SPEAKERS' BIOS

Professor Sir William Blair, Professor of Financial Law and Ethics, Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London

Professor Sir William Blair has long standing experience in international dispute resolution.  After a career at the bar, he served as Judge in Charge of London’s Commercial Court part of the High Court of England and Wales.  Since retiring, he sits as a judge in Qatar and Hong Kong, is a member the International Commercial Expert Committee of the Supreme People’s Court of the PRC, and of the International Financial Legal Experts Team of the Shanghai High People’s Court.  As an arbitrator he has had appointments as Chair, sole arbitrator and party-appointed arbitrator in commercial and investor-state arbitrations.  He is included by the European Commission in the list of arbitrators suitable for appointment as Chairperson in arbitrations under trade agreements to which the EU is a party. In the financial regulatory field, he has sat as tribunal chair in many disputes, was the first President of the Board of Appeal of the European Supervisory Authorities, and is currently Chair of the Enforcement Decision Making Committee of the Bank of England.  He is a member of the Steering Group of the Standing International Forum of Commercial Courts. He helped set up the pro bono International Advisory and Dispute Resolution Unit at 3VB Chambers in London, where he is an Associate Member.  Bill has written and spoken on the subject of AI in legal services, and how it may change how we try cases.  He is on the Ethics Committee of a UK digital start up funder.

Dr. Jakob Mökander, Director of Science & Technology Policy, Tony Blair Institute

Jakob is an expert on technology policy, with an emphasis on artificial-intelligence governance and international innovation ecosystems. His work focuses on harnessing the power of emerging technologies while managing the associated risks.

Prior to the Tony Blair Institute, Jakob developed the world’s first holistic framework to audit large language models, which has since been piloted and used by major AI labs. He also worked as a management consultant at McKinsey, helping Fortune 500 companies manage digital transformation, and at the Swedish Trade and Invest Council, where he was based in New Delhi to facilitate international research collaboration, innovation partnerships and technology transfer.

Jakob holds a PhD from the Oxford Internet Institute. He has been a visiting scholar at the Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy.

Dr. Jon Truby, Visiting Research Associate Professor in AI & Technology Law, Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore

Dr Jon Truby leads AI and technology law research at the Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore where he is investigating AI law and sustainability.  He is a Chair of the International Law Association Committee on AI & Technology Law and a participating expert of the OECD.AI Expert Group on AI Compute and Climate.  His current research examines the intersection of international law and sustainability on emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, quantum computing and spatial computing, with a focus on digital decarbonisation and nature-positive AI.  His research in particular examines the application of AI governance towards the achievement of the SDGs in fields such as anti-corruption law, human rights and the rule of law.  He has served a number of AI policy committees including the UNESCO Group of Friends on the Ethics of AI.

Professor Simon Chesterman, David Marshall Professor of Law and Vice Provost (Educational Innovation), National University of Singapore

Simon Chesterman is David Marshall Professor of Law and Vice Provost (Educational Innovation) at the National University of Singapore, where he is also the founding Dean of NUS College. He serves as Senior Director of AI Governance at AI Singapore and Editor of the Asian Journal of International Law. Previously, he was Dean of NUS Law from 2012 to 2022 and Co-President of the Law Schools Global League from 2021 to 2023.

Educated in Melbourne, Beijing, Amsterdam, and Oxford, Professor Chesterman’s teaching experience includes periods at the Universities of Melbourne, Oxford, Southampton, Columbia, and Sciences Po. From 2006-2011, he was Global Professor and Director of the New York University School of Law Singapore Programme. Prior to joining NYU, he was a Senior Associate at the International Peace Academy and Director of UN Relations at the International Crisis Group in New York.

Professor Chesterman is the author or editor of more than twenty books, including We, the Robots? Regulating Artificial Intelligence and the Limits of the Law (CUP, 2021) and One Nation Under Surveillance (OUP, 2011). He also writes on legal education and higher education more generally, and is the author of five novels including the Raising Arcadia trilogy and Artifice.

Dr. Hu Ying, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore

Dr. Hu Ying is an Assistant Professor at the NUS Faculty of Law. She holds an LLB from the University of Hong Kong, an LLM from the University of Cambridge, and an LLM and JSD from Yale Law School. Her primary research and teaching interests lie in privacy and data protection, property law, and law and technology more broadly. Before joining academia, she worked as a Judicial Assistant at the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal.

Tomas Furlong, Partner, Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, Singapore

Tom specialises in international disputes, asset-tracing and set-aside/enforcement globally.  He helps corporates and financial sponsors across all sectors in commercial, fraud, acquisition, exit and joint venture disputes, including contentious corporate governance and the exercise of put options.  Alongside his practice, he has sponsored multiple digital transformation projects at HSF over the last five years, including the firm's Smart Clause product for arbitration agreements for use in various jurisdictions, and the firm's FT Innovative Lawyer award-winning "Genesis" tool within the arbitration practice which uses AI to leverage on historical data and predictive analytics, to help assess risk, optimize resource allocation, and improve client's position in the arbitration process.