts & Sciences. Sophie’s passion for creating inclusive organizations where innovation thrives has earned her many awards among which is Xerox’s Inaugural Lifetime Diversity Leadership Award of Distinction. Sophie has a master's degree in Engineering from KU Leuven, Belgium and a Ph.D. in Engineering from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

Saskia Steinacker 

Global Head Strategy & Digital Transformation, Bayer

Saskia is a recognized digital leader and business transformer with extensive global experience in Life Science Industry. She has 17 years of outstanding track record in successfully defining sustainable strategies, leading the implementations, and delivering outstanding outcomes. In her executive roles she proved to have a unique ability to simplify complexity, steer diverse groups of stakeholders across all levels and functions towards business goals and build high-performing, diverse teams. Saskia is actively shaping international governance and regulations in the digital space, through appointments to global expert groups of B20 (G20 subgroup) and European Commission High Level Expert Group AI. She is a Director of National Board of Directors at YMCA-US and serves as a Presidency Committee Member at ECO, Europe´s largest Association for Internet Industry. Saskia has been recognized as a Digital Leader of the Year 2019, Health Influencer 50 (PRWeek, MM/A). Saskia is featured at Forbes, Financial Times, South by Southwest (SXSW), NOAH etc. She has an MBA with distinction from University of Liverpool, UK.

John Markus Lervik

Founder & CEO, Cognite

John Markus is a founder and CEO of Cognite AS, an industrial software company headquartered in Oslo, Norway serving oil and gas, power and utilities, renewable energy and other asset-heavy industries. He is also a founder of Cxense (listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange), an AI-powered Data Management and Intelligent Personalization platform for publishers and marketers around the globe. Previously he served as a CTO and CEO of the Fast Search & Transfer (acquired by Microsoft) and was a Corporate Vice President at Microsoft. John Markus is recognized as one of the most successful entrepreneurs and digital leaders in Norway with a track record in leading the online advertising, search, data analytics and IT businesses. In 2005 he was mentioned as one of the key innovators in the Forbes E-gang: Masters of Information. John Markus has a Ph.D. from the Norwegian University of Science Technology, Trondheim for which he earned the Esso academic award.

Øystein Larsen Indrevær

Senior Vice President Data-driven Sales, DnB

Øystein is a Senior Vice President and Head of Data-driven Sales at DNB, Norway´s largest financial services group. He is responsible for Data Management, Data Quality, Data Privacy and Data Science in the Personal Market division of the bank. Previously Øystein worked at the Centre of Excellence for Advanced Analytics in the Chief Data Officer organization of the DnB bank, focusing on value realization of advanced analytics use cases, ensuring excellence and cohesive way-of-work of the data scientists. Øystein has a track record of experience in the Corporate Governance field working as Advisor to CEO and Company Secretary in DNB in the 2010s. He holds an Executive Master of Management degree from BI Norwegian Business School (Norway) with specialization in Analytics for Strategic Management.