Staff

Professor Mike Hinchey is Chair of IEEE UK & Ireland Section for 2018-2019. He is President of IFIP, the International Federation for Information Processing (www.ifip.org) and is Emeritus Director of Lero-the Irish Software Research Centre and Professor of Software Engineering at University of Limerick, Ireland. Prior to joining Lero, Professor Hinchey was the Director of the NASA Software Engineering Laboratory.

In 2009, he was awarded NASA’s Kerley Award as Innovator of the Year and is recognized in the NASA Inventors Hall of Fame. Professor Hinchey holds a B.Sc. in Computer Systems from University of Limerick, an M.Sc. in Computation from University of Oxford and a PhD in Computer Science from University of Cambridge. Professor Hinchey is a Chartered Engineer, Chartered Engineering Professional, Chartered Mathematician and Charted Information Technology Professional, as well as a Fellow of the IET, British Computer Society and Irish Computer Society, of which he is the current President. He is Editor-in-Chief of Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering: a NASA Journal and Journal of the Brazilian Computer Society. In January 2018, he became an Honorary Fellow of the Computer Society of India.

Urška Umek is Secretary of the Committee of experts on quality journalism in the digital age and works on standard setting within the area of freedom of expression and media freedom, one of core areas of activities of the Council of Europe.

Since having joined the CoE’s Information Society Department in 2016, Urška has contributed to the elaboration and implementation of several instruments covering media pluralism and transparency of ownership in the digital media environment, financial sustainability of journalism, gender equality in media, etc. Urška has a strong human rights background, having previously worked as a legal advisor for the Slovenian Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights. She also contributed to the Commentary of the Slovenian Constitution (2011) and other works on constitutional justice. 

Dr. Nad’a Kovalcikova is a program manager and fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy in GMF’s Brussels office. While working on ASD’s European outreach, she focuses also on transatlantic cooperation, NATO, EU – U.S. relations and emerging security challenges. In addition, she analyses information operations, efforts to counter disinformation, and other threats to democracy.

She has developed her expertise through working at NATO, European Parliament, French and Canadian embassies, American Field Service, and several NGO and think thank projects in Belgium, Canada, France, and Slovakia. Nad’a Kovalcikova obtained her PhD. in international relations with a focus on security threats, and masters’ degrees in politics and government, European affairs, and international economic relations. In addition to being a native speaker of Slovak, she is fluent in English, French, and Czech, speaks Spanish, and has a basic knowledge of German.

As a serial enterpreneur he started multiple IT companies in networking, document management & internet video. He has been a trendwatcher and talked about the way technical innovations influences and have severe consequences on the way the media, government, businesses, politics, education & healthcare is run. He does 100+ public speeches a year and is often contributing on radio/tv. He creates 400 videos a year on digital innovations

President of Media Arts Group holding and head and a partner of Mediaplus Group Russia – the part of SERVICEPLAN international network media holding.

In 2002 Oleg accepted a proposal of his long-time business associates and headed Media Arts FCB agency which in 2003 took the leading position in the attraction of new customers in Russia. Headed by Oleg Volkosh Media Arts FCB was renamed FCB MA in 2004 and became DraftFCB in 2008 because of the international merger of Draft and FCB nets. Oleg was Media Arts Group Vice-President for BTL and creative services and then Senior Vice-President. On April 20, the 2010 Board of Directors appointed Oleg Volkosh to the position of the President of Media Arts Group holding. Since 2016 he has been a head and a partner of Mediaplus Group Russia – the part of SERVICEPLAN international network media holding.

In terms of experience, Oleg Volkosh was an administrator at the State Committee on TV and Radio of Kazakh SSR (February 1990 through March 1991) and an editor of the international TV contest Voice of Asia (1991-1992). In 1992 he established and headed the advertising agency Rival. Then in 1993 Oleg created and became the head of Channel 31, TV and Radio company which was one of the first commercial media-holdings in Kazakhstan. Also he established RosMediaMonitoring company (RMM) and was its general director in 1994-1996. RMM together with Gallup Media was transformed into Gallup AdFact company in 1996 with Oleg at the head until 2002.

In 2011 Oleg Volkosh became Person of the Year for ‘Contribution to the Development of the Advertising Industry’. Person of the Year awards has been initiated by RBC media holding.

In 2012 Oleg Volkosh joined YPO. Since 2016 he has been a member of the Executive Committee of YPO Russia, PR and Communication Officer and in 2017 he headed the Russian branch of YPO and became Chapter Chair of YPO Russia. In 2018 he joined the YPO Europe Board and Executive Committee. Starting the year 2018 he is the first YPO Impact Officer in Europe.