Verena Puhm is a Sundance-featured, award-winning AI filmmaker and creative technologist blending emotional storytelling with cutting-edge tools. With a background in producing series for CNN and BBC and writing for Leonine Studio's Wiedemann & Berg TV as well as Red Bull Media's Terra Mater Studios, she bridges traditional and AI-driven cinema. Her work has been honored by Forbes, The Hollywood Reporter, and top AI festivals. A frequent speaker and judge, she’s part of OpenAI’s Sora Creator Circle, Google veo 2 Beta, Adobe AI Community Leader Program, Luma, Kling, Hailou Minimax, LTX, Freepik, Pika and Showrunner AI's Creator programs and collaborates globally across studios, pushing the future of storytelling forward. In addition to her solo creative work, Verena has developed several hybrid and fully AI-driven production pipelines, combining cutting-edge tools and processes for cost-efficient, high-quality content creation. She commands a distributed team of global specialists across production, AI and 3D animation, editing, VFX, sound, and compositing—allowing fast iteration, flexibility, and stylistic precision while keeping production lean and scalable. Verena’s workflow merges traditional filmmaking with generative AI capabilities, ensuring both narrative strength and technical innovation.

Larry Cutler is the Chief Technical Officer and Co-Founder of 10x Emmy-award winning and leading independent animation studio Baobab Studios, which sits at the intersection of tech, gaming, and Hollywood. Baobab is partnered with Google AI and two other top-tier tech AI firms. They've earned a reputation for having top creative talent (e.g., MADAGASCAR  writer/director, MOANA producer), that leads in AI and real-time tech, architecting breakthrough applications of machine learning for storytelling and games. Larry’s AI and tech media insights have been shared as keynotes for SxSW, SIGGRAPH, GDC, and Digipro. As CTO of Baobab Studios, he has propelled AI and UGC creator platforms (e.g,. Roblox) industries forward with expertise in Gen Z and Alpha consumer behavior. Baobab has a track record of creating value from IP transmedia (e.g., created hit Roblox games and turned the IP into series/film with Disney+, Netflix, Max series and books). They are creatively led by Eric Darnell, director of all 4 MADAGASCAR films ($3.5B box office) and Osnat Shurer, producer of MOANA (#1 streamed movie, $2.5B box office). Baobab is backed by Disney, Comcast, and Chernin. Their projects (Disney, Netflix, Max, Roblox, VR) have attracted talent such as Oprah, John Legend, Ali Wong, Daisy Ridley, Kate Winslet, and more. Their board includes luminaries like Ed Catmull, the Pixar co-founder. Cutler brings deep technical leadership over the past two decades in animation, machine learning AI, real-time technology, animation creation and development. He serves on the Digital Imaging Technology Subcommittee for the Oscar Technical Achievement Awards.  He was most recently the Vice President of Solutions at Metanautix, a big data, machine learning startup (acquired by Microsoft). Prior to that, Larry served as DreamWorks Animation’s Global Head of Character Technology working on films such as SHREK 2, SHREK THE THIRD, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, and MEGAMIND. Larry began his career at Pixar Animation Studios as a Technical Director on films such as MONSTERS INC, TOY STORY 2, and A BUG’S LIFE.  Larry holds undergraduate and master’s degrees in computer science from Stanford University.

Katya Alexander is a producer who specializes in Indie Filmmaking and new technology. Katya achieved critical acclaim with "Pretty Problems", a film that emerged as the SXSW 2024 audience winner and one of the top selections on Hulu. Beyond the silver screen, her involvement in Sphere, Las Vegas, underscores her commitment to supporting both tech teams and filmmakers, bridging the gap between innovation and storytelling. Now, Katya Alexander is the President of Pillars, an AI production studio that has the goal of putting these tools into the hands of creatives. As she embarks on her next ventures, Katya Alexander wants to create the entertainment that people want.

Jason Zada, founder, Secret Level: Jason Zada is an award-winning storyteller and director. In 2016, his first theatrical feature film, The Forest was released into theaters by Focus Features. Previously, Jason was most recognized for the Emmy Award-winning cinematic personal experience ‘Take This Lollipop’, which has been seen by over 100 million people all over the world. The film gathered 13 million Facebook Likes, making it the fastest growing FB app of all time. Jason’s unique blend of multi-screen storytelling landed him in Adweek/Creativity’s Top 50 most influential creative personalities of 2012. Starting at an early age, Jason was attracted to non-traditional storytelling. Creating Super8 films, programming text adventures on his Commodore 64 and video games formed a strong foundation as both an avid geek and storyteller. During the 1990’s Jason spent time telling stories in CD-ROMs and on the Internet. In the fall of 2000, Jason started the digital advertising agency Evolution Bureau and over the next 8 years grew EVB into a 65-person, world-renowned agency. This led to the holding company, Omnicom, to acquire a majority stake in the company. As a commercial director, Jason has worked with some of the most prominent advertising agencies in the world, such as Weiden + Kennedy, Crispin Porter Bogusky, Sid Lee, Leo Burnett, Saatchi & Saatchi, RPA, Y&R, Draftfcb, Kaplan Thaler and Grey on a variety of digital and broadcast projects. A lover of telling stories in front of strangers, Jason is often asked to speak at a variety of industry events including Cannes, South by Southwest and FITC. Jason’s work has appeared in New York Times, Forbes, Fast Company, Adweek, Shoot Magazine, Communication Arts, IndieWire, Contagious and a variety of other film and advertising publications.

John Canning, Director Developer Relations - Creators, AMD. John Canning, a leading expert in all "Media, Technology and Platform Issues" has recently joined AMD. For the past few years, he had been with Digital Domain, - renown for creative visual effects for feature films, including the recent Avengers Infinity War movie. They also create visuals for advertising, games, training, and immersive content, including their own original content. Prior to Digital Domain, John was the VP of Interactive Experiences for NBCUniversal, creating VR and other digital experiences for The Voice, Million Second Quiz, The Blacklist, and others. In the past, he’s also spent several years at both Microsoft and Disney. On the side, he’s the Chairman of the New Media Council at the Producers Guild of America. He’s also an independent producer, cinematographer, and photographer for good causes.