Kausar Samli

Vice Chair, Board of Directors, Genome British Columbia

Kausar Samli specializes in commercializing applied-technologies (including bio, quantum and blockchain). His experience includes building/scaling companies, securing/deploying capital, and demonstrating significant stakeholder value generation across industries, non-profits, and academia. As a thought-leader, internationalist, and entrepreneur he leads and advises executives, investors, and institutions on strategy, technology commercialization, organizational development, and building ecosystems across the intersection of academia, industry, and government. Additionally, his multi-lingual and multi-cultural global perspective is shaped by having lived in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America.

Kausar served as the SVP of global services for Learning Machine. Post-acquisition by Hyland, he continued to serve as head of global services for Hyland Credentials. Kausar served as COO at 1QBit, a quantum computing software company developing hardware-agnostic platforms and services for applications in machine learning, optimization, and simulation. He also served as CEO at Lectenz Bio, a biotech company developing novel biomarker detection technologies and products using high performance computing (HPC) and protein engineering. Kausar’s experience includes SaaS and hardware-based intelligent automation, ranging from process-driven to data-driven automation (ML & AI). Example industries include applications in biotech/biopharma, bioprocessing, healthcare, chemicals, cleantech, energy, natural resources, manufacturing, digital credentialing, education, and tech. On the hardware-side, he has worked on projects leveraging robotics, HPC, quantum, and quantum-inspired devices.

In service to communities, he is an expert for Horizon Europe (previously Horizon 2020) for the European Commission, an Investigator for Creative Destruction Lab (Vancouver), an Ignite Review Panelist for Innovate BC, and a member of Singularity University’s Faculty. He serves as a director on the boards of Genome BC, Lectenz Bio, and Women@TheFrontier. Kausar has a unique blend of scientific expertise in cell-specific targeting, high-throughput screening, molecular evolution, protein engineering, and computational chemistry. He was the recipient of a Marie Curie Fellowship, an NIH awardee, and is a co-inventor on patents. He holds a PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology (computational chemistry) from the University of Georgia, a master’s in chemistry from Arizona State University, and a bachelor’s in biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin. He attended Singularity University’s Global Solutions Program specializing in technology entrepreneurship, commercialization, and sustainable development goals and has co-founded multiple start-ups.