Thrive

Principles of tranformation

At Thrive Dynamic we partner with clients to take on some of the world’s greatest business challenges. We believe technology can be a force for good that ushers in a new era of possibility and prosperity for all. These principles are the backbone of our organization and the animating force behind everything we do. They are the reason we jump out of bed in the morning, the benchmarks that align our decision making and the essential character upon which we build lasting relationships.

thrive global alliance

70+ Alliance of World-Class Domain Experts and Polymaths

Founder & CEO

Brent Hire

Brent has worked between Silicon Valley, Europe and the Middle East for more than two decades. During the dotcom boom he founded and successfully exited two high-tech startups. As Board Advisor to KPMG and CIO of Singularity University, Brent spearheaded corporate transformation to rapidly generate and capture new market value.

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Brent graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University, University of Michigan and University of Berkeley (MBA, MPA and MS). He has carried out client facing work with Clay Christensen (disruptive innovation), Michael Porter (business cluster strategies) and Ray Kurzweil (technologist). Brent has managed groundbreaking projects in new market entry, strategic growth and transformation with global leaders in every key sector.

Brent’s expertise is in using systems thinking and behavioral economics to help companies navigate the leading edge of strategic innovation. His work is characterized by unrelenting resourcefulness, counter-intuitive thinking and the joy he takes in working with people from diverse backgrounds to invent the future.

Marcel Calame

CFO

Marcel Calame

Marcel is a Specialist in Corporate and Entrepreneurial Finance. Financial Modeling and Integration. He is the essential counterpart to Thrive’s leading Information Systems experts. Where they are pioneering digital architectures, Marcel is a Master in the integration of financial instruments, assets, and entities. He has the unique ability to design powerful financial models that are low risk and high integrity.

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Marcel has extensive experience in the field of real estate and private banking with high-net-worth individuals. He was responsible for the development and placement of financing and investment products in collaboration with globally leading Private Banks and Insurers. For numerous clients, he has been responsible for the reorganization and rationalization of entire financial product portfolios. For the ultra-high net worth individuals and families, Marcel develops one-of-a-kind financial structures for the optimization of international investments.

Marcel holds degrees in Economics and is certified in a variety of specialized financial and commercial instruments and strategies. This includes the structuring and placement of private real estate funds, secondary offerings, real estate shares, trusts, and bonds.

CTO & Mission Director

Sigurd Høgsbro

Sigurd was the CTO of Tonomus’ Cognitive Solutions. He is a polymath with a human-centric approach that works fluidly across technologies. Sigurd’s greatest contributions are in creative problem solving and technical team management. His ability to structure and implement cross-disciplinary technical solutions at scale has repeatedly produced industry breakthroughs.

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Sigurd has deep professional experience in Big Data, Cyber Security, Perception/Cognitive AI, Digital Transformation, IoT, Complex Distributed Systems, Scalable Real-Time Transaction Platforms, Renewable Energy, Financial Markets, Investment Banking. He thrives on challenging Mission Impossible projects – bringing together and motivating teams to excel.

Dorian Vee

Head of Modeling & Simulation

Dorian Vee

Dorian is an early pioneer of real-time visualization in architecture and design. Dorian began his career in VFX & CGI. He started his first business at the age of 17 and successfully sold it to a national competitor. He went on to become Creative Director of the Village Voice in NYC. While earning an MA in Architecture and began pioneering the experiential technology that would transform design.

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Dorian’s groundbreaking work has received international recognition. He co-founded a multi-disciplinary studio specializing in virtual reality, mixed-reality, real-time 3D visualization & interactive applications for architecture, real estate development, and brand integrations.

Dorian continues to advance the art of the possible, by focus on the crossroads of 3D Immersive Models with Real World Physics and Scientific Accuracy. Under his watch digital twins have become an essential end-to-end component of the built environment.

Strategic Financing & Operational Scaling

Jeffrey Frank

For over 35 years, Jeffrey has been founding and managing companies, structuring transactions, and raising capital. Jeffrey launched his first company at 19 and went on to found and manage companies in renewable energy, micro fulfillment, building materials and construction. 

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Jeffrey has an uncanny ability to assess and optimize financial structures. He is a Managing Director at Castle Hill Capital Partners in New York, where he raises capital for impact, renewable energy and ESG focused companies. Previously, he managed 2 boutique investment banking groups (Commonwealth Associates and The Benchmark Company).  Prior to investment banking, Jeffrey helped lead the M&A group at Sumitomo Corporation of America, where he executed multiple acquisitions totaling over $180M. Jeffrey has managed two family offices, one with AUM of over $2.5B.

Jeffrey has a BS in Accounting from Adelphi University, and an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of Business, with a focus in Finance, Entrepreneurship and Healthcare Management & Finance.

Ed Rivera

Growth Expert

Ed Rivera

Ed Rivera is a creative, multitalented leader who manages the process of innovation and change management to reinvent, restructure and grow businesses by delivering award winning user experiences that transform organizations and markets.

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With a long track-record managing business plans across functions and multiple industries, he passionately executes vision to exit. At the forefront of some of the most groundbreaking technologies, he is currently focused on digital infrastructure, and the impact of technology on people, markets, and countries.

Andrew Ng

AI Pioneer

Andrew Ng

Andrew is a Stanford Professor and one of the world’s top 5 AI technology leaders. He is counted amongst Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, and #1 Most Influential Machine Learning Scholar Globally. Andrew was the original founding member of Google Brain (Google’s initiative to become pervasively AI-enabled in 2011) and Baidu’s Chief AI Scientist in 2014 (to help Baidu catch up and try to surpass Google in AI). 

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Andrew founded Landing AI with the vision that AI is the new electricity. Just as electricity revolutionized lives 100 years ago, AI is set to completely change our lives today. Instead of continuing to advance the tech giants, Andrew realized the important role AI has in transforming all sectors. Landing’s standardized data-centric platforms make it possible for clients to build, deploy, and scale AI applications 10x faster. Landing provides privileged access to world renowned expertise so that clients can take mission critical business challenges head on and rapidly generate game changing ROI.

AI Strategist & Deployment Expert

John Reuter

From managing nuclear submarines for the US Navy to deploying Generative AI models for global enterprise, John has an indispensable ability to bridge the world of engineering to commercial application.As the Chief Revenue Officer at Kyndi Inc, John was responsible for deploying Gen AI solutions based on Large Language Models. John has a unique capacity to identify mission critical challenges and deploy effective and trustworthy models that address the challenges of Gen AI.

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John was invited by Andrew Ng to launch Landing AI as the Chief Revenue Officer. He led business development and was responsible for helping clients effectively integrate and deploy AI throughout products and business processes.

John was at Bloom Energy for 13 years as the VP of Sales responsible for evangelizing the Bloom Energy story at Fortune 100 Companies.  Before joining Bloom, John was Sales Executive at Cisco Systems and at Foundry Networks.  Prior to that, he sold semiconductors for IBM, Cypress Semiconductor, and other companies. 

John has a BS in Electrical Engineering from the US Naval Academy and an MS in Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins.  He served as a Nuclear Submarine Officer in the Pacific with the US Navy and with the submarine force of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom.

Roland Geraerts

Advanced Simulations

Prof Roland Geraerts

Roland Geraerts is Assistant Professor of Geometric Computing at Utrecht University. His research is focused on pioneering crowd simulation techniques in game engines and virtual environments.

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Roland co-founded uCrowds to build the most advanced crowd simulations currently available. The software suite provides the world’s fastest interactive crowd simulation engine with 500.000 real-time agents. uCrowds facilitates next generation digital twins, synthetic single environments, and the Metaverse. Applications can analyze and optimize the performance of an endless variety of city systems.

Digital Twins of city transportation systems can be used to identify system bottlenecks, optimize traffic flow, and reduce congestion. New urban projects, such as new buildings, infrastructure, or public spaces can be designed and tested. Other uses include training, simulation, and visualization, e.g., to train city planners on new development plans, or to simulate the effects of changes to city infrastructure. Interactive visualization and interaction make analysis intuitive.

John Hagel – Corporate Innovation Expert

Corporate Innovation Expert

John Hagel

John Hagel has spent over 40 years in Silicon Valley as a management consultant, author, speaker and entrepreneur. After recently retiring as a partner from Deloitte, he published a new book, The Journey Beyond Fear, and is working on creating a new Center that will offer programs based on the book.

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Throughout his career, John has worked with leaders of large institutions around the world. While at Deloitte, John was the founder and chairman of the global Deloitte Center for the Edge. Before joining Deloitte, John was a Principal at McKinsey & Company, where he was a leader in their Strategy Practice and helped to open their Silicon Valley office. John has served as senior vice president of strategy at Atari, Inc., and is the founder of two Silicon Valley startups.

John is also a faculty member at Singularity University and he is on the Board of Trustees at the Santa Fe Institute, an organization that conducts leading edge research on complex adaptive systems.

John received a BA from Wesleyan University, a B.Phil. from Oxford University, and a JD and MBA from Harvard University.

Bernd Becker

Breakthrough Engineer & Entrepreneur

Dr. Bernd Becker

Bernd has been pushing the boundaries of science and engineering for over four decades in 3D laser scanning, product development, product management and project acquisition. Bernd is passionate about envisioning innovative projects and bringing them to market. As an entrepreneur and investor, Bernd has invented and scaled numerous breakthrough technologies. He has been co-awarded 26 patents.

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Bernd was Co-Founder of AESOP GmbH, which built the market leading discrete manufacturing simulator (today Siemens Plant-Simulation) and Co-Founder & CEO of iQvolution, which built the 3D Laser Scanning Services and Products that was eventually acquired by FARO as a core feature of its measurement capabilities. He remained a FARO as Chief Technology Strategist.

Bernd holds a Ph.D. in Engineering (with a focus on discrete manufacturing and logistics simulation) from the University of Stuttgart, a Master of Science in OR from Stanford, and a Master of Science in electrical engineering from the University of Stuttgart.

Carlo van de Weijer

Future of Mobility

Prof Carlo van de Weijer

Carlo van de Weijer has a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the TU Eindhoven and a PhD degree with honors from TU in Graz.

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Carlo carries a broad experience in the automotive industry with a.o. executive positions at Siemens and TomTom. Currently he is managing director of the newly founded Eindhoven AI System Institute EAISI at Eindhoven University of Technology, and Fellow for future of mobility and transport within the Deloitte Center for the Edge. He advises ministries and industries around the world on the future of mobility and is member of the supervisory board of several high-tech companies and start-ups. Furthermore, he is a weekly columnist in a leading Dutch national newspaper.

Frank Thuijsman

Dynamic Game Theorist

Frank Thuijsman

Frank is a game theory expert and balanced systems thinker with a focus on applications in dynamic models, networks, strategic optimization, data science, artificial intelligence, and operations research.

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Frank’s contacts with Nobel Prize winners and top global experts inspired him to found KE@Work, a unique prize-winning honors program at Maastricht University in which top performing BSc students in Data Science & AI combine academic studies with research on real-world challenges at businesses and organizations for two full years.

The program is intended to help push high potential candidates to the next level, and thereby accelerate the development of a new generation of innovative researchers that can see across and combine otherwise disparate worlds of operations research, econometrics, data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning and commercial interests. Since its founding, his business network continues to grow very fast and many high-performing candidates have successfully completed the program and entered the workforce as influential system thinkers.

Christian Ketels

Strategy, Cluster, and Competitiveness Expert

Christian Ketels

Christian helps firms, locations, and groups of related industries to set strategy and strengthen their international competitiveness.

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Christian is a leading global expert in the development of competitive business clusters. He works with governments, international organizations, business networks and individual firms to develop the strategies and policies that underpin cluster success. Areas of focus include market structure analysis, competitiveness diagnostics, strategy development, and the design of processes and structures to make and implement strategic choices over time.

Mark Enzer

OBE FREng – Connected Digital Twins Expert

Mark Enzer

Mark is a keen champion of innovation in the context of collaborative delivery models. He started out as a process engineer. Later down the road he became increasingly focused on system, and systems of systems thinking.

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Mark is the former Head of the National Digital Twin Program, where he contributed to the leadership of this ambitious program to enable an ecosystem of connected Digital Twins across the built environment. For five years as Mott MacDonald’s Chief Technical Officer, he was accountable to the Executive Board for technical excellence across the Group.

He was the Digital Transformation workstream lead as part of Project 13 for the Infrastructure Client Group and was the lead author of the Infrastructure Carbon Review, published by HM Treasury.Mark is the Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in the digitalization of the built environment at the University of Cambridge.

Matthew West

Information and Standards Strategist

Matthew West

Matthew is a preeminent Systems Thinker and world-class information and standards strategist. He received his PhD from Leeds in Chemical Engineering where he pioneered applications of mathematical and numerical methods to wicked problems (challenges without clear solutions).

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Matthew worked at Shell for 30 years, where he was at the cutting edge of applying computing to solving business and engineering problems. He was a thought leader in Shell’s data management revolution, and one of the developers of the information strategy for Shell’s multi-billion dollar Downstream One project. He has been a trailblazer in the development of industry data models, Reference Data Architectures and Ontologies.

Matthew’s ontological approach to sharing data supports the creation of ‘Thin Slices’ (data equivalents of an MVP) with rigor and discipline required to scale them into systemwide architectures. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to Information Management in Business.

Gerrit Hoogenboom

Agricultural & Biological Engineering

Prof Gerrit Hoogenboom

Gerrit Hoogenboom is a Preeminent Scholar in the Global Food Systems Institute and Professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Florida, USA.

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Prior to joining the University of Florida, he was the Director of the AgWeatherNet Program and Professor of Agrometeorology at Washington State University. He has over 30 years of experience in the development of crop simulation models and decision support systems in agriculture and natural resource management. Applications range from gene-based modeling to climate change, water resources management, biofuels, economic and environmental sustainability, and food and nutrition security.

Gerrit currently coordinates the development of the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT; www.DSSAT.net), the world’s most widely used crop modeling platform. He frequently facilitates international training workshops on crop modeling and DSSAT. He has published over 500 scientific papers as well as numerous book chapters and proceedings. Since 2019, he is the Editor-in-Chief for The Journal of Agricultural Science (Cambridge).

He received his Ph.D. from Auburn University, USA, and M.Sc. in Theoretical Production Ecology and M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Horticulture from Wageningen University, the Netherlands.

Rahul Daswani - GovTech Transformation Pioneer

GovTech Transformation Pioneer

Rahul Daswani

Rahul is an intrapreneur, designing and implementing initiatives to build capabilities and culture.

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Rahul’s experience includes founding or being in the early stages of 5 government startups: Open Government Products, Strategy Group in Singapore’s Prime Minister’s Office, SkillsFuture Singapore, Ethiopia’s Agricultural Transformation Agency, and Papua New Guinea’s Climate Change Development Authority.

He is the Singapore Country Advisor for the Center for Asia Leadership, and teaches Adaptive Leadership across South-East Asia, including workshops in Singapore, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and the Philippines. Rahul regularly speaks on panels on the future of work, future workforce, enhancing organizational performance and building capabilities.

Divya Chander - Neuroscientist & Futurist

Neuroscientist & Futurist

Dr. Divya Chander

Divya Chander, MD, PhD, is a physician, neuroscientist and futurist working at the intersection of health, data, technology, and security. Divya trained at Harvard, UCSD, UCSF, and the Salk Institute. She is Chair of Neuroscience and Faculty of Medicine at the Singularity Group, served as Senior Nonresident Fellow at the Atlantic Council, GeoTech Center for 3 years, and is a Loomis Innovation Council member at the Stimson Center international think tank.

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One of Divya’s goals is to understand neural mechanisms of consciousness and apply this knowledge to development of advanced human machine interfaces. She is an advocate for data and biometric rights and serves as medical advisor to the Extended Reality Safety Initiative, helping develop standards for identity and sensitive healthcare data security, and exploring alternate internet architectures to support digital identity and biometrics. Dr. Chander has also founded a continuous, intelligent brain monitoring platform for the detection of changes in states of consciousness. Her research involves mapping consciousness and writing algorithms for the automated tracking of altered states, developing, and testing new theories of consciousness, predicting the effect of human augmentation on consciousness, and applying consciousness mapping in humans may enable us to recognize it in non-human, intelligent beings.

Dr. Chander has a parallel passion for space exploration. A finalist for astronaut selection and an alumnus of the International Space University, Dr. Chander has performed remote simulations of trauma rescues, anesthesia and surgery in Mars analogue settings. She is developing models for critical care, surgical and anesthesia facilities to enable human space travel.

James Ehrlich – Regenerative and Resilient Communities

Regenerative and Resilient Communities

James Ehrlich

James is a serial entrepreneur in technology, media and cleantech. Founder at ReGen Villages, Entrepreneur in Residence at Stanford University School of Medicine in the CCARE Institute under Dr. James Doty.

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James is a Senior Fellow at NASA Ames Research Center, White House and State Department Joint Task Force on the Nexus of Food, Water, Energy & Waste. He received Singularity University’s Global Grand Challenge Award in the category of Shelter. Co-Author of the UN Sustainability Platform Brief “Regenerative Community Development” together with Professor Larry Leifer and Chris Ford (AIA) – Stanford University Center for Design Research.

James was the producer and director of the award winning national PBS (public television) and best-selling published author of Organic Living, which included case studies of organic and bio-dynamic family farms and their connection to the strongest communities in the world (HG Healthy Living, Hachette 2007).

Miranda Sharp

Data, Value & People Pioneer

Miranda Sharp

Miranda was the Lead for the Commons and Approach Streams of the National Digital Twin Programme. She holds positions as a member of the London Mayor’s Infrastructure Advisory Panel, trustee at the Centre for Cities think tank, Non-Executive Director at the Transport Research Laboratory steering group for the Infrastructure Client Group’s Digital Transformation Task Group and Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) Technology Advisory Panel.

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Miranda’s interest is in making both new and existing assets smarter with the benefits of data and innovative business models. She is passionate about using data as a resource to fuel the digital economy, smart infrastructure which benefit humans and do good. She has an exceptional ability to connect data, people and innovative business models with opportunities to enable better decisions and generate value.

Previously at Ordnance Survey, Miranda founded and lead the cross functional practice which collaborates with enterprises from the public and private sectors, academic researchers, and entrepreneurs from OS’s Geovation community in the use and exploitation of place-based data.

Tim Fenemore

Systems Thinking Engineer

Tim Fenemore

Tim is a systems thinking engineer with experience that cuts across many interrelated sectors: construction, rail, aerospace, utilities, telecom, business systems, business change management, program management, implementation of project controls, lean construction, lean engineering and integrated product development.

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Tim delights in deriving and sharing best practices, especially at the intersection of commercial value propositions and cultural change. He has successful firsthand experience in leadership of technical programs and acting as the catalyst for associated cultural changes to realize the benefit stream. This stretches from his days at Rolls-Royce Aerospace, when he was part of the original team that introduced CAD/CAM solutions to management of complex construction infrastructure mega-programs.

Through these experiences Tim has developed a unique ability to combine cutting-edge emerging technology with the commercial translation and cultural change programs required for successful implementation. Turning abstract concepts into plain English that produce straightforward results.

Jonathan Reichenthal – Smart Cities Thought Leader

Smart Cities Thought Leader

Dr. Jonathan Reichental

Jonathan is one of the world’s preeminent business technology and smart city scholars, advisers, and educators. His expertise includes but is not limited to: IT strategy development and execution, innovation management, data governance, transformation of organizational processes through IT, the intersection of leadership, technology and social good, emerging technologies including blockchain and cybersecurity, smart cities, and the fourth industrial revolution.

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Jonathan works with organizations and governments around the world including the Prime Minister’s Office ofx the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Singapore Government, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), and Saudi Telecom (STC). Dr. Reichental has written a best-selling book on how to design and build a smarter and more sustainable city. He is an in-demand writer, educator, and keynote speaker at universities and at technology and business events across the globe.

Laila AL Hadhrami - Smart and Sustainable Cities Advisor

Smart and Sustainable Cities Advisor

Laila AL Hadhrami

Laila has been a global advisor in Smart Cities and Digital Transformation in Government and Private sector for more than 18 years.

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Laila is one of the early pioneers of the Metaverse since 2006. Laila is one of the leading experts in Smart Cities in The Middle East and established Smart Cities Development in one of the Omani semi government companies to lead the vision of Smart Cities in Oman.

She has worked with a variety of UN organizations and as a Research Fellow in UNU eGov. She is also the Founder of the Smart Cities Ambassadors program. Laila is regarded as one of the inspiring and influential women leaders in The Middle East and was recently awarded Top 50 Inspiring Women in Oman and The Middle East and within the most 20 inspiring personalities in Oman 2021. Laila is a global keynote speaker and participated in more than 100 conferences.

Boyd Cohen - Sustainable Development And Smart Cities Strategist

Sustainable Development And Smart Cities Strategist

Dr. Boyd Cohen

Boyd is cofounder of Iomob, building a decentralized Internet of Mobility network as a Cosmos app chain, and WheelCoin, the first Move2Earn game that rewards users for moving green. He is also host of the podcast, Web3 on the Move! and a columnist for CoinDesk.

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After finishing a three-year stint at Accenture, Boyd obtained his Ph.D. in strategy and entrepreneurship from the University of Colorado (2001). He has published 3 books (Climate Capitalism, 2011; The Emergence of the Urban Entrepreneur, 2016; Post-capitalist Entrepreneurship, 2017), dozens of peer reviewed articles including the highest cited article on shared mobility and was a frequent contributor to Fast Company for many years.
Specialties: Smart cities and smart mobility, urban & sustainable entrepreneurship, blockchain for good, Move2Earn.

*Unlisted Members of Thrive Global Alliance are in Stealth Mode.

Timeline

Proven results in weeks, not years.

Briefing

2 Hours

Business Case Assessment

2-3 days

Production Pilot

8-12 weeks

Application Deployment in Production

3-6 months

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Whether you like to discuss your idea or need help finding your solution.