Charlie founded PNI Therapeutics because of his life-long interest in psychoneuroimmunology and mind-body research. He's committed to increasing the effectiveness of standard-of-care treatment for chronic diseases like cancer and autoimmune diseases with the help of immersive VR. Before starting PNI Therapeutics, Charlie had a successful corporate career in Product Management and Marketing & Communications, managing world-renowned brands, including Mastercard, FedEx, and British Airways.
Charlie Silvestro
Founder & CEO
Ijaz is a VR ninja, adept and experienced in developing virtual reality experiences. As the founder and principal programmer of Somun Immersive, he has led the development of many VR games and simulations. Other roles include lecturing, conducting workshops, and teaching seminars as an Unreal Engine User Lead. Exploring the medium of VR and emerging tech is a passion, more at play than work.
Amir is co-founder and CEO at Virtuleap, a health and education startup taking cognitive assessment and training to the next level thanks to VR and AI. Their Enhance VR brain training app offers a daily mental workout of short, intense, and fun mini-games designed to help increase attention and concentration levels. Previous to Virtuleap, Amir founded Gameguise, a mobile games studio based in Dubai, and Time Dirham, the first social impact startup to introduce time banking to the Middle East. He is an alumnus of York University and the THNK School of Creative Leadership. Since 2015, Amir has been a contributing writer to tech blogs like VentureBeat and Tech Crunch on emerging tech, spatial computing, and startup ecosystems.
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Cederik is a tech entrepreneur at the forefront of XR technologies. He’s a strategist, keynote speaker, CTO, Co-Founder, innovator, and author of the NIM Framework, a body of work that provides a common language and structure for collaboration among business leaders, designers, and technology experts in XR, AI, and advanced computing to prepare for human-machine interaction at the convergence of VR/AR, AI, and 5G. Cederik is also the Managing Director of XR Valley, the Belgian XR association.
​Jelle is a neuroscientist and holds a doctorate in psychology. He is the co-founder and Director of Schools, Universities, Research Relations, and Talent Initiatives of XRvalley (www.XRvalley.be), the Belgian XR association. Jelle is also the co-founder of HITlab at Howest University of Applied Sciences and Arts (www.hitlab.be), where he directs a team of XR developers and researchers to address problems and solutions in health, education, and industry 4.0. In addition, Jelle has published research in numerous peer-reviewed cognitive and brain sciences journals.
Douglass is co-founder and president of communicate4IMPACT, a marketing and communications firm that specializes in communications training for executives. Douglass brings more than 20 years of high-impact speechwriting to the leadership and storytelling space. Before founding his company, Douglass led executive communications at Mastercard, working closely with the CEO and other senior executives. Prior to Mastercard, Douglass spent two decades in Washington, DC, where he worked on Capitol Hill in senior positions in both the U.S. Senate and House. Douglass was senior advisor and speechwriter to U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine.