Raphaël de Cormis is Director of Thales Digital Factory since March 2020. The Digital Factory’s mission is to support Thales entities in the development of new digital offers and new ways of working for the Group. The Digital Factory is based in Paris, Montreal and Singapore. Prior to this role, Raphaël was VP Innovation at Thales Digital Identity & Security (formerly Gemalto), launching new businesses by investigating new technologies, usage trends and social impacts. He worked on Biometrics, Machine Learning in Cybersecurity, Self-sovereign Identity and SaaS ecosystem integration (cloud or IoT). He was previously CTO of Netsize, acquired as Gemalto regulated mobile payment business line, and had worked in various tech companies in France, Sweden and the US, such as ST Microelectronics and Idemia, as well as for an NGO in Madagascar. He enjoys coaching startup in early phase (Spideo, Boaterfly, …) and snow makes his day.

Shirish Deshpande is Chairman of Mumbai Grahak Panchayat (MGP), the largest voluntary consumer organization from India. Consumer Laws is his specialization and he has filed several cases in Consumer Courts, High Court and Supreme Court of India for protecting consumer interest. He filed cases against Oil Companies and Gas Distributors under Consumer Protection Act for causing deaths of consumers due to defective LPG Cylinders and was successful in securing compensation for the families of victims.

Mr Deshpande filed class action case against a leading Scooter manufacturer and secured refund of scooter deposits for more than 400,000 consumers. He contributed to strengthening the Consumer Protection Act in India.

Mr Deshpande was also instrumental in creating Conciliation mechanism to amicably resolve disputes of home-buyers. He himself is a trained Mediator and Conciliator.

He was on the Council of Consumers International from 2011 to 2015. During this tenure he played important role in review & revision of UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection (UNGCP). He played a leading role in creating an oversight mechanism at UNCTAD for implementation of UNGCP all over the world.