Ayesha Khanna

Dr. Ayesha Khanna is the Co-Founder and CEO of Addo, a global artificial intelligence (AI) solutions firm headquartered in California. Dr. Khanna was named one of Southeast Asia's groundbreaking female entrepreneurs by Forbes magazine and is a strategic advisor on artificial intelligence, smart cities, and the metaverse to leading corporations and governments worldwide.

Forbes magazine featured Addo as one of four leading artificial intelligence companies in Asia in 2017. Addo's clients have included SMRT, Singapore's most prominent public transport company; Pfizer, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies; Singtel, Singapore's largest telco; SOMPO, Japan's largest insurance firm; Habib Bank, Pakistan's largest bank; and Smart Dubai, the government agency tasked to transform Dubai into a leading smart city. Before founding Addo, Dr. Khanna spent over a decade on Wall Street developing large-scale trading, risk management, and data analytics systems for leading financial institutions.

Dr. Khanna is an active advisor and board member of companies and governments. She serves on the board of Johnson Controls (NYSE:JCI), a global leader in smart buildings, creating safe, healthy and sustainable spaces with the world's largest portfolio of building technology, software and service solutions. She is a member of the Governance Committee.

Dr. Khanna previously served on the board of AVEVA, a global leader in industrial software, which was part of the FTSE100, before its acquisition by Schneider Electric. She was a member of the Renumeration Committee.

She serves on the board of NEOM Tonomous, responsible for formulating the vision and delivery of the technology infrastructure (which includes AI, robotics, blockchain, and metaverse) for NEOM, the $500 billion smart city under development in Saudi Arabia. She is Chairwoman of the Investment Committee.

Dr. Khanna serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of L'Oreal, the world's largest beauty company where she advises on new technologies and disruptive innovations.

She also serves on the Consumer Committee of the Board for Mercy, one of the largest healthcare providers in the United States, and advises on how to modernize and improve consumer journeys and clinical outcomes with data and AI.

Dr. Khanna has served on several Singapore government boards, including:

• Infocomm Media Development Authority, a statutory board under the Ministry of Communications and Information that develops and regulates its world-class technology sector to drive the country's digital economy and power its Smart Nation vision.

• Health Promotion Board, a statutory board under the Ministry of Health, is Singapore's primary driver for national health promotion and disease prevention programs.

• Ngee Ann Polytechnic, a statutory board under the Ministry of Education, has 15,000 students and 44 full-time diploma courses offered through 9 academic schools.

• Sport Singapore, a statutory board under the Ministry of Culture, Community, and Youth, tasked with developing a holistic sports culture for the nation.

Dr. Khanna was also a Singapore Ministry of Education's steering committee member that developed the country's Skills Future program. This innovative national program aligns education with economic demand, career guidance, and lifelong learning to prepare citizens for the fourth industrial revolution.

Dr. Khanna is the Founder of 21st Century Girls, a charity that delivers free coding and artificial intelligence classes to girls. Programs include Code in the Community, a program sponsored by Google that has taught thousands of children (8-14 yrs) coding; Empower, which partnered with Ngee Ann Polytechnic to teach girls (18-24 yrs) the basics of artificial intelligence; and Squad, a platform for women who want to learn, build and invest in the Metaverse and Web3.

Dr. Khanna has presented at major financial, technology, and other industry conferences, provided high-level government briefings, chaired symposiums such as AI Asia, and spoken at TEDx events. She was a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Future Councils, a community of international experts who provide thought leadership on the impact and governance of emerging technologies.

Dr. Khanna is the author of Straight Through Processing (2008) and co-author of Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization (2012). She has been published and quoted on technology, innovation, and smart cities in The New York Times, BusinessWeek, TIME, Newsweek, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Strategy+Business, and Foreign Policy.

ZDF (Germany's largest TV channel) featured Dr. Khanna in a documentary on twelve "Leading Women" around the world (2019). She has been named one of Singapore's leading women in tech (Singapore Computer Society). She has been profiled for her work in artificial intelligence in leading publications, including Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland), Focus Magazin (Germany), Corriere della Sera (Italy), Dagens Næringsliv (Norway), Lëtzebuerger Journal (Luxembourg), Computer Sweden (Sweden), Information Age (Nordics), Peak (Singapore), and In The Black (Australia).

Dr. Khanna has a BA (honors) in Economics from Harvard University, an MS in Operations Research from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Information Systems (focused on digital innovation in smart cities) from the London School of Economics.

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