Featured CoverStory

Digital Version In the global conversation around robotics and artificial intelligence, attention often gravitates toward breakthroughs: faster machines, smarter algorithms, increasingly autonomous systems, and the promise of a fully automated future. Yet inside industrial environments where robotics must deliver measurable value, not in theory, but in real operational conditions, the conversation is very different. There, success is not determined by how advanced a system appears in a demonstration. It is determined by whether people trust it enough to integrate it into daily operations, whether it improves safety without creating friction, and whether it solves real operational problems at scale. That distinction sits at the center of Kateryna Portmann’s work. Recognized among the Top 10 Women in Robotics 2025 by the International Federation of Robotics, Portmann has emerged as one of the most influential voices shaping how robotics and industrial AI move from innovation into meaningful adoption. As Senior Product Manager at ANYbotics and Co Lead of Women in Robotics Switzerland, she operates at the intersection of technology strategy, industrial transformation, and human centered leadership. Her career has been defined not simply by understanding robotics systems, but by understanding the environments in which those systems must succeed. From healthcare robotics and connected care solutions to autonomous inspection robots operating in complex industrial facilities, Portmann has consistently focused on one question: how do you transform sophisticated technology into something organizations can trust, adopt, and scale? She also contributed to the Greater Zurich Area Robotics White Paper, helping shape the region’s strategic positioning in global industrial robotics. That perspective has become increasingly important in 2026, as robotics transitions from experimentation into operational infrastructure across industries worldwide. A Career Built Between Innovation and Adoption Long before robotics became one of the world’s fastest moving industries, Portmann was already navigating environments defined by transformation and complexity. Her professional journey began in consulting, where she developed a strong understanding of how organizations make decisions during periods of structural change. That experience would later shape her approach to product leadership and industrial adoption. Rather than viewing technology in isolation, she learned to evaluate how people, systems, business priorities, and operational realities interact with one another. Over time, she became increasingly drawn to a challenge that continues to define deep technology sectors today: why do some groundbreaking innovations struggle to achieve widespread real world impact? That question guided her transition into product leadership. Across startups, scale ups, and organizations evolving into publicly listed companies, Portmann gained firsthand exposure to the full lifecycle of innovation, from early stage concepts to global deployment. Living and working across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the United Kingdom further deepened her understanding that technology adoption is rarely just technical. Culture, organizational behavior, communication, and trust often determine whether innovation succeeds or stalls. “Technology only creates impact when it is clearly understood and trusted,” she explains. That philosophy now underpins much of her leadership approach in robotics and industrial AI. Robotics Has Entered a New Industrial Era For years, robotics was viewed largely as a future facing technology, promising, impressive, but still somewhat experimental for many industries. That perception has changed dramatically. According to Portmann, robotics in 2026 is no longer operating at the edge of industrial operations. It is becoming embedded directly into them. Industries worldwide are simultaneously facing labor shortages, aging infrastructure, rising operational complexity, stricter safety expectations, and increasing pressure to improve efficiency. Robotics and AI have increasingly become practical tools for addressing these challenges in measurable ways. At ANYbotics, Portmann works closely with autonomous legged robots designed to operate in demanding industrial environments, from offshore energy facilities to large scale manufacturing sites. These systems are no longer functioning merely as automated inspection tools. They are evolving into intelligent operational assets capable of interpreting environments, detecting anomalies, supporting predictive maintenance, and contributing to broader industrial decision making systems. This evolution represents a significant shift within industrial robotics. Robots are increasingly becoming part of an operational intelligence layer that continuously monitors and optimizes industrial environments rather than simply executing repetitive tasks. Portmann believes the implications of this transformation extend far beyond automation itself. Robotics is rapidly becoming a bridge between physical assets and digital intelligence, creating ecosystems where data, AI, predictive analytics, and operational workflows interact continuously. Yet despite rapid technological advancement, she believes the industry’s biggest obstacle remains surprisingly human. “The bottleneck is rarely capability,” she says. “It’s clarity.” Why Clarity Has Become a Strategic Advantage One of the defining themes throughout Portmann’s career has been her belief that the success of robotics depends heavily on communication. In highly technical industries, it is often assumed that innovation alone drives adoption. Portmann challenges that assumption directly. She argues that organizations frequently underestimate how difficult it is for decision makers, operators, and industrial stakeholders to translate technical complexity into operational value. When value becomes abstract, adoption slows regardless of how advanced the technology may be. This insight has shaped her product leadership philosophy. At its core, her work focuses on aligning engineering capability with business understanding and operational realities. She believes the strongest product strategies are those that bridge technical sophistication with practical outcomes industrial organizations can clearly recognize and act upon. One example illustrates this particularly well. While working on industrial inspection robotics, Portmann helped reposition the narrative surrounding a robotic solution away from technical specifications and toward downtime reduction and operational continuity. The technology itself did not fundamentally change. The framing did. The result was substantial. Enterprise sales cycles shortened by nearly 30 percent because executives and operational leaders could immediately understand the system’s business value within the context of their own operational priorities. That experience reinforced a lesson she continues to emphasize today: clarity is not merely a communication skill, it is a competitive advantage. “In robotics and AI, product strategy is not just messaging,” she explains. “It’s alignment.” When engineering teams, field operators, leadership stakeholders, and business objectives operate with shared understanding, adoption accelerates significantly. Without that alignment, even exceptional technology risks underutilization. Human Centered Robotics in

Digital Version In the global energy conversation, attention is often drawn to what is visible – production volumes, infrastructure, market shifts, and policy debates. Yet the real determinants of performance, efficiency, and sustainability are frequently hidden far below the surface, embedded within complex geological systems that resist certainty and demand precision. It is in this invisible domain that Dr. Mojtaba Moradi has built his career. As Subsurface Engineering Manager at TAQA, Dr. Moradi operates in one of the most technically demanding environments in the energy industry – where incomplete data, geological variability, and operational constraints intersect. But rather than viewing uncertainty as a limitation, he has consistently treated it as an opportunity. “The subsurface is one of the most uncertain environments we work in,” he explains. “What drew me to this field was the ability to transform that uncertainty into actionable insight and measurable value.” Over more than 15 years, supported by a PhD in Petroleum Engineering, he has developed a body of work that reflects this philosophy – turning complexity into clarity, and engineering solutions that simultaneously enhance production, reduce waste, and lower environmental impact. At a time when the industry is under increasing pressure to deliver energy more responsibly, his approach offers a compelling blueprint: one where performance and sustainability are not competing priorities, but outcomes of the same intelligent design. A Career Defined by Complexity – and the Pursuit of Better Answers Dr. Moradi’s journey into subsurface engineering was shaped by a fundamental question: how can engineers make confident decisions in environments defined by uncertainty? While academic training provided him with a strong theoretical foundation, it was his hands-on experience across diverse reservoirs that sharpened his ability to navigate ambiguity. Each reservoir presented a different set of challenges – varying rock properties, fluid behaviors, and production constraints – requiring not just technical knowledge, but adaptability and judgment. Over time, he began to see a gap in traditional approaches. Subsurface disciplines – reservoir engineering, completions, production – were often treated as separate functions, each optimised individually. But real performance, he realised, depended on how well these elements worked together. This insight led him to develop a more integrated approach, combining reservoir engineering principles with advanced completion technologies to create solutions that address challenges at their source rather than reacting to them later. That ability to connect disciplines – to think beyond silos – has become a defining feature of his work, enabling him to deliver outcomes that are not only technically robust, but operationally efficient and environmentally aligned. From Reactive Systems to Intelligent Control One of the most significant shifts in subsurface engineering today is the move away from reactive intervention toward intelligent, self-regulating systems. Dr. Moradi has been at the forefront of this transition, particularly through the deployment of Autonomous Inflow Control Device (AICD) technologies. At its core, the challenge these systems address is both technical and environmental. Unwanted water production is one of the most persistent issues in oil and gas operations. It increases energy consumption, requires extensive surface processing, and contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. Traditional approaches often deal with the problem after it arises. AICD technology, by contrast, manages it at the source – within the reservoir itself. “By controlling unwanted water and gas production downhole, we reduce the need for surface processing, lifting and reinjection,” Dr. Moradi explains. “This directly translates into lower energy use and fewer emissions.” The scale of impact becomes evident in one of his flagship implementations in Oman. Initially piloted across 28 wells, the technology was later expanded to more than 300 wells – transforming field performance in the process. The results were striking: a 217% increase in oil production, a 52% reduction in water production, a 51% reduction in carbon intensity, and up to a 73% reduction in energy consumption. These are not incremental gains. They represent a fundamental shift in how subsurface systems are designed – moving from reactive correction to proactive optimisation, where the reservoir itself becomes part of the solution. Sustainability Where It Matters Most While large-scale production improvements are significant, the true test of engineering lies in its ability to perform under constraint. Nowhere is this more evident than in environmentally sensitive regions, where operational decisions carry broader ecological implications. In the Peruvian Amazon, within a protected natural reserve in the Marañón Basin, Dr. Moradi led the deployment of AICD technology in a heavy oil field – a project that required balancing resource development with environmental stewardship. The results demonstrated what is possible when engineering is approached with both precision and intent. Carbon intensity was reduced by up to 56%, greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 64%, and energy consumption dropped by 78%. “What this project demonstrated is that sustainability is not a trade-off,” he notes. “With the right technology and mindset, it becomes a performance advantage.” This perspective reflects a broader shift within the industry. Sustainability is no longer treated as an external requirement or compliance metric – it is increasingly embedded within the engineering process itself, influencing decisions at every stage. Embedding Sustainability into Engineering Decisions One of the more significant, yet less visible, aspects of Dr. Moradi’s work has been the development of environmental modelling tools within TAQA. These tools enable engineers to quantify emissions and integrate sustainability metrics directly into design workflows – bringing environmental considerations into the core of technical decision-making. “This is a major shift,” he explains. “Sustainability is no longer an external metric – it is embedded into the engineering decision-making process itself.” By making environmental impact measurable and actionable, these tools allow teams to evaluate trade-offs more effectively, ensuring that performance improvements are aligned with sustainability goals. This integration marks an important evolution in subsurface engineering – one where efficiency is no longer defined solely by output, but by how intelligently resources are managed across their entire lifecycle. Extending Subsurface Expertise Beyond Oil and Gas As the global energy landscape continues to evolve, subsurface engineering is playing an increasingly important role in emerging energy systems.

Digital Version In an age where information is abundant but understanding is scarce, the role of an educator has evolved into something far more profound than instruction. It is no longer enough to teach facts or deliver curriculum education today demands the ability to cultivate discernment, challenge assumptions, and shape individuals who can think independently in a world saturated with competing narratives. At this critical intersection of storytelling, critical thinking, and cultural awareness stands Mark Narreto, an English Language Arts and History teacher at Tucson International Academy, whose journey into education reflects both personal conviction and a broader reimagining of what it means to teach. Narreto’s path is anything but conventional. Before stepping into the classroom, he spent over a decade in the Philippines as a television and radio journalist, reporting from environments where truth was not only contested but often dangerous to pursue. His experiences in crime scenes, conflict zones, and political landscapes exposed him to the complexities of power, the fragility of truth, and the consequences of misinformation. Yet, rather than allowing these realities to distance him from society, they ultimately drew him closer to a different kind of responsibility—the responsibility to educate. Today, his classroom is not just a place of learning, but a space of transformation. It is where literature becomes lived experience, history becomes dialogue, and students are encouraged not just to absorb information, but to interrogate it. His work reflects a belief that education is one of the most powerful tools available to shape not only knowledge, but perspective, empathy, and the capacity to engage meaningfully with the world. A Foundation Rooted in Culture, Legacy, and the Value of Learning For Mark Narreto, the origins of his educational philosophy can be traced back to his upbringing in Davao City, Southern Philippines—a cultural environment where education was not taken for granted, but deeply revered. Within his family and community, learning was seen as a transformative force, a pathway to opportunity, and a means of overcoming socioeconomic limitations. “I was raised in a family and a culture that treated education like a priceless gift—something precious passed from one generation to the next,” he shares. This perspective shaped not only his respect for knowledge, but also his understanding of its purpose. Education was not merely about personal advancement; it was about responsibility, growth, and the ability to create a better future. Surrounded by relatives who were educators, Narreto was exposed early to the quiet yet profound influence teachers have on individuals and communities. Their work, often understated, demonstrated the power of shaping minds and guiding lives. This influence planted the seeds of a future in education, even as his initial career path took him elsewhere. The Journalist’s Journey: Witnessing Reality and Reconsidering Impact Narreto’s entry into journalism marked a significant chapter in his life—one that would ultimately shape his approach to education in ways he could not have anticipated. With a degree in Mass Communication, he immersed himself in the world of media, spending more than a decade as a television and radio reporter in the Philippines. His work placed him at the forefront of unfolding events, covering stories that ranged from crime and conflict to politics and social issues. These experiences demanded not only technical skill, but emotional resilience and ethical clarity. Reporting from such environments required him to observe, interpret, and communicate realities that were often complex and difficult. However, over time, the profession revealed its darker dimensions. The erosion of press freedom, the persistence of political impunity, and the increasing risks faced by journalists began to weigh heavily on him. As colleagues faced threats and silencing, the question of purpose became increasingly urgent. Rather than continuing on a path that was becoming increasingly perilous, Narreto chose to redirect his energy toward a different form of impact. His return to education was not an escape—it was a deliberate decision to contribute in a way that would shape future generations. Reimagining the Classroom: From Passive Learning to Active Experience Narreto’s transition into teaching was marked by a willingness to challenge traditional methods and reimagine what learning could look like. Early in his teaching career, he encountered a familiar challenge—students who were disengaged, unresponsive, and disconnected from the material. “If I do lectures, I noticed that I only get blank stares, minimal participation, and responses that barely scratched the surface,” he reflects. Recognizing that traditional lecture-based approaches were insufficient, he made a conscious decision to change direction. One of the most transformative moments came when he introduced role-based learning into his classroom. By assigning students the roles of historical figures and literary characters, he shifted the focus from passive observation to active participation. Students were no longer simply learning about events—they were experiencing them. This approach, rooted in experiential learning, fundamentally changed the classroom dynamic. Students began to engage more deeply, express their ideas more confidently, and develop a stronger connection to the material. Drawing from his background in theater pedagogy, Narreto incorporated performance, simulation, and creative expression into his lessons, creating an environment where learning became immersive and meaningful. Innovation Through Perspective: Blending Journalism, Technology, and Creativity Innovation in education is often associated with technology, but for Narreto, it begins with perspective. A defining moment in his teaching came when he observed students engaging more actively with a trending news story than with the lesson at hand. Rather than redirecting their attention, he chose to build on their interest. By asking, “How would a historian view these events?” he transformed a moment of distraction into an opportunity for critical analysis. This simple shift demonstrated that innovation is not always about introducing new tools—it is about rethinking how learning is approached. Narreto integrates technology thoughtfully into his classroom, using digital platforms to enhance engagement without overshadowing the learning process. Students create podcasts, produce videos, and develop multimedia presentations that allow them to reinterpret literary texts and historical events. These activities position students as creators, encouraging them to take ownership of their learning. At the same time,

Digital Version There is a quiet revolution underway in the world of design. It is not being led by louder interfaces, flashier visuals or products demanding more of our attention. It is being shaped by a more profound ambition: to make technology feel less like technology and more like an extension of human instinct. The next era of digital experience will not be defined by what users see, but by what they no longer have to think about – friction removed before it is felt, complexity simplified before it becomes overwhelming and systems intelligent enough to anticipate needs before they are spoken. Few leaders understand this shift as deeply – or articulate it as powerfully – as Ekta Rohra Jafri. For more than 25 years, Ekta has been at the forefront of experience design, not merely crafting interfaces but solving deeply human problems through systems, empathy and intelligence. As director of experience design in APAC at Material, she operates at the intersection of design, strategy and innovation – guiding organizations toward experiences that are not only intuitive and elegant, but transformative. Material is an intelligent growth company fueled by behavioral science and data analytics and drawing on a 50-year history of building deep customer intelligence into brands that don’t just participate, they compete and win. By integrating insight into the very DNA of design, strategy and digital experience, the consultancy moves beyond the superficial to deliver outsized business impact. Within this ecosystem, Ekta leads with a philosophy that mirrors these integrated capabilities to anticipate shifts and influence behavior in a way that is rigorously analytical and deeply human. The best design does not call attention to itself it shapes demand by dissolving into life. Her work spans some of the most complex and meaningful sectors in the modern economy. She has designed maternal healthcare services for rural communities in India, sustainability finance platforms with global implications, enterprise ecosystems for multinational organizations, educational research initiatives across Singapore’s learning landscape and digital solutions for vulnerable populations through humanitarian organizations. Across each challenge, one principle remains constant: design is not about the artifact; it is about the outcome. That principle has earned her not only industry recognition but global respect. Her work on a maternal healthcare service for rural pregnant women in India won multiple international accolades, including three IxDA awards, the INDIGO Award, the iF Design Award and publication in the Service Design Journal. The sustainability platform she designed was launched at COP26 and received the Visionary CleanTech Financial & Investment Institution Award. Yet, beyond awards and recognition, the true measure of her work lies in the lives made easier, systems made clearer and barriers made smaller. What makes Ekta’s perspective uniquely compelling is her ability to pair deep operational expertise with a visionary lens. Through her thought leadership in the Data Driven Design series and her futuristic storytelling in Sienna Tales, she has spent years imagining a world where interfaces disappear and technology organizes itself around people rather than forcing people to organize themselves around technology. Today, that world is no longer theoretical. As artificial intelligence reshapes the economics of creativity, compresses timelines and changes how ideas become reality, the design profession stands at a defining inflection point. For many, AI feels disruptive. For Ekta, it feels clarifying. It is shifting design away from superficial execution and returning it to what it was always meant to be: understanding people deeply enough to solve the right problems beautifully. In many ways, Ekta Rohra Jafri is not simply responding to the future of design. She has been designing toward it all along. Designing Experiences That Dissolve into Life For Ekta, exceptional digital experiences are not measured by aesthetic appeal alone. In a world where visual trends dominate product conversations, she challenges the industry to think more deeply. “The bar for exceptional experience is not aesthetic. It’s cognitive,” she says – an observation that reframes the very purpose of design. In her view, the most remarkable experiences are those that “dissolve into life.” They are so intuitive they become invisible and so attuned to context they feel almost anticipatory. She often draws inspiration from the intelligent assistant in Sienna Tales, a world she imagined where technology does not simply react to commands but understands context and intervenes before friction emerges. In that world, the assistant recognizes when its user has a headache before she wakes, understands when she is hungry and knows when essentials need replenishing. It does not interrupt life; it integrates into it. That philosophy underpins the way Ekta approaches real-world digital experiences. She believes exceptional products are never born from internal assumptions or boardroom opinions. They are built from listening, observing and iterating. What users say matters. What they do matters more. What they think and feel reveals the deeper truths behind behavior. In an increasingly instrumented digital world, organizations are flooded with behavioral data. Yet, for Ekta, the value lies not in collecting data but in translating it into empathy and action. The organizations that succeed are those agile enough to interpret signals quickly and evolve experiences in response. While technology evolves rapidly, human needs remain strikingly consistent. People want to feel understood. They seek clarity in moments of complexity, ease in moments of friction, and reassurance that the products they use were designed with their realities in mind. For Ekta, empathy is what gives design its humanity, and data is the lens that makes that humanity visible. Her work consistently brings those real-world stories into decision-making spaces, transforming abstract conversations about features into meaningful discussions about outcomes. In her hands, design becomes less about demonstrating possibility and more about simplifying reality. The User Is Not You: Designing Across APAC’s Complexity Designing across APAC requires more than localization. It demands cultural intelligence, behavioral nuance and the humility to acknowledge that assumptions often fail. One principle sits at the center of Ekta’s design philosophy: “The user is not you.” It is a deceptively simple statement, yet one she believes remains