Deeph Chana
Imperial Business School, Imperial College London
Deeph Chana is a researcher, technologist, and innovation strategist specialising in dual-use technologies at the intersection of space, security, and advanced engineering systems. With over two decades of leadership across academia, government, industry, and international security institutions, his work focuses on how frontier technologies transition from research to operational capability at pace—particularly in domains critical to resilience and positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT).
He is the founding architect of NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) and the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) and served as DIANA’s inaugural Managing Director. In this role, he built the world’s first multi-sovereign deep-tech accelerator ecosystem, explicitly designed to advance dual-use and space-based technologies and strengthen innovation pipelines across 32 nations representing 1Bn citizens.
Professor Chana is currently based at Imperial College Business School, where he works on applied machine learning, innovation systems, and deep-tech commercialisation. He is also an Advisor to Hiro Capital, supporting investment strategy across frontier technologies including AI, space-adjacent systems, and next-generation infrastructure.
Heidi Kuusniemi
Professor, Wireless Systems Tampere University, Finland
Heidi Kuusniemi is a Professor of Wireless Systems at Tampere University, Finland, holding a joint professorship with the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute of the National Land Survey of Finland. Her research focuses on resilient positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) systems, including satellite navigation interference detection and mitigation as well as reliable multi-system and multi-sensor navigation. Her work bridges the domains of geospatial technology, wireless systems and cybersecurity, with the goal of ensuring trustworthy positioning and situational awareness from space to Earth. Prof. Kuusniemi has led numerous national and international research and development projects on localization resilience, sensor fusion and the space economy. She is President of the Nordic Institute of Navigation and a member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters as well as the Finnish Academy of Technical Sciences, and was named Professor of the Year 2025 by the Professors’ Union of Finland.
Henriette Spyra
Director General, Austrian Federal Ministry for Innovation, Mobility and Infrastructure
Henriette has been serving as Director General at the Austrian Federal Ministry for Innovation, Mobility and Infrastructure since 2021 following a two-year-term as Director Science & Innovation at the Austrian Environment Agency. As an innovation and mobility expert she looks back at a 15 year career in various public sector positions as well as research institutions. She is member of the supervisory board at AIT Austrian Institute of Technology as well as SAL Silicon Austria Labs. She also serves as co-president of the Climate & Energy Fund. A stubborn optimist Henriette enjoys bridging the worlds of policy, technology, sustainability and innovation. Originally from East Berlin, Henriette believes in falling walls. She holds degrees from the University of Oxford as well as the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.