Chelsea E. Manning worked as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Department of Defense, where she publicly disclosed classified documents that revealed human rights abuses and corruption connected to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Upon being sentenced to 35 years for leaking government documents, an unprecedented amount of time for whistleblowers, she publicly identified as a trans woman and asserted her legal rights to medical therapy. After serving 7 years in military prison, President Barack Obama commuted her sentence to time served. She was released in 2017.

Today Manning is a Washington D.C based technologist and network security expert whose actions have shown the power of individuals to change the world through bravery, conscience, and determination. She speaks on the social, technological and economic ramifications of Artificial Intelligence, and on the practical applications of machine learning. She is a vocal advocate for government transparency and queer and transgender rights on Twitter and through her op-ed columns for The Guardian and The New York Times.