Established in 2012, Crowdo, a leading financial technology company in Asia, offers a full suite of equity crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending solutions. It has a strong regional presence with offices in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, and has helped raise funding for projects across six continents from more than 70 countries.

Nicola has more than 15 years of experience in financial technology with significant expertise in investment, finance, internet and the hi-tech sectors. He spent 8 years at Accenture where part of Accenture’s research centre in Sophia Antipolis served financial institution clients on large transformational projects. Subsequently he joined Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore as a fixed income trader on Asian financial markets.

He holds an MBA from INSEAD in Singapore and France and a Master in Bio-electronic engineering from the Polytechnic University of Milan. He has been living in Singapore for more than 10 years.

Professor Alpha Condé is the first democratically elected president in the history of the Republic of Guinea.

Professor Alpha Condé, a faculty of law graduate from the University of Sorbonne, began a teaching career in public law at the University in Paris for 10 years.

He is a politician, and author of ‘Guinea: Albania of Africa, or American Neo-colony?’. A strong advocate of the African cause and the struggle for democracy on the African continent and in his country, Professor Alpha was the chairman of the largest political party of the country.

He was also an activist in the Union of Higher Education (SNESUP), in charge of the Association of Guinean Students in France (AEGF), Manager of the African Students Federation Noire in France (FEANF), and the coordinator of the direction of African national groups (GN), which oversaw the activities of the FEANF management. He was an influential figure and leader in the FEANF.

Subsequently, he held several corporate executive management positions in international trading. He founded Africonsult, an office of economic and financial studies, providing economic, financial and social advice to African governments, international companies wishing to work in Africa and for international institutions like the United Nations. He was the Chief Executive Officer of Africonsult until 2001.

Professor Alpha is also commissioned as a consultant in the political conflicts with several heads of state from the region.

Thione Niang is a social entrepreneur, political strategist, youth advocate and author. His efforts led him to participate as a community organiser in the 2008 election of President Barack Obama and National Co-Chair of Gen44 for the 2012 campaign.

He currently heads three international organisations. The first is the Give1 Project, which he created in 2009 as an institution that promotes the involvement and leadership of future young leaders. The second is the TNG Consulting Group, which aims to facilitate communication and relations between global organisations and governments, and the third is Akon Lighting Africa & Solektra International which he co-founded with the renowned artist Akon and Malian Businessman Samba Bathily in 2014. The mission of Akon Lighting Africa is to bring electricity to 600 million African households and communities through sustainable solar energy.

In 2015, he was appointed Ambassador to the US Ministry of Energy by President Obama. Thione Niang advocates for inclusion of minorities in all aspects of the energy sector, with a special focus on energy economic development, STEM education, and climate change. Thione Niang shares his inspiring story with the world in his recent book, Memoirs of an Eternal Optimist.

Eddy Lee has invested in and supported more than 50 startups predominantly in the US, Singapore and Indonesia. Interest areas include mobile health, big data, IoT and marketplaces. He has recently relocated from the Silicon Valley to Southeast Asia to tackle unmet needs in emerging markets. He works alongside founders with a focus on people development, product-market iteration and international markets entry into countries such as the US, Singapore and Indonesia.

At Stanford University, Eddy concurrently serves as a Consulting Professor at the School of Medicine, where he connects academic projects with commercial opportunities. He is also a mentor at Stanford’s StartX incubator where he provides startups with cross border knowhow. During his career at Stanford, Singapore and Australia, he has devised medical imaging technology for visualising stem cell migration and therapy. Prior to that, he designed semiconductor chips at Marvell, a NASDAQ-listed Southeast Asia success story which he hopes his portfolio startups could one day emulate.

AHM Mustafa Kamal is a reputed Chartered Accountant who got involved in politics from his student life and had been associated with active student politics. He served his locality as a leading organiser of Awami League during the 6 point movement of 1966, mass upsurge of 1969 and the historic 1970 election period.

In 1996, he became Member of Parliament of Comilla-9 constitutional seat on the Awami League nomination. During this period, he was a Member of the Public Accounts Committee, Board of Investment, Privatisation Commission, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance Ministry and Chittagong University Senate.

Since 2004 he has been included in the Awami League Central Committee. Simultaneously, he has served as the Convener of Comilla District Awami League since 2006. He is currently serving as the Finance and Planning Secretary of Bangladesh Awami League.

Mr Kamal was elected MP for the second time from Comilla -10 seat in 2008 parliament election as an Awami League candidate. He held the post of the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance Ministry during 2009-2013 period.

He also served as President for the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) (2009 – 2013). During his tenure World Cup Cricket was arranged in Bangladesh in 2011 with worldwide acclamation. The inaugural ceremony of this event (17th February 2011) secured 2nd position in the world ranking.

Mr Kamal had served as the President of International Cricket Council (ICC) from 2014-2015. Earlier, he was the Vice-President of ICC, President of ICC Audit Committee and the President of Asian Cricket Council (ACC).

Mr Kamal was elected the Member of Parliament for the 3rd time contesting from Comilla-10 seat on Awami League nomination in January 5, 2014 election. He was sworn in as a Cabinet Minister of the Government of the Peoples’ Republic of Bangladesh and holding the office of the Ministry of Planning since January 12, 2014.

He is a law graduate, and holds a degree in Commerce and a Masters in Accounting from Dhaka University.

Sitta Rosdaniah is the Financial and Supporting Director of Jakarta Industrial Estate Pulogadung (JIEP) − the first industrial estate in Indonesia. She has served 18 years as a staff and official at the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises in Indonesia. She has a B.Eng. in Industrial Engineering from the Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS), an MSc in Business & Economics from the University of Strathclyde, and a PhD in Economic Public Policy from the Crawford School from the Australian National University. She attended an Executive Education in Finance at the Harvard Business School.

She has taught in several universities in the areas of business & economics, finance, and public administration. She is currently a member of the Advisory Board for the Industrial Engineering Department at ITS. She was a recipient of the British Chevening Award in 1999 and the Australian Leadership Award in 2007.