The Honorable Dr. Will Roper is currently a Distinguished Professor at Georgia Tech, focusing on technology impacting national security. He is a board member and advisor of numerous startups and investment firms, a Senior Advisor at McKinsey, and Honorary Group Captain in the U.K. Royal Air Force. Will previously served as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, leading over $60 billion of annual technology development and operations for the U.S. Air Force and Space Force. He previously founded the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office, growing this once-classified innovation office to $1.6 billion annually. He began his career at MIT as the chief futurist for the Missile Defense Agency. During fifteen years of national security service, Will received the Pentagon’s highest awards for public service. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s in physics from Georgia Tech and doctorate in mathematics from Oxford University, where he studied string theory as a Rhodes Scholar.