AI in Emerging Markets: Governance, Infrastructure, Language

Mark Weber is the Senior Lead for Business Innovation at IBM Research, where he provides strategic and operational leadership for the company’s flagship client programs. Charged with designing for execution, Mark focuses on cultivating the research-to-impact workflow within a hybrid cloud ecosystem for driving AI applications with pathways to integration and scale. Having previously serving on the leadership team standing up the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, Mark continues to do applied research with the lab focused on algorithmic fairness and anti-human trafficking. As a researcher, Mark has published works on blockchain technology for supply chain finance, graph deep learning for anti-money laundering, and AI fairness for anti-discrimination in lending. A former fellow at the MIT Legatum Center for Entrepreneurship & Development, Mark serves as an advisor to the International Monetary Fund’s Innovation Lab, the Harambe Alliance of African Entrepreneurs, and the Traffik Analysis Hub. Prior to IBM Research, Mark earned his MBA in finance from MIT Sloan and worked as a graduate researcher at the MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative, where he led the development of the open-source blockchain protocol b_verify for public registries with with the Mexican government and Inter-American Development Bank, and oversaw working groups with member companies. Mark earned his bachelors at the University of Notre Dame’s classical great books program and began his career producing documentary films on political economy and international development, most notably the award-winning documentary Poverty, Inc., which received international acclaim and distribution on Netflix, Amazon, and television stations around the world. In his personal life, Mark is an ultramarathon trail runner and adventure motorcyclist who enjoys books, chess, and farm-to-table cooking.