Troy Ament – Fortinet Field CISO for Healthcare brings more than 20 years of experience to Fortinet transforming information technology and security programs, with 14 years in the healthcare sector as an executive overseeing clinical technology implementations and serving as the Chief Information Security Officer at two of the largest integrated health delivery systems in the United States.
Before joining Fortinet, Troy held the positions of Chief Information Security Officer at Beaumont Health and Director, Chief Information Security Officer at Sanford Health where he had oversight of the Security Technology, Security Operations, Identity and Access Management, and Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC) Teams.
Troy has been instrumental in forming multiple healthcare cyber security boards that focus on the medical device and IoT security and national healthcare cyber security task forces and engaging the education sector to produce more healthcare cyber security graduates and professionals. Troy has extensive public speaking experience at multiple national and regional conferences, speaking to members of congress, senate, and government agencies educating and advocating for healthcare cyber security. He holds degrees in computer information systems from the University of Mary and North Dakota State College of Science.

Phil Bertolini is vice president of the Center for Digital Government, a national research and advisory institute on information technology policies and best practices in state and local government. Previously, he served as deputy county executive and CIO for Oakland County, Michigan. During his 31-year tenure, Phil built a world-class IT organization in the second-largest county in Michigan, just north of Detroit. As Oakland County CIO, he oversaw more than 150 employees serving over 1.2 million residents. In 2005, he was also promoted to deputy county executive, holding dual positions until his retirement. Phil’s efforts earned the county national attention, winning numerous awards for technology innovation and excellence. He was named Governing Magazine’s Public Official of the Year and Government Technology Magazine’s Top 25 Doers, Dreamers & Drivers. He was also honored by the President Obama White House as a Champion of Change.

Paul has devoted his career to helping local governments be on the forefront of using technology to increase value delivered to the public. He has over 30 years in various Information technology roles in both the public and private sectors including 20 years leading Information Technology departments. He now helps local governments get the most value from their significant investment in people, process, and technology.
Some of Paul’s accomplishments include leading two different IT organizations that earned Top-10 Digital Counties Survey awards for a combined 11 times. He has also earned an InformationWeek 500 Government Innovators award.
Paul holds Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Master of Science in Information Systems degrees as well as undergraduate degrees in Computer Science and Psychology.

Deanna Cook is the General Manger of NIC Illinois. A results driven leader, Deanna has over twenty years of experience in delivering innovative and successful digital government solutions. She is passionate about the role technology plays in providing unsurpassed convenience and information delivery to citizens.

Alan is Executive Vice President of e.Republic and Publisher of Government Technology magazine and Techwire. In this role, Alan is involved in the annual production of dozens of events as well as the strategic direction for Governing, Government Technology, Emergency Management, the Center for Digital Government and the Center for Digital Education. Alan is also the senior executive that has overall charge of e.Republic’s research organization which includes, custom research, the Digital Government and Digital Education Navigator tool and the Content Studio (webinars and custom content).
Alan has been a guest lecturer at universities and a frequent speaker for key government and industry organizations. For over 35 years, Alan has worked with industry, education and government officials to help them better understand the importance and use of information technology. Alan received his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration at California State University, Sacramento.

As the Minneapolis CIO for seven-plus years, Otto Doll was responsible for all city IT services. He also served as South Dakota’s CIO for 15 years with responsibility for all state government computing, telecommunications, radio and public broadcasting. While with IT research firms, Otto has advised Fortune 1000, federal, state and local government CIOs on information technology assessment and alignment to business needs. He has served as a director with the United States General Services Administration, developing information technology strategic plans and oversight policy.
Otto received his computer science degree from Virginia Tech and is a senior executive fellow of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He is a past president of NASCIO – a national organization of state CIOs. He also is a past president of the Metropolitan Information Exchange (MIX) – a national organization of city and county CIOs. Otto was named to Government Technology's 2004 Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers.

David Egts is the Chief Technologist of Red Hat’s North America Public Sector organization where he directs a global team of technical experts and field product management to help government clients improve service delivery the open source way. The Office of Chief Technologist, which he leads, adds value to flagship Red Hat technologies such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, OpenShift, and Linux containers. His team helps Red Hat achieve ideal product-market fit by ensuring current and future government requirements are factored into existing products and R&D efforts with a focus on security, compliance, standards, efficiency, and technological improvements. The government readiness activities performed by his team positively impacts public and private sector organizations in the US and internationally with a particular focus on Australia, Canada, Japan, and the UK.
David’s dynamic outward-facing role as a coalition builder reinforces and expands Red Hat’s relations with key government and open source community stakeholders nationally and internationally. He is a trusted Red Hat media spokesperson whose deep technical dives, C-suite policy discussions, and keynote speaker abilities enhance Red Hat’s technical reputation and positioning.
David received industry-wide recognition as a FedScoop 50 Industry Leadership awardee and a finalist for WashingtonExec’s Chief Officer Awards. He is a Red Hat Chairman's Award recipient and has won multiple highest employee honors from previous employers Silicon Graphics and Concurrent Technologies Corporation. He is a past Co-Chair on the Board of Directors for the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) Software & Services Division (SSD) and is an active member of the Agile Government Leadership Association and the AFCEA DC Emerging Technologies Working Group. David is a Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA) and a three-time graduate from the University of Pittsburgh with a BS and MS in Computer Science and an Executive MBA (Katz Graduate School of Business).

Melinda Fiscus is the Digital Access Coordinator for the Learning Technology Center of Illinois. In this role, she provides networking opportunities, consulting services, professional development for school districts, and advocates for the advancement of educational technology across Illinois. She also serves as one of the Illinois representatives and governing board secretary of the State Education Technology Directors Association (SETDA). She is one of the Illinois State E-rate Coordinators (SECA) and is a founding member of the Classroom Connectivity Project. Melinda is in her 22nd year working in IL educational technology.

As Executive Government Advisor at Amazon Web Services Worldwide Public Sector, Deborah Giles helps governments innovate for their customers. Prior to AWS, Deborah served as a consultant to Fortune 500 technology companies; CEO, Center for Technology; National Government Affairs Director, SHI International; and COO, Texas Health and Human Services Commission. She led enterprise-wide digital transformations, managed workflow modernization projects, directed policy and legislative funding advocacy for large technology projects, and oversaw organizational change projects.

Mr. Greifer is an experienced economic development professional responsible for the day-to-day administration of the City’s economic development program. He can be the first contact if you have an economic development question or request that needs to be addressed quickly. He manages the City’s TIF Districts, reviews and coordinates incentive requests and is the liaison to the business community.
Mr. Greifer previously served as Community & Economic Development Director for the Village of Brookfield. He was also a Vice President with Kane, McKenna and Associates.
He is a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Public Policy.

Dessa Gypalo serves as the Chief Data Officer (CDO) for the Illinois Department of Innovation & Technology (DoIT). With over a decade of experience in government and non-profits, Dessa was the inaugural CDO for Cook County, Illinois and has led a variety of data analytics teams. She is skilled at creating a culture of data and analytics, and building data foundations at scale. Dessa holds a BA in History and Business Administration from Roanoke College and an alum of the Civic Leadership Academy through University of Chicago.

Noel Hara is an experienced strategist that infuses technology solutions across the public sector to help solve the most challenging problems. As Chief Technology Officer with NTT DATA’s public sector, he blends over two decades of experience in the public and private sector with an insatiable curiosity for technology and applications. Since the start of the global pandemic, Noel has been responsible for adapting the company’s offering portfolio to support clients in their shift to remote working and learning while continuing to support constituents through the expansion of digital government.

Michael “MJ” Jackson is a problem solver who leads global strategy across regulated industries at DocuSign. His team commercializes vertical solutions for Public Sector, Healthcare, Life Sciences, and Financial Services. Jackson holds an active Secret Security clearance with the US Department of Homeland Security.
Prior to DocuSign, Jackson served as a General Manager at Amazon Web Services, where he established and scaled multiple mission-critical businesses from inception, including Public Health and US Elections, Legislative & Political Solutions.
Previously, Jackson also served as General Manager of Consumer Health at Intel Corporation, where he developed global lines of business for patient-generated health data (PGHD) platforms; and as Director of Healthcare & Digital Government at Adobe Systems, where he led the commercialization of digital health solutions currently trusted to help power federal, state, and private Health Benefits Exchanges in over 30 US states.
Before high-tech, Jackson gained executive experience in the life sciences industry, where he successfully launched biopharma and medical device products across a range of clinical research and therapeutic specialties including oncology, neurology, and endocrinology.
Jackson earned a Master of Business Administration degree and a Bachelor’s degree in Management Information Systems from the University of Baltimore. He is also a proud veteran of the US Coast Guard and serves on multiple boards, including the Board of Directors at Health Care for the Homeless, an innovative non-profit provider of coordinated care and housing services in Baltimore, MD.

Jenifer L. Johnson has 24 years of experience in state and local government in Illinois, with the last 19 years in senior management roles. Jenifer joined the Illinois Department of Innovation & Technology (DoIT) team in 2019 and is currently the Chief of Staff. She previously served as DoIT Chief Administrative Officer, as General Counsel at the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, and as Corporation Counsel for the City of Springfield. She received her J.D. from Northern Illinois University and her B.S. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Daniele Loffreda is marketing lead for Ciena’s Virtualized Edge Solution State/Local Government and Education (SLED) and Healthcare in Ciena’s Solutions Development organization. In this role, he leads Ciena’s initiatives applying next-generation networking technologies to help these sectors deliver higher quality experiences to their constituents through disruptive technologies, optimized cloud strategies, virtualized infrastructure and improved data security.
Daniele has more than 25 years of experience helping customers leverage information, communications and technology solutions to provide greater value, streamline their operations and generate higher returns on network investments. In addition to his role at Ciena, Daniele has worked in pioneering roles at AT&T, Sprint and Fujitsu. He has presented at numerous industry conferences and published articles and posts on next-generation network connectivity as a critical foundation of enterprise transformation.

Ryan is the Vice President of Threat Intelligence for Unit 42, a cybersecurity consulting group that brings together world-class threat researchers and elite incident responders to protect enterprises against the latest cyberthreats. His area of expertise is detecting and identifying actors and groups conducting cyber-crime and cyber-espionage operations. Ryan is a contributing author to the book Cyber Fraud: Tactics, Techniques and Procedures, and primary author of Cyber Security Essentials.

Destah is a senior technology professional and innovation enthusiast who over 20+ years has built a career around driving business disruption, customer advocacy, and connecting good ideas and good people. He is a veteran of several small Silicon Valley startups as well as some of the biggest tech industry behemoths. From his early years as an electrical engineer to his current technical sales leadership position, he has touched data networking, wireless data and machine learning technologies as a customer-facing evangelist and problem solver.

Dr. Pickett is a 2021-22 Illini Science Policy Scholar with the Illinois Office of Broadband. Prior to this position, Dr. Pickett taught for two years as a pre-kindergarten teacher, and worked for more than a decade in higher education as a college instructor, adult educator, and academic and career advisor. She currently assists the Illinois Office of Broadband with its ongoing efforts towards digital equity and inclusion planning and implementation through data collection, delivery of services, and program management.

Mary Reynolds serves as the Education Group Chief Information Officer for the Illinois Department of Innovation & Technology (DoIT). In this role she facilitates services with education agencies pre-K - postsecondary and cultivates innovative STEAM initiatives that improve outcomes for students. For over 37 years, Mary has served in a variety of state policy development roles around state government focused on issues related to youth, education, juvenile justice, and technology. Previously, Mary served for 12 years as an elected school board member of a small unit school district and has been an active community volunteer. Her three adult children are all engaged in STEAM careers.

Matt Schmit directs the Illinois Office of Broadband and chairs the Illinois Broadband Advisory Council. In these capacities, he oversees administration of the $400M (and growing) Connect Illinois Broadband Grant Program designed to extend universal broadband connectivity throughout the state. Prior to his work in Illinois, Matt served in the Minnesota State Senate, where he drafted successful legislation to create the state’s Office of Broadband and Border-to-Border Broadband Grant Program in 2013.

Deborah is an accomplished C-level influencer, with a broad range of experience in government, policy, cybersecurity, privacy and information technology. She is an experienced and highly respected thought leader who has held executive roles for over two decades. She recently retired from her position as New York state’s chief information security officer (CISO) after over 35 years of public service.
In that role, as part of New York state’s information technology transformation and consolidation initiative, she helped redesign how the state protects its data. As state CISO, she directed the state’s comprehensive cybersecurity governance, risk management and compliance program, providing strategic leadership and vision and assuring business-aligned, risk-based investments that maximized business opportunity and minimized cybersecurity risk. She also directed the NYS Cyber Command Center, hotline, procedures for reporting and response to cyberthreats and digital forensics.
She holds multiple industry certifications, including Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP); Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC); SANS Strategic Planning, Policy and Leadership (GSTRT) Global Information Assurance Certification; and Project Management Institute certified Project Management Professional (PMP).

With over 21 years of information technology, security leadership, and risk management experience, Bindu has an exceptional record of success leading multiple, diverse cross-functional security and risk governance teams to plan, analyze, and implement information security programs to support organizational business objectives. Bindu provides strategic and tactical cybersecurity consulting services to customers and collaborates with clients on cybersecurity, technology transformation, cyber-risk, compliance, and data governance initiatives. She leads a team of security professionals responsible for providing consultative services specific to Trusted Advisor engagement, Incident Response, Forensics, Threat/Vulnerability Management services, & compliance assessments.

Teri Takai is vice president of the Center for Digital Government, a national research and advisory institute on information technology policies and best practices in state and local government. She worked for Ford Motor Company for 30 years in global application development and information technology strategic planning. From Ford, she moved to EDS in support of General Motors. A long-time interest in public service led her to the government sector, first as CIO of the State of Michigan, then as CIO of the State of California and, subsequently, the CIO of the U.S. Department of Defense, the first woman appointed to this role. She then served as the CIO for Meridian Health Plan.
Teri is a member of several industry advisory boards. She has won numerous awards including Governing magazine’s Public Official of the Year, CIO Magazine’s CIO Hall of Fame, Government Technology magazine’s Top 25 Doers, Dreamers & Drivers, the Women in Defense Excellence in Leadership Award and the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service.

Herb is a State, Local and Education Strategist. Having history in various government CIO roles he is responsible for assisting customers achieve their strategic outcomes through understanding their business issues and how policy can impact business outcomes. He has been sharing best practices learned from around the country on optimization, workforce modernization and hybrid cloud. He also is providing insight in practical implementations of AI, Smart Communities and blockchain at many government conferences. Prior to joining in 2018, VMware Herb served as the State of Wisconsin Deputy State CIO and CTO, CIO for Health and Family Services and Corrections.

As Executive Editor at e.Republic, Steve is responsible for the coordination of editorial strategies and standards across all the firm’s media platforms. He directs the editorial teams that produce Government Technology, Emergency Management and Digital Communities and their respective Websites, in addition to developing and maintaining corporate policies and standards for editorial. Steve has over 20 years of writing and editing experience including more than 17 years covering technology in the state and local government market.
Steve joined e.Republic in 1996. During his tenure, e.Republic’s print and electronic media have received many awards for editorial excellence, including “Magazine of the Year” from ASBPE for Emergency Management in 2013, “Best New Web Site” from ASBPE for emergencymgmt.com in 2009, ”Best Overall Publication” at the Maggie awards for Government Technology in 2008 and “Magazine of the Year” from ASBPE for Public CIO in 2007.

Juliana Vida is the GVP, Chief Strategy Advisor - Public Sector at Splunk. She and her team of business and cybersecurity advisors provide guidance, direction and thought leadership around Splunk’s Data to Everything platform. She leverages her 30 years of experience as an accomplished military and technology leader to partner with and inspire public sector leaders, customers and internal teams to harness the power of data to drive valuable outcomes.
Prior to joining Splunk, Juliana was a Vice President in Gartner Executive Programs, advising and coaching federal government Chief Information Officers (CIO) and IT senior leaders. Before entering the commercial industry as an executive leader, she served honorably for 24 years as a US Naval Officer at sea and on shore as both a combatant ship driver and helicopter pilot. Her final role in government was as the Navy’s Deputy CIO in the Pentagon where she led policy and governance over technology investments and implementation.

Joe has been supporting data and analytics strategies for state and local government organizations, as well as higher education since 2000. He has helped organizations innovate and evolve by transforming data into useful information and actionable insights. Current activities include building the Data Cloud as a Senior Engineer with Snowflake.