We warmly welcome the first of the 12 international guest professors of the Future Lab, Prof. Dr. Mrinalini Kochupillai!
Prior to joining AI4EO, Mrinalini has been a lecturer & senior academic researcher in business ethics, business law, sustainable innovations & mixed research methodology. With over 15 years of experience in three continents, her multi-disciplinary research has focussed on legal issues and ethical opportunities offered by emerging technologies such as blockchain and AI. Her most recent research focussed on how these technologies might help overcome market and regulatory failures to better incentivize sustainable and inclusive innovations on one hand, and culture-specific innovations linked to traditional knowledge systems on the other.
Mrinalini obtained her B.A. LL.B (Hons.) degree from the National Law Institute University, Bhopal, India, in 2003, & an LL.M. in Intellectual Property, Commerce & Technology from the University of New Hampshire, School of Law (UNH), USA, in 2006. She completed her Ph.D. at the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU), Munich, Germany, as a full scholar and fellow of the International Max Planck Research School for Competition and Innovation (2009-13). She later served as program director at the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center (2014-17) & senior research fellow, first at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition (2014-18), and later at the Technical University of Munich (2018-2019).
She has been an adjunct faculty at UNH and served as a consultant-expert to their International Technology Transfer Institute. Mrinalini has also acted as Co-Principal Investigator and Consultant-lead author for projects funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and the UK Global Challenges Research Fund. In her free time, Mrinalini teaches mindfulness, yoga, workplace wellness, and stress management seminars as a volunteer for the TLEX Institute, SKY Campus EU, and the UN accredited International Art of Living Foundation.
