Dr Sofia Corte-Real
Dr Burak Alver
Dr Lihua Yu
Rob Fink
Rob Fink is CEO of Big Drop, a company he founded with zero brewing experience less than three years ago. And there wasn’t even anyone he could emulate… Rob was the first ever brewer to focus exclusively on Alcohol Free beer and the first to apply left-field fermenting techniques that meant no alcohol needed to be artificially extracted from the end product after brewing. Big Drop’s range of 0.5% ABV craft beers are available in supermarkets (Tesco, Ocado, Morrisons) with on-trade listings including: All Bar One, The Ivy Group, Barworks and Draft House. It has won numerous awards including No/Lo Champion at the 2019 International Brewing Awards and - the ‘Holy Grail’ of any non-alcoholic drink - winning against full-strength competitors (eg at the World Beer Awards and King of Craft at the Casual Dining show). Now with exports shortly to account for half of sales, Big Drop is also becoming a big name overseas too.
Dr. Nur A Hasan
Dr. Nur A Hasan is a molecular microbiologist with experiences in microbial genomics, metagenomics, and molecular ecology. Dr. Hasan is the Chief Scientific Officer at CosmosID Inc. and an adjunct faculty at the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD. Dr. Hasan received his Bachelor and Masters in Microbiology, M.B.A in Marketing and Ph.D. in Molecular Biology. He has authored over 75 peer-reviewed articles and over 70 conference proceedings. Currently, Dr. Hasan is leading an effort in developing the world’s largest curated genome databases and ultra rapid bioinformatics platform for pathogen detection and cross-disciplinary microbiome research.
Stephen Dillon
Stephen Dillon is the founder of Dublin based drinks innovation company RTM Beverages - The RTM portfolio is heavily focused on the No-Lo categories - Noki & Co. The Alcohol Free Gin & Tonic flavoured drink was launched in November 2018 and Loki & Co. Europe's first 'Hard Seltzer' was launched in 2017. A serial entrepreneur in the drinks industry Stephen has previously established a number of brands and businesses, he most recently worked as European Sales Director for the craft & speciality division of Ab-InBev. Stephen is a qualified beer sommelier and holds a WSET diploma in wines & spirits - he specialises in spotting trends in the drinks industry and bring innovative products to market at pace.