Dr Guruduth Banavar is the Keynote speaker at the Macedonia2025 Summit in Skopje and will be speaking on changing the world with technology innovation. He is currently Chief Science Officer and Vice President, IBM Research, USA. As a lifelong innovator, Guru has invented dozens of technologies and turned them into practical solutions that benefit business and society around the world, from India to Brazil to the USA. In this talk, he will reflect on how technology’s transformative power has changed every industry and community, and project into a future where technology will help us solve the world’s biggest problems including food, health, and the environment. Dr Banavar has a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Utah.

Last year Guru Banavar spoke at the Nobel Week Dialogue series in Goteborg, dedicated to the future of Artificial Intelligence. His presentation covered the future of human-robot (AI) interaction and cooperation in resolving some of humanity’s most daunting challenges such as curing cancer or reversing climate change.

Dr Guruduth Banavar is the Chief Science Officer and Vice President at IBM Research. Dr Banavar leads a worldwide team that co-innovates with clients, by applying advanced technologies to solve tough business problems. His current areas of focus are: healthcare, life sciences, financial services, energy and natural resources, and Smarter Cities. Dr Banavar is an elected member of the IBM Academy of Technology, and serves on the board of IBM’s Industry Academy.

Dr Banavar previous position at IBM was the Chief Technology Officer of IBM’s Global Public Sector business with a focus on the Smarter Cities initiative. An example of his work is the City Operations Center in Rio de Janeiro, which coordinates day-to-day as well as emergency operations in support of planning and service management across thirty agencies within that city. Dr Banavar also served on NY Governor Cuomo’s commission for improving New York State’s resilience to natural disasters after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy.

Dr Banavar’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and other international media. He has also published over t40 research papers, (co-)invented more than 25 patents, chaired major technical conferences and workshops in the field, served on 3 PhD committees, and sits on the advisory boards of international research and educational organizations.