The Nigerian Bar Association Section on Business Law (NBA-SBL) has revealed its keynote speaker for its 15th Annual Business Law Conference.
A statement signed by the Chair, Conference Media, Publicity & Mobilisation subcommittee, Theodora Kio-Lawson, noted that the choice of NASA’s Wendy Okolo as the keynote speaker was in fulfillment of a promise to offer participants an unusual experience with explosive content and resource.
She said: “The NBA-SBL is dynamic and forward thinking in its approach to achieving its objectives, which include capacity building, professional development for members, collaborative efforts to drive policy changes and several other contributions to the bar.
“In the aftermath of a pandemic and faced with current realities, it was important that the 2021 theme brought to light the disruptive nature of technology and its transformative impact across the world. Hence, our choice of theme, keynote speaker and discussants.”
Dr. Okolo, whose keynote address will dwell “Re-tooling Business for Change: Leveraging the Tech Explosion”, will kick-start the conference conversations across several plenary and sessions to explore relationship between frontier technologies, business and the law.
The 15th Annual Business Conference, scheduled to hold on Wednesday July 14th and Thursday 15th, would be a hybrid of virtual and in-person attendance.
It would spotlight vital topics such as, technology innovation and e-governance; future of digital financial services; alternative currencies in the digital age; global tech trends in law practice management; role and impact of technology and innovation in bridging healthcare deficit in Nigeria, amongst other vital discourse, according to Kio-Lawson.
Dr. Okolo is an aerospace engineering researcher in the Intelligent Systems Division at NASA Ames Research Centre. She leads a team on Space Technology project to advance the guidance, navigation and control technologies that will make precision landing for deployable entry vehicles a reality for planetary exploration.
At 26 years old, Wendy became the first black woman to obtain a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington. Her graduate studies were recognised and funded by the U.S. Department of Defence through the National Defence Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, Zonta International through the Amelia Earhart Fellowship, the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Texas Space Grant Consortium.
Other research awards include a resolution of Commendation from the Tarrant County Court of Texas and an award for excellence in research by the Women of Color in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics).
At NASA, she has received a number of awards including the 2020 NASA Ames Award for Researcher/Scientist and the 2019 NASA Ames Early Career Researcher Award.
Dr. Okolo is also the recipient of the 2019 U.T. Arlington Distinguished Recent Graduate Award, the 2019 Women In Aerospace Award for Initiative, Inspiration & Impact, and the 2019 Black Engineer of the Year Award for Most Promising Engineer in U.S. Government.
Her focus is in the area of systems health monitoring and control systems design with applications to air and space components, vehicles, and systems. To that effect, she manages a multi-million-dollar sub-project on a System-Wide Safety Project, leading a team to develop the monitoring, predictive, and mitigation capabilities that will enable the safe operations of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the U.S. national airspace.
