Melodena Stephens

Melodena is the Professor of Innovation & Technology Governance at the Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government (MBRSG) in Dubai, UAE. As an internationally recognized research scholar, she works in interdisciplinary spaces. She publishes on frontier topics like AI and tech governance, crisis management, space and military business, and social entrepreneurship.
As an AI governance expert, she works with organizations such as the Council of Europe, the World Economic Forum, the World Government Summit, Meta, Tata Consultancy Services, IEEE SA, and various other public and private entities. She volunteers as an IEEE Vice-Chair for the Sustainability Technical Committee and is a part of the policy team at the Center for AI & Digital Policy (CAIDP, Washington, DC). In this space, she advises on the responsible governance of frontier technologies, including artificial intelligence, the metaverse, and synthetic biology, and is an advocate for tech literacy. She is passionate about human-centered design thinking and uses it to help clients build better services.
Her senior management experience in corporate, academic, and government sectors spans across Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Africa. Melodena's expertise is in strategy, focusing on themes like crisis management, agile government, innovation and technology governance, and market building. She is the founder and executive board member of the Academy of International Business - Middle East North Africa (AIBMENA), which fosters teaching and research capacity. AIBMENA was recognized by the Dubai government for its outreach, which has captured organizational memories across more than 100 cases.
Some of her most recent books are Anticipatory Governance: Shaping a Responsible Future, AI Enabled Business: A Smart Decision Kit, Agile Government, and Business With Purpose: Advancing Social Enterprise. Melodena loves to write and blogs at www.melodena.com

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