Mumbai: Amid deepening geopolitical tensions and global trade shifts, the ET NOW Global Business Summit 2026 is set to bring together leading innovators from across the globe. The February 13-14 summit in New Delhi will host unicorn founders, AI governance leaders, a NASA scientist and the world’s first legally recognised cyborg.
The speaker line-up reflects the widening intersection of technology, capital and entrepreneurship.
Among them is Mate Pencz, founder and CEO of Loft, Brazil’s market leader across broker services, mortgage origination and real estate fintech since 2018. Recognised by Forbes as one of Brazil’s top 10 CEOs, he previously cofounded Printi, an ecommerce platform for customised materials and services that was sold to Nasdaq-listed Cimpress. Pencz is also a founder and investment partner at Canary, a seed-stage technology investment firm.
The summit will feature Japan’s fastest-growing unicorn, Sakana AI co-founder and chief operating officer Ren Ito will share insights into how the company achieved the unicorn status within a year, backed by Nvidia and leading Japanese enterprises. Ito earlier served as the Europe CEO of Mercari, Japan’s first unicorn, and spent 15 years as a Japanese diplomat.
The agenda also focuses on evolving business and regulatory frameworks with names like Pratik Gauri, founder and CEO of 5ire who conceptualised the term ‘5th industrial revolution’, which brings together sustainability, innovation and business viability.
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On the policy front, Ivana Bartoletti, vice president and global chief privacy and AI governance officer at Wipro, will address privacy and AI governance. She founded the Women Leading in AI network and serves as a visiting fellow at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business and the Oxford Internet Institute. Science and frontier research will form another pillar of the discussions. Lynn J Rothschild, whose research spans Earth’s evolution and potential life beyond it, will present at the summit. She founded NASA’s synthetic biology programme and led the first free-flyer synthetic biology payload on the DLR Eu:CROPIS mission.
Advances in nanoelectronics and bioengineering will be in focus, featuring minds like Deblina Sarkar, MIT professor and inventor, who works at the intersection of engineering, physics and biology. Her research spans brain-machine interfaces and cybernetic biotechnologies, including a surgery-free brain implant, bioelectronic therapy for drug-resistant brain cancer, a six-atom-thick transistor for energy-efficient AI and ultra-sensitive biosensors.Conversations will also turn to managing space infrastructure and traffic with Jason Held, founder and CEO of Saber Astronautics, which specialises in space situational awareness and autonomous mission systems. He works with government and commercial clients to operate large satellite constellations, advance space traffic management and build software for decision-making in complex orbital environments.
The summit will explore how technology is altering human capability featuring Neil Harbisson, artist and activist and the world’s first legally recognised cyborg. Born with total colour blindness, he has an antenna implanted in his skull that enables him to perceive colour through sound.
Together, the speakers reflect the changing dynamics of business, science and technology. The ET NOW Global Business Summit 2026 is set to bring these conversations onto a single platform as industries navigate a changing global order.