Dr. Christina Yan Zhang

Christina is a global authority on leveraging the convergence of frontier technologies to architect systemic change for a people-centered, planet-friendly digital future. She possesses a rare ability to navigate the global landscape of innovation, use transdisciplinary science rigour to unite UN leaders, ministers, Fortune 500 CEOs, university presidents, and citizens, bridging the silos of geopolitics, finance, economics, and technology. By building transformative initiatives from the ground up, she translates visionary foresight into profound institutional success with significant global impact. Christina is a pioneer in the metaverse. She started her master on the topic in 2006 develop universities global strategies. In 2012, she completed a PhD using digital twin for the AEC Industry. She worked for QS, the world university rankings as China Director. Starting from scratch, she grew the UK-headquartered firm’s success in China. In 2016, China’s Vice Premier highlighted the use of QS rankings, with the rankings impacting 5 years £750bn funding to 3005 universities. As an independent candidate, Christina was the first Chinese elected to national executive of the UK National Union of Students since 1922, and represented the interests of one million international students studying at 600 UK higher/further education institutions who contribute £60bn a year.She has sat on 20+ committees for UNESCO, World Bank, EU. She contributed to the establishment of Commonwealth Students Association, representing 2bn youth from 56 countries. She worked in UK Parliament developing policy for Shadow Business Secretary’s team 2012-13. For two years she contributed to BBC as a campus journalist. She has 7 years’ experience as a TV presenter for People’s Daily, interviewing heads of states, Fortune 500 CEOs. Shes ITU’s Co-chair of TaskGroup on Pre-standardisation for the CitiVerse and authored 1st UN approved report on “People-Centered CitiVerse,” introducing 8 levels to develop a people-centered, planet-friendly digital future, leading to global standards.Alongside 73rd President of UN General Assembly, she sits on Advisory Council for Centre for Science Futures of International Science Council, the worlds largest science body of 250 national/international academies of sciences; and advisory board on the AI economy for The Economist Impact. She is featured with Jeffrey Sachs as Cover People on Digital Equity. A frequent opening keynote speaker at high-level events, she is interviewed by media and featured by Nvidia, MIT, Google, and Mastercard.