Kairi Talves is Scientific Adviser in the Estonian Ministry of Defence and Visiting Researcher at the Estonian Military Academy. She has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Tartu. Her main research interests cover the different aspects of technology in society: societal development and change (e.g., technological developments) and their social impact, people’s attitudes and coping in the context of rapid societal changes, public acceptance of technology and technology in the military: risks, trust, acceptance, ethical aspects, challenges of human-machine interaction, cognitive warfare, innovation of military organizations, technology, and states’ power balance. She has published a number of research papers in international journals and chapters in edited volumes. She has received the Global Digital Governance Fellowship at Stanford University for Estonian Scholars, from February–May 2024. This fellowship is related to the research about the role of technology in strengthening national security and resilience in small countries
Dierk Spreen is a sociologist. He did his doctorate at the University of Freiburg in 1998 and habilitated at the University of Paderborn in 2006 with a thesis on war and society. He is currently a visiting professor for social sciences at the Berlin School for Economics and Law (HWR), Senior Project Manager at the Institute for Organizational Communication at University of the Bundeswehr in Munich and lecturer for "Communication" in Human-Technology-Interaction at the Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences (h2). Before that, he headed an online platform for science communication of the Helmholtz Association. From 2022 to 2024 he was a Visiting Researcher at the Estonian Military Academy (EMA) in Tartu. His main areas of interest are human-technology integration, artificial intelligence, transhumanism, space travel, sociology of the military, strategic communication and political economy.