Gold Coast resident Dr John Zakos calls himself a technologist with an entrepreneurial drive. An internationally recognised Artificial Intelligence (AI) pioneer, researcher, business founder and now Honorary Professor at UTS, John says he has been 'thinking about thinking machines' for his entire career. In this fascinating interview, find out how John's passion for AI was ignited way back in his first high school computer class at Trinity Lutheran College Ashmore; how Cognea, the AI start-up he co-founded and later sold to IBM came about and evolved (with all the twists and turns along the way); and get his timely insights into resilience, entrepreneurship, innovation and inspiration. If you have an interest in technology or entrepreneurship or both, this is a must.

Dr John Zakos is an Honorary Professor at the School of Software, University of Technology Sydney.

John co-founded the AI start-up Cognea in 2005, with the company becoming recognised as a world leader in delivering virtual human solutions before being acquired by IBM in 2014. He was the Program Director for Virtual Agent technologies at IBM Watson Group until 2019, where he played a key role in developing the next generation of cognitive computing alongside colleagues at IBM. John holds a PhD in AI and has published his work internationally. He also holds numerous patents and has given invited talks at forums such as TED.