Nicola Palmarini

I am the Director of the UK’s National Innovation Centre for Ageing (NICA), a world-leading organisation created with a £40 million investment from the UK Government and Newcastle University to help create a world in which we all live better, for longer, where I also serve as Professor of Ageing, policy and planning. Before, I was the AI Ethics Lead at MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab and Global Manager of AI for Healthy Ageing in IBM Research (USA). I hold a decade of experience in applied research on supporting older adults’ autonomy and independence, leading a global team of 25+ to develop Human Activity and behavioural recognition techniques dedicated to older adults based on ML & AI. I conducted IBM’s “Aging & Loneliness” and the “Outthink Aging” studies. I led the worldwide IBM research community on ageing and longevity. Before, I served as Head of the Digital Strategy for the fin-tech startup Tinaba.com. I have been Director of IBM Human Centric Solution Center (Paris), where I developed my experience in emerging technologies for ageing people and let the EMEA role for IBM Accessibility. I have been a Smarter City subject matter expert with knowledge of Aging in place and Ambient Assisted Living in this role. In addition to this position, I was head of IBM Communication Center of Excellence and Manager of Social Digital Marketing & Brand Systems Italy. In my early career, I served as a creative director and then in several Italian and American advertising agencies like Ogilvy and JWT. As the Creative Director in McCann-Erickson Interactive, I led the Telecom Italia Internet brand (Tin.it), growing the customer base from 40k to 4 million active users and curating the entire Microsoft off/online communication portfolio activities.

I hold several patents and papers, and I published five books.

I am a member of the Gerontological Society of America, a Board member of the Scientific Council at McMaster Institute for Research on Aging, a Board member of the International Scientific Advisory Committee Springer AI Ethics journal, Member of the editorial board of Global Innovation Management Institute (GIMI), board member of the Humane Technology Lab and Member of the Scientific Board of Political Sciences at Università Cattolica of Milano. I am the Co-Founder of TAG Innovation school.

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