10th Annual LDV Vision Summit

March 21, 2024, 11:00 - 3:00 PM ET
Virtual Event

Since its inception in 2014, our Annual LDV Vision Summit has been the premier global gathering in visual tech and AI. Every year we bring together an impressive array of brilliant speakers, ranging from tech giants to under-the-radar startups, esteemed research labs and leading venture capital firms.

3 fireside chats, 7 lightning keynotes & 2 panels

Read our event recap »
See the recordings »

A few articles that relate to our 10th Summit:

• Roelof Botha of Sequoia Says 'To Be Successful in This Business, You Have to Be Contrarian and Right'

• Interview With Dr. Molly Gibson: The Age of New Medicines and The AI-powered Discovery of Proteins, Biologics, Therapeutics and Materials

• Living Longer & Healthier: How Visual Tech will Advance Accelerations in Life Sciences & Biotech

• “The Difference Is – Now The Whole World Is Paying Attention To AI,” Says Prof. Serge Belongie

• Over 10 Years of Insights on Visual Technologies & AI From Leaders ​a​t DeepMind, Sequoia Capital, Meta, Union Square Ventures,​ Snap and More​

• Visual Data is the Crux of AI & Automation for the Future of All Industries

• Generative AI As A Utility Will Empower SaaS Businesses

Speakers

Schedule

11:00AM ET
Keynote: Investment Opportunities Leveraging Visual Tech & AI Across Life Sciences, Neuroscience, Biotech, Advanced Materials and Much More

LDV Capital has invested in people building businesses powered by Visual Technologies and Artificial Intelligence for Over 11 Years. LDV Capital's Founder & General Partner Evan Nisselson will share insights on the trends shaping the investment landscape of the next decade with a focus on visual technologies and artificial intelligence.
– Evan Nisselson, General Partner at LDV Capital

11:10AM ET
Keynote: A Ph.D. Cognitive Scientist (Founded NextMind & Sold it to Snap) Shares Insights on Brain-Computer Interfaces & Augmented Reality

Snap acquired Sid Kouider’s startup Nextmind, a spin-off from his Paris Lab at École Normale Supérieure. Sid is a cognitive neuroscientist and has been working on psychophysics and brain imaging of vision in humans. Nextmind’s technology utilizes a wearable headband with a built-in electroencephalogram to detect and read neural activity in the cortex. Mind-controlled interfaces of this nature are particularly well-suited for augmented reality applications. Sid will share his roller-coaster stories of a Ph.D. startup CEO and his views on the state of the art of brain-machine interfaces’ impact on augmented reality.
– Sid Kouider, Director of Engineering & Research at Snap

11:20AM ET
Fireside Chat: Roller Coaster Stories On Investing & Advice for People Building Businesses Powered by AI – From Proactive Healthcare and Human Capital to Aerospace and More

Esther Dyson is an investor, author, commentator, philanthropist and full-time founder of Wellville – a ten-year nonprofit project (ending in 2024) to show the long-term value of investing in health, resilience and equity for all. Aside from Wellville, her primary activity is investing in and nurturing start-ups, with a focus on health, human capital, logistics and space exploration (by both humans and machines). Check out our interview with Esther in the Women Leading Visual Tech series.

Esther wrote the bestselling, widely translated book, “Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age”. She was an early investor in 23andMe, Avanlee Care, Evernote, Flickr, Mashery, Medstory, Meetup, Omada Health, Square, Ezra (LDV portfolio company) and others.

Esther dispenses candid wisdom gained through a long career of being present without leave, in roles starting as a fact-checker for Forbes Magazine, a securities analyst studying Federal Express before it shipped its first package, a backup to (Microsoft Word creator) Charles Simonyi as a space tourist and also including board seats at 23andMe, Meetup, WPP Group and “Google of Russia” Yandex.
– Esther Dyson, Founder of Wellville; Investor, Author & Court jEsther

11:55AM ET
Keynote: New Frontiers in Generative AI: Bringing Human-Level Performance to Generative Video

AI-generated video used to be labeled the 'uncanny valley.' Not anymore! The opportunities with human-level AI-created videos are real and they will transform the way companies communicate with customers, employees and much more.

Jon is the CTO at Synthesia, the #1 platform for AI-video, an LDV portfolio company valued at $1B. We first partnered with the Synthesia team in 2019, before the term Generative AI existed. Synthesia’s 60,000+ users created 9.5 years worth of video content in 2023. The company’s goal is to discover methods for creating realistic videos directly from a browser without the physical constraints of conventional video production.

Before Synthesia, Jon was Head of Research at Foundry, one of the leading visual effects software companies.
– Dr. Jon Starck, CTO at Synthesia

12:00PM ET
Keynote: Increasing ROI in Hospital Operating Rooms Using Computer Vision & AI 

Hospitals and health systems have repeatedly confronted a range of financial and operational challenges. Computer vision and AI offer tremendous opportunities to increase efficiency in the very bureaucratic hospital sector and especially in their operating rooms.

Thomas Knox is the Co-Founder & CEO of VitVio, an AI-driven computer vision platform designed to enhance the safety and efficacy of hospital operating theaters. Through leveraging computer vision algorithms to analyze live video feeds, VitVio’s platform autonomously tracks and analyzes surgical processes and OR operations. This helps hospitals perform more surgeries, optimize workflows within the OR and improve inventory management to boost overall productivity and ROI.

Before founding VitVio, Thomas was the Head of Product at AiFi, the leading innovator of autonomous retail store technology and this domain expertise is extremely valuable for his new startup in Operating Rooms.
– Thomas Knox, Co-Founder & CEO of VitVio

12:05PM ET
Panel: Visual Tech Advancements in Life Sciences & Biotech Paving the Way for Longer and Healthier Lives

As the biotech industry relies heavily on data filtering, analysis and sharing, visual technologies become critical for the detection and imaging of biological systems, paving the way for the future of life sciences tools enabling next-generation therapeutics, biomanufacturing & longevity. Join our panel of experts as they delve into these topics and explore a myriad of other critical aspects shaping the future of biotechnology.

Moderator: Dr. Laura Smoliar, the Executive Director of the Taiwan Science & Technology Hub at Stanford University. She is one of our LDV Capital Experts.

Panelists:
– Dr. Elizabeth Neumann, an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Davis. Her lab focuses on understanding the molecular and cellular architecture behind neurological diseases. The research is highly interdisciplinary and involves developing analytical tools and multimodal imaging methods for understanding complex biological phenomena;

– Neil Inala, CEO at Nobias Therapeutics, an AI-first therapeutics company. Nobias is currently running a phase 2 clinical trial for treating symptoms of anxiety, inattention and autism in children with 22q11 deletion syndrome. Neil has been involved with software & systems development for more than 20 years including over 10 years at Google.

– Dr. Olga Troyanskaya, Director at Princeton Precision Health, Professor at Princeton University and Deputy Director for Genomics at the Flatiron Institute of the Simons Foundation.

12:45PM ET
Keynote: Harnessing AI to Address Climate Change: A Computational Approach for Material Discovery for Carbon Dioxide Removal

New methods for carbon dioxide removal are urgently needed to combat global climate change. Discovering new materials is key to reducing the cost of carbon capture. However, traditional methods for discovering materials are too slow and can take several years. With the power of AI this process can be reduced from years to weeks!

Anuroop Sriram is an AI researcher at Meta FAIR, working on applying deep learning to scientific problems. His focus over the last few years has been on using AI to discover materials for addressing climate change as part of the Open Catalyst and OpenDAC projects. He will share insights on the new computational approach benefiting from recent innovations in machine learning and present a dataset named ODAC23 consisting of more than 38M quantum chemistry calculations and associated ML models to discover new materials for carbon capture.

Previously, he helped accelerate MRI scanning by 4 times as part of the fastMRI project and led the FAIR Speech Research team. Before joining Meta, Anuroop worked as a Senior Research Scientist at Baidu Silicon Valley AI Lab with Andrew Ng on speech recognition, where he was part of the team that developed the Deep Speech 2 model. Before Baidu, he worked as an AI Engineer at Twitter/X, building online ML pipelines for ad ranking and targeting.
– Anuroop Sriram, Research Engineering Lead (FAIR) at Meta

12:50PM ET
Fireside Chat: The Age of New Medicines: How AI is Empowering & Disrupting the Discovery of Proteins, Biologics, Therapeutics & Materials

At Flagship Pioneering, Molly operates as part of a venture-creation team to found and grow companies at the intersection of biology and machine learning including Generate Biomedicines, Tessera Therapeutics, and Cobalt Biomedicines (merged into Sana Biotechnology). Before joining Flagship in 2017, she led computational biology at Kaleido Biosciences. She currently serves as Co-Founder and Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Generate Biomedicines, a new kind of therapeutics company existing at the intersection of biology, machine learning and biological engineering. The company is dedicated to revolutionizing drug discovery within the protein therapeutics space. Rather than relying on traditional approaches that involve discovering new molecules through natural processes and evolution, they employ algorithms to understand the rules governing proteins and their functionality. This allows the team to generate entirely novel molecules tailored to specific requirements, paving the way for the creation of more effective, cost-efficient and safer drugs.

LDV Capital's Founder & General Partner Evan Nisselson will discuss with Molly how AI and machine learning empower and disrupt the scientific process across life sciences, biotech, advanced materials and more. This will have a tremendous impact on business and society. 
– Dr. Molly Gibson, co-founder and chief strategy and innovation officer at Generate Biomedicines, Origination Partner at Flagship Pioneering

1:25PM ET
Keynote: Harnessing the Exponential Power of AI + Quantum (AQ) Technology to Develop Commercial Products for Computationally-Intensive Industries

There is a growing commercial demand for new methods of simulating and designing drugs, as well as developing new materials. Cutting-edge algorithms are designed to leverage advanced quantum capabilities to simulate the behavior of materials at the molecular level, and all without needing a quantum computer.

Dr. Stefan Leichenauer, a trailblazer in AI and Quantum technologies, is the Vice President of Engineering and Lead Scientist at SandboxAQ. As the inaugural member of the Sandbox team at Alphabet, Stefan played a pivotal role in transforming theoretical concepts into tangible real-world applications, initiating groundbreaking projects that shaped the foundation of SandboxAQ solutions.

With a Ph.D. in Physics from UC Berkeley, Stefan maintains close ties to academia through the SandboxAQ Ph.D. Residency and Postdoc programs, embodying a passion for pushing boundaries and driving the evolution of breakthrough solutions.
– Dr. Stefan Leichenauer, the Vice President of Engineering and Lead Scientist at SandboxAQ

1:35PM ET
Panel: Where Are the Next Billion-Dollar Visual Technology and AI Investment Opportunities?

Zoom, Roblox, UiPath, and Pinterest are examples of IPOs that are powered by visual technologies & AI. Open AI and many other private companies are delivering significant value by leveraging similar technologies. These successes are just the tip of the iceberg. Our panel of esteemed investors will discuss visual technologies & AI trends across all business sectors and society.

Moderator: Kia Kokalitcheva, Senior Reporter at Axios. She covers tech, Silicon Valley and venture capital.

Panelists:
– Maryanna Saenko, Co-Founder and Partner at Future Ventures. She invests in nuclear fusion, sustainable agricultural and land management, bee immunology and women’s reproductive longevity.

– Lindy Fishburne, Managing Partner of Breakout Ventures, the home for creative bioscience entrepreneurs. She believes cells are the engine of the next decade as the tools, technologies and talent from across industries are brought to bear on biology and chemistry in surprising ways.

– Dr. Kiersten Stead, Managing Partner at DCVC Bio, a scientist-investor focused on developing deep-tech platforms in therapeutics, agriculture and food and industrial biotechnology.

2:15PM ET
Keynote: Revolutionizing Healthcare Diagnosis with High-Performance, Customizable and Flexible Ultrasound

In the last six decades, ultrasound technology moved from large systems to compact devices based on a few chipsets. However, current ultrasound transducers still rely on the same piezoelectric technology from 70 years ago, facing persistent limitations. The extended R&D cycle, low production yield and labor-intensive manufacturing result in expensive transducers. In the medical sector, ultrasound imaging heavily relies on the expertise of sonographers who manually perform scanning and measurement. The lack of progress in transducer development hampers the introduction of innovative designs and applications, underscoring the need for versatile, high-performance and cost-effective solutions to unlock the full potential of ultrasound technology.

Hani Eskandari is CEO of Sonus Microsystems, a startup that is paving the way for the new era of ultrasound. He has a Ph.D. in medical robotics and ultrasound and holds over 10 patents. 
– Dr. Hani Eskandari, CEO at Sonus Microsystems

2:25PM ET
Fireside Chat: To Be Successful in Business, You Have to Be Contrarian and Right 

Roelof and Evan will discuss trends and early-stage investment opportunities in businesses leveraging visual technologies and AI. 

Roelof has spent over 20 years building companies in Silicon Valley. He began within the walls of nascent PayPal, where he joined in March 2000 while completing his MBA at Stanford. He became CFO in 2001 and led the company through both its IPO in early 2002 and the subsequent acquisition by eBay. Roelof joined Sequoia in 2003 to help founders build enduring businesses. In 2017, he assumed leadership of Sequoia Capital's US/Europe business and became a Steward of the Sequoia Partnership. Roelof is a Director of 23andMe, Block, Ethos, Inside.com, Landis, mmhmm, MongoDB, Natera, Pendulum Therapeutics, and Unity Technologies, and recently led Sequoia's investment in Meeno. Previously, he was a Director of companies that include YouTube, Tumblr, Xoom, Eventbrite, and Evernote. He also led Sequoia's investment in Instagram.
– Roelof Botha, Managing Partner and Steward of Sequoia Capital

3:00PM ET
Thank you and closing remarks

Topics

We will discuss computer vision, computational imaging, machine learning and AI relating to the following sectors:
- Healthcare & Neurotech
- Life Sciences & Biotech, Synthetic Biology, Nanotech, Materials
- Internet of Eyes = Miniaturization of sensors & edge computing
- Agriculture & Food
- Advanced Computing, Quantum Computing and more!

Who should attend?

» Computer Vision, Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence experts, professors, students and professionals
» Media and brand executives interested in enhancing revenue through innovative imaging technologies & AI-powered products
» Investors looking for investment opportunities in businesses leveraging visual technologies & AI
» Technology executives assessing companies for potential partnerships and acquisitions
» Creatives: content creators of all kinds

Attendees & Speakers About Previous LDV Vision Summits