Dr. Hedi KARRAY is the programme manager for Artificial intelligence at the European Innovation Council (EIC) since 2024. He is an experienced professional in semantic AI and ontology-based engineering, with over fifteen years in applied informatics. He holds a Ph.D. in applied informatics from the University of Franche-Comté, France, a Master’s in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management from the Business Administration Institute of Besançon, and the Habilitation to Lead Research (HDR) from the National Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse.

Before joining the EIC, Hedi was a Full Professor of Applied Informatics at the University of Technology of Tarbes (UTTOP) in France. He led the international master’s programme on Industry 4.0 and the Planning, Interoperability, and Coordination of dynamic Systems (PICS) research group, contributing to research in ontology-based reasoning, semantic interoperability, and AI-driven decision support systems. He has published over 100 papers in international journals and conferences.

Hedi was a visiting professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo (UB), focusing on ontological research. Hedi has been actively involved in the professional community, serving as the president of the French chapter of the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society and co-founding the Industrial Ontologies Foundry hosted by NIST.

Through his previous collaborative research projects and consulting work with companies like TotalEnergies, Airbus, Thales, etc. Hedi has helped to apply academic research in industrial settings and has provided invaluable insights into the deployment of Semantic AI in complex industrial environments, contributing to the digital transformation of key sectors. He is committed to responsible AI and advancing the global AI ecosystem, with a focus on technologies that benefit both industry and society. Hedi's work continues to influence the future of AI in Europe and globally.