Legal & technical challenges of explainable AI

Bruno Liebhaberg is Executive Chairman of the think tank Centre on Regulation in Europe (CERRE) which he founded in 2010.

From 2018 to 2021, he was also the first Chairman of the European Union Observatory on the Online Platform Economy. He is also an Honorary Professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles’ Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management (SBS-EM ULB) where he taught from 1979 to 2018. Earlier in his career, he advised former European Commission President Jacques Delors on industry and R&D matters related to the completion of the EU Single Market.

He holds a Master’s in management sciences from SBS-EM ULB and a Ph.D. in Industrial Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

¹Also representing B.LIEBHABERG S.A., Director General

²Member of the Strategic Committee

Lilian Edwards is Professor of Law, Innovation & Society at  Newcastle University since 2018.

She is a leading academic in the field of Internet law. She has taught information technology law, e-commerce law, privacy law and Internet law at undergraduate and postgraduate levels since 1996 and been involved with law and artificial intelligence (AI) since 1985.

Previously, she was a Professor of e-governance at the University of Strathclyde. Prior to that, Ms Edwards served as the Chair of Internet Law at the University of Southampton and as a Professor of Internet Law at the University of Sheffield.

Benoît Frenay is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Computer Science of the University of Namur. His main research interests in machine learning include support vector machines, label noise, efficient learning, graphical models, classification, data clustering, probability density estimation and feature selection.

He completed a degree in computing science engineering (spec. in artificial intelligence) in 2007 at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL). He then obtained a PhD degree in Machine Learning from UCL in 2013.

Alexandre de Streel is the Academic Director of the digital research programme at the Brussels think-tank Centre on Regulation in Europe (CERRE), professor of European law at the University of Namur and visiting professor at the College of Europe (Bruges) and SciencesPo Paris. He sits in the scientific committees of the Knight-Georgetown Institute (US), the European University Institute-Centre for a Digital Society (Italy) and the Mannheim Centre for Competition and Innovation (Germany).

His main research areas are regulation and competition policy in the digital economy (telecommunications, platforms and data) as well as the legal issues raised by the developments of artificial intelligence. He regularly advises the European Union and international organisations on digital regulation.

Previously, Alexandre held visiting positions at New York University Law School, the European University Institute in Florence, Panthéon-Assas (Singapore campus), Barcelona Graduate School of Economics and the University of Louvain. He also worked for the Belgian Deputy Prime Minister, the Belgian Permanent Representation to the European Union, and the European Commission. He has also been the chair of the expert group on the online platform economy, advising the European Commission.

Camilla Bustani is Director, International at Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, where she is responsible for Ofcom’s international strategy across the sectors it regulates. She has been actively engaged in European regulatory debates for the last 15 years, prior to which she worked as a lawyer at Clifford Chance LLP in London for 8 years.

She got her bachelors’ degree from Harvard University and a masters’ degree from Columbia University, and a law degree from Oxford University.

Janne Elvelid is Manager for Public Policy at Facebook.

He monitors legislative and regulatory matters, participates in policy discussions, and supports the company’s interactions with policymakers in Brussels. He works on economic and social issues such as artificial intelligence, data protection, competition and innovation, among other things.

Prior to that, Mr Elvelid has served as Policy Officer at the European Commission but also as CEO, COO, Analyst, Project Manager, Consultant and Policy Advisor in the public and private sectors and academia.

Lisa Felton leads the public policy strategy and engagement with policy makers in relation to major policy programmes and digital and telecoms regulation for Vodafone across its global footprint.

She has over 20 years’ experience as a lawyer and in policy both within Vodafone and in private practice.

She is a Visiting Policy Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, Chair of the GSMA Mobile Commerce Operator Expert Group and holds an MA from Oxford University in Law and a Masters in International Law of Human Rights.

Lorelien Hoet is Director of EU Government Affairs at Microsoft. In this role, she has been dealing notably with data protection, European telecommunications regulation, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

Before joining Microsoft in 2018, she worked as a legal executive at Proximus, and held different positions including Head of Legal Consumer business, and Director of Regulatory Affairs at Mobistar (Orange) in charge of the follow-up and application of telecommunications regulation and competition law files.

She holds an LL.M from KU Leuven.

Ondrej Sočuvka is Senior Manager for EU Public Policy & Government Affairs at Google EU.

In addition to public policy positions with Google in Brussels and Slovakia, he has previously worked as Economic Advisor to the US ambassador to Slovakia and as Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic.

He has also held positions as State Counsellor and as International Analyst with McGuire Woods LLP and Government Relations Assistant with US Steel Corporation, both in Washington, DC.

Eike Gräf is Policy Officer for Fundamental Rights at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Justice and Consumers.

He is also an external PhD-candidate at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and is a member of the university’s Research Group on Law, Science, Technology & Society.

Previously, he has worked on privacy and data protection in different institutional settings and participated in the creation of a student think tank at Sciences Po Paris. Prior to that, Mr Gräf served as a Policy Advisor for the think tank iRights.Lab in Berlin.

Ventsislav Karadjov is Chairman of the Bulgarian Commission for Personal Data Protection since April 2014.

In addition, after having served for two terms as Vice-Chair of the Article 29 Working Party, he was elected unanimously as Vice-Chairman of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) in 2018.

Previously, Mr Karadjov has held various senior legal and management positions for international institutions such as the European Commission, the US Agency for International Development, the OSCE and the UN Development Programme.

He has also served as an Advisor to the Minister for Internal Affairs and as Chief Expert Associate to the 41st and 42nd Bulgarian National Assembly.