Sarah Baldeo
Sarah Baldeo is an experienced neuroscientist, technologist, corporate strategist and entrepreneur, closing on 20 years of leadership experience. She holds an Executive MBA via the University of Toronto, a neuroscience degree from York University, and certifications from Princeton, Ryerson, and University of Illinois. Sarah has successfully founded and exited two consulting firms, while helping three companies IPO. A winner of the 2023 Global Business Elites Top 40 Under 40 Awards, Sarah is currently CEO at IDQ Advisory Group, a boutique IT firm founded in 2010. She lives in Miami, but is a proud Torontonian and recurring guest on Canadian National News for CTV, The Social in Toronto, and CTV Morning Live in Edmonton and Winnipeg.
In 2023 alone, Sarah graced more than 50 stages, gave 24 keynotes, was featured on 960AM radio, and was most recently nominated for the DMZ 2024 Women of the Year Award, as well as the Top 25 Women of Influence Award. You may have even seen her on TV during the Wimbledon Open Commercials!
Sarah has delivered keynotes at TED Conferences, ELEVATE Festival, CBC News, Build a Dream, Gaming Security Professionals of Canada, FEM for STEM, GirlStrong, Powerful Women in Cyber, WomenTech Global, Women in Cyber, Women Enterprise Organizations of Canada, Alberta Women Entrepreneurs, University of Calgary Haskayne Business School and guest lecturing at University of Toronto Rotman Business School.
You can see her in action below:
The Neuroscience of Vacations on The Social CTV, Canada
Neuroscience of Resilience: Ballistic Process Interruption TEDxTrinityBellwoods
Media Interviews:
Sarah Baldeo’s Speaking Topics
Sarah’s keynotes focus on demystifying tech, science, and change, and illuminating the intersection between neural resilience, innovation, and change management.
- The Neuroscience of Change
Sarah explores the science behind change; explaining why change is not part of our survival mechanism and what makes it so challenging. Sarah takes the audience on a journey of delving into the mind and the brain; and enables teams with neuroscientific frameworks to enable change, drive innovation, and foster creativity.
- The Next Frontier of AI: Metacognitive Intelligence
An overview of Artificial General intelligence and the current landscape of sentient AI, how it’s tested, the results of tests and where self-aware AI is beginning to evolve. The keynote covers the implications for responsible AI and safety as well as concerns around bias in algorithms
- Quantum Computing
What is Quantum Computing? Some experts claim that it will take decades for quantum computers to be real but in late 2024 a 50-Qubit computer is slated to be released. How will quantum computers change our public key infrastructure, how we store data, and how we encrypt sensitive information. What are the risk mitigation approaches we can take in cybersecurity and fraud prevention
- AI & Deep Fakes
An overview of multi-factor authentication, KYC/AML, digital identity and the changing landscape of fraud and bias in AI as deep fakes becoming easier to create
Solutions to deep fakes and fraud
How to detect when ChatGPT or image generation has been used
- Neurotechnology – The Next Step
An overview of the newest neuro-tech available and how it will impact human relationships, brain damage, rehabilitation and the potential to become part of everyday life with wearables and even memory adjustments
Petra Molnar
Petra Molnar is a lawyer and anthropologist specializing in migration and human rights.
A former classical musician, she has been working in migrant justice since 2008, first as a settlement worker and community organizer, and then as a researcher and lawyer. She works on digital border technologies, immigration detention, health and human rights, gender-based violence, as well as the politics of refugee, immigration, and international law. Petra also works on issues around knowledge production, decolonial community work, and strategies of resistance in migrant justice.
Petra has worked all over the world including Jordan, Turkey, Philippines, Kenya, Colombia, Canada, and various parts of Europe. She is the co-creator of the Migration and Technology Monitor, a collective of civil society, journalists, academics, and filmmakers interrogating technological experiments on people crossing borders. She is also the Associate Director of the Refugee Law Lab at York University and a 2022-2023 Fellow at the Berkman Klein Centre for Critical Internet at Harvard University.
Petra is the author of numerous academic and popular press publications on technology and migration and one of the first and leading international voices on these issues. Her work has been widely featured in The Guardian, Al Jazeera, and the New York Times, among others, and she is frequently quoted in international and local media as well as various policy briefings at the national and international level including frequently speaking at various institutions within the United Nations. Her first book, Artificial Borders (The New Press 2024), chronicles high-risk technological experiments and their impacts on people crossing borders.
Petra holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, a Masters of Anthropology from York University, Centre for Refugee studies, and an LL.M in International Law from the University of Cambridge.
Selected Speaking Topics
SUBSTANTIVE TOPICS:
Border technologies and their human rights impacts
AI lie detectors in airports, algorithms placing refugees in detention, drones patrolling sea and land crossings, robo dogs at borders. There are just some of the examples of various border technologies being tested out across the world. What are the human rights implications of these technologies? Why are mobile communities used as testing grounds for these experiments? What can we do to better understand the lived experiences at the sharpest edges of technological innovation
Other topics of interest:
- International human rights and refugee law – a primer
- Impacts of immigration detention and carceral technologies
- Gender based violence, surveillance, and new forms of oppression
FOR GOVERNMENTS AND PRIVATE SECTOR:
Regulating new technologies from a human rights perspective
As states and the private sector increasingly develop and deploy new automated technologies, surveillance, and other projects relying on big data, what can effective and meaningful accountability look like? What are some of the ethical implications of using high risk technologies and what are the current conversations around governance (such as the EU’s upcoming AI Act?). What responsibilities do private actors have to ensure that whatever products they are developing meet human rights standards across the world?
Other topics of interest:
- Human rights impact assessments – what are they and how can they help?
- International organizations and their roles in developing new technologies
- Bridging the gap between technologists, human rights workers, and affected communities
RESEARCH AND PROJECT DESIGN:
Working with community, from the ground up
What counts as expertise and why? Why are perspectives from affected communities often relegated to the sidelines, if not outright silenced? Working from a participatory perspective when designing projects, implementing technologies, and strategizing advocacy and policy direction requires framings which center an analysis of power, history, and systemic violence against marginalized groups.
Other topics of interest:
- Workshop on how to work with the media and developing advocacy strategies for community groups and human rights activists
- Security training when developing human rights research projects
- Participatory action research methodology (centering community groups)
To book Petra Molnar, contact Brenna English-Loeb at brenna@transatlanticagency.com.
Christina Crook
“The Marie Kondo of Digital” —Harper’s Bazaar
Christina Crook is a pioneer and leading voice of digital well-being. As the author of award-winning The Joy Of Missing Out: Finding Balance in a Wired World and the leader of global #JOMO movement, she regularly shares her insights in major media outlets and interviews other mindful tech leaders as the host of the JOMO podcast. Her commentary on technology and daily life have appeared in The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, BBC.com, Harper’s Bazaar, NPR, Times of India and Glamour.
Christina hosts the JOMO(cast) podcast where she interviews mindful tech leaders embracing the joy of missing out to thrive in a rapidly changing world. Past guests include Glitch CEO and ethical tech advocate Anil Dash, Harvard’s Dr. Ellen Langer, and Basecamp’s David Heinemeier Hansson. She was listed as a changemaker in All Tech is Human’s 2020 Responsible Guide to Tech (co-presented by NYU’s Center for Policy) and writing has appeared in Utne Reader, CBC.ca, Christianity Today, UPPERCASE magazine, the Literary Review of Canada, and Religious New Service. She lives with her family in Toronto, Canada.
Speaking topics:
An in-demand speaker with engagements across North America, including the Young Presidents’ Organization, World Vision, and the All Tech is Human Summit, Christina Crook shows people overwhelmed by our digitally-saturated culture how to live with intentionality and joy.
Experience the Joy of Missing Out
Christina Crook’s keynote offering introduces your audience to the meaning and value of the Joy of Missing Out: the personal and professional costs of FOMO, the elements of lasting and meaningful joy, and the life-giving, scientifically-proven power of warm human relationships. She’ll present the evidence-based realities of how toxic hustle, digital isolation, and faulty goal-setting lead to declines in productivity and innovation.
The JOMO Method
Digital Well-Being 101. Based on Christina’s extensive one-on-one work in the exploration of values and goal setting, this workshop closely engages your team(s) to assess how their personal and team values align or misalign with professional objectives, and the role digital well-being plays in their ability to be productive, creative, and healthy.
Beating the Comparison Game
Social media invites unlimited, unrelenting comparison. Personal comparison is one of the most toxic- and the most instinctively human- pursuits that short-circuit our sense of perspective, value, and joy. In this talk, we unpack the pitfalls of social contagion (wanting what others have) and unlock the simple game-changing strategy that stops it in its tracks.
Selected Testimonials:
“Christina has the ability to connect with people immediately and finds commonalities that make her extremely relatable. The session was flawlessly executed.”
—Madison Hall Sikorski, Brand Strategist & Drive Founder at Cossette
“Christina Crook captures her audience inviting them to share her passion for human flourishing in the presence of a smartphone world. Christina’s personality shines through and she is extremely authentic”
—Dave Harder, founder Q Commons Ottawa
“We need more thoughtfulness added to the conversation around tech, and Christina is that rare mix of expertise and approachability that makes her a highly sought after and respected voice.”
—David Ryan Polgar, founder of All Tech is Human Summit
“Spend ten minutes with Christina and you’ll feel rejuvenated and hopeful about the future. She makes disconnecting look mainstream, doable, and like the breath of fresh air we are gasping for.”
—Aimee Ippersiel, Executive Director, Robert Bateman Centre
Speaking reel
Selected media:
Women of Influence | Feature 2020
All Tech is Human | Christina Crook on the Joy of Missing Out and Thriving in the Digital Age
Harper’s Bazaar | Practicing the Joy of Missing Out
To book Christina Crook, contact Rob Firing at speakers@transatlanticagency.com.