Danielle K. Williams : Champion of Inclusive Tech and Innovation

“Understanding people isn’t just about asking questions—it’s about asking the right questions and deeply understanding the answers. And if you can’t do that, you’ll never truly know what they need, what they feel, or why they act the way they do.”

Every business claims to know its customers. Most fail. They rely on shallow surveys filled with leading questions, expensive market research reports, and gut feelings disguised as insights. Michelle Gilmore, CEO and Co-Founder of Hey Juno, recognized the problem firsthand. The way companies gather and utilize human understanding needs improvement. Therefore, she created a better solution.

As a system and service designer, Michelle spent over a decade traveling the world conducting behavioral research with people across diverse contexts. She attempted to train individuals to conduct research with others, but quickly realized their widespread inadequacy in this skill. She observed that humans often struggled, asking leading questions, injecting their own biases into the data, and ultimately bending participant truths with shaky methods and tactics.

AI offers a new approach. With Hey Juno, Michelle and her team have leveraged decades of expertise to create the world’s first human understanding engine. A tool that helps businesses, governments, and organizations listen with depth and clarity.

As Michelle puts it, “Human understanding is the answer to most, if not all, problems.”

Read on to discover the story behind Hey Juno and the woman who’s determined to revolutionize how we connect with the human experience.

From Designing Systems to Designing Understanding

Michelle Gilmore always had a builder’s mindset. Trained as an Industrial and System Designer in Australia and Malaysia, she focused on creating things that served a purpose—products that made life easier, and systems that solved real problems. However, she felt that the design alone was insufficient. She wanted to understand the people using these systems, what drove their decisions, and how businesses could make better choices by listening more carefully.

This curiosity led her deep into human behavioral research, where she discovered a gap—companies gathered data, but few knew how to use it effectively. She explored how human insights could refine design thinking and, ultimately, influence business strategy at every level. To sharpen this approach, she integrated her intellectual property into a Public Policy master’s program at City College in Harlem, broadening her expertise in real-world problem-solving.

Her work took her across the globe, working with brands, organizations, and governments that needed to understand their customers and citizens better. Each project, whether a corporate expansion or a policy shift, reinforced a single truth—understanding people deeply and accurately held the key to better decision-making. She learned from failures as much as successes and built a career around one core belief: human understanding solves problems.

Dr. Mihaela Ulieru’s career story is one of consistent innovation. From early passions in creative arts to leading-edge work in Artificial Intelligence, her path reveals a steady commitment: using technology for the benefit of people. This dedication has shaped her successful academic life, recognized not only by awards and impactful mentorship, including Garrett Camp, a co-founder of Uber but also by a distinguished career as an AI Professor.

A pioneer in the field of multi-agent systems, Dr. Ulieru has also chaired several epic conferences, initiated and led by her. Her academic impact is further underscored by over 100 peer-reviewed publications.

Now, as the Chief AI Alchemist at SingularityNET, she is a key voice in a vital movement to make AI decentralized, ethically grounded, and focused on human needs.

From Creative Sparks to Technological Vision

Dr. Ulieru’s journey began with a natural curiosity and a drive to create. “Creativity drove me,” she says, looking back at her school and career beginnings. “I always wanted to see things differently, to find less obvious perspectives.” This creative spirit first found expression in poetry and music. She wrote poems as a child and started composing music at nine, after receiving a piano. Later, in high school, mathematics captured her imagination. This “mathematics bug,” as she fondly calls it, ultimately steered her towards robotics and computer science in university.

This shift to technology was not just about technical skills. It was about using systems and solutions to explore AI’s potential. Driven by a desire for deep knowledge, she pursued a PhD and further studies, specializing in AI and robotics.

Yet, amidst the complex equations and cutting-edge research, her “North Star” remained constant. “My passion for designing distributed systems that become ultimately technologies for empowerment which can enable ‘we the people’ to co-create collective thriving communities, was always my North Star,” says Dr. Ulieru.  

This guiding principle would ultimately shape her most ambitious endeavor – SingularityNET.

In the age of Industry 4.0, where the lines between the physical and digital realms blur, and where automation is not just an aspiration but a necessity, the role of the Chief Information Officer in industrial giants has become paramount. These are not just technology leaders; they are architects of the digital factory, navigators of complex transformations, and strategists who fuse technological innovation with the tangible realities of manufacturing and industrial processes.

Shannon Gath, Chief Information Officer at Teradyne, stands as a prime example of this new breed of CIO – a leader who is not only steering Teradyne’s IT strategy but is fundamentally shaping its future in the landscape of automation.

Teradyne, a name synonymous with cutting-edge automation equipment for semiconductor, automotive, and electronics industries, operates in a world where technological precision is paramount. As CIO, Shannon is at the helm of the digital infrastructure that underpins Teradyne’s global operations and innovation engine.

Her role transcends traditional IT management; she is a linchpin in Teradyne’s ability to deliver advanced automation solutions, enhance operational efficiency, and maintain a competitive edge in a rapidly evolving industrial landscape. In a company where technology is the product, the CIO’s office becomes a nerve center for innovation and strategic direction.

But what does it mean to be the CIO of a global automation leader like Teradyne? How does one orchestrate the digital transformation of a company that itself provides the tools for digital transformation to other industries? Shannon’s responsibilities are multifaceted, demanding a unique blend of technical depth, business acumen, and visionary leadership.

In the exhilarating, often turbulent, world of artificial intelligence, where breakthroughs emerge at a dizzying pace and the future feels perpetually on the cusp of transformation, certain individuals operate behind the scenes, providing the essential scaffolding for innovation to flourish. Padmaja Dasari is one such architect. As Head of Business Financial Systems at OpenAI, the pioneering force behind models like GPT and DALL-E, Dasari is not in the limelight of AI demonstrations, but she is undeniably central to ensuring that the very engine of AI progress – its financial operations – runs with precision, stability, and strategic foresight.

While the headlines may celebrate the algorithmic marvels and ethical debates surrounding AI, it is professionals like Padmaja who are constructing the robust financial infrastructure necessary to support OpenAI’s ambitious mission: to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.

In a landscape as novel and rapidly evolving as AI, the role of financial systems is not merely about accounting and reporting; it’s about enabling agility, managing unprecedented growth, and strategically allocating resources to fuel groundbreaking research and responsible deployment.

Padmaja Dasari embodies a blend of financial expertise, technological fluency, and strategic thinking. Her career journey, culminating in a leadership role at one of the most watched companies in the world, speaks to a professional who has consistently navigated complex landscapes, building and optimizing financial systems for organizations operating at the cutting edge.

But what exactly does it mean to be Head of Business Financial Systems at OpenAI? How does one financially orchestrate a company that is not just developing technology but arguably reshaping the future of human-computer interaction?