James Ong

Dr. James Ong has 4 decades of industry, venture and academic experience. He founded Artificial Intelligence International Institute (AIII), an AI think tank advocating Sustainable AI for Humanity and is co-author of AI for Humanity. He actively champions AI for Humanity as United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 18 (SDG 18) and advocates the AI for Humanity movement globally including Davos in Europe, United Nations, ASEAN, China, India, US and Middle East.

He is the International Strategic Advisor at the renowned World AI Conference (WAIC) to advocate “AI for Good and for All” and co-founded AICON 2025, the World’s #1 Consumer Show to advocate “AI for Everyone” with AI literacy and fluency for the public.

He is an Adjunct Professor at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), lectures at various universities including NUS, NTU, SUTD, SUSS, SMU and UTAR and serves as Chair of Program Advisory Committee (PAC), School of Business, Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) on Master of AI for Business programme.

He is also Head of AI and Industry Fellow at Global Fintech Institute (GFI), Senior Fellow at The Conference Board (TCB), Member of the UNESCO G20 2025 South Africa Expert Network, Co-Chair of AI Risk Chapter at Risk and Insurance Management Association of Singapore (RIMAS), Academy of Engineering and Technology of the Developing World (AETDEW) Fellow and Member of SRAC at the National Supercomputing Centre Singapore (NSCC).

In addition to his academic and advocacy roles, he is CEO of Origami Frontiers, a venture building advisory firm, a venture partner at Delight Capital and has incubated, mentored, advised and invested in various technology start-ups across the world and strong proponent of Impact Investing.

James started his career as an AI scientist in 1986 at leading US MCC research lab on advanced AI Fifth Generation Computer research and was one of the pioneer senior executives at Trilogy, an AI pioneer and enterprise software startup. He received his PhD in Management Information System specializing in AI for Computational Governance, Policy and Business Process Automation and MA & BA in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin.

He has also contributed with over 40 publications including book, scientific book chapters, journal and conference papers, as well as industry research reports and standard reports throughout his career.