Plenary Speakers
Nicolas Cary | Thursday, Oct. 17 | Future of Entrepreneurship, a Technologist’s Lens
Denver native and co-founder and vice chairman of Blockchain.com, the Decacorn, Nic is responsible for bringing new adopters into the crypto ecosystem. A fascination with tech, money and politics led Nic to become deeply passionate about helping people reinvent their relationship with money.
After an international upbringing, Nic worked as a teacher in India before becoming a founding team member at SaaS company PipelineCRM.com, where he focused on product development and management. A trilingual communicator, Nic is the founding commissioner of the Blockchain Commission for Sustainable Development and co-author of The Future is Decentralized.
Deeply passionate about entrepreneurship, Nic is also co-founder and chairman of SkysTheLimit.org, the leading non-profit digital business accelerator. Regularly cited in the global press as one of the earliest crypto industry experts, Nic was named the European Digital Leader of the Year and honored with a professional achievement award in 2017 by his alma mater, the University of Puget Sound. A proven leader, investor, public speaker, and brand ambassador, Nic focuses on designing performant cultures that persevere in adverse markets.
Akhilesh K. Sista, MD, FSIR | Friday, Oct. 18 | The PE-TRACT trial: origins, rationale, conduct, and reflections
Dr. Akhilesh Sista is a radiologist specializing in Interventional Radiology. He serves as faculty in the Department of Radiology at Weill Cornell Medicine. Dr. Sista joined the faculty at Weill Cornell Medicine in June 2022. His clinical and research expertise lies in the medical and endovascular treatment of venous thromboembolic disease (VTE). He has specific expertise in catheter-based interventions for acute and chronic deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE).
Dr. Sista is the national principal investigator of the landmark PE-TRACT trial of catheter-directed therapy for submassive PE, funded by the National Institutes of Health. He chaired the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) Foundation’s Research Consensus Panel with experts from 6 disciplines on Submassive Pulmonary Embolism in December 2015 which developed specific research questions to be answered by future research. He was the national principal investigator for Penumbra, Inc.’s multicenter (22 sites) prospectivetrial (N=119) of the Indigo CAT-8 thromboaspiration device for submassive PE (EXTRACT-PE), and was the co-national PI for the multicenter RESCUE study (N=120) of the Bashir Endovascular Catheter for submassive PE. He co-chaired the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Statement on Interventional Therapy for Pulmonary Embolism and is on the steering committee and co-chair of the interventional Committee of the NHLBI-sponsored C-TRACT trial. He won the 2018 Mark A. Creager prize for outstanding research, awarded by the Society of Vascular Medicine.
