Nicola Rohrseitz is Executive Director of the Defitech Foundation and Senior Advisor to GESDA’s Brain–Computer Interfaces (BCI) Initiative. He leads philanthropic and science-diplomacy efforts at the intersection of neurotechnology, AI, and governance, working with senior stakeholders across academia, governments, foundations, publishers, venture capital, and industry to ensure BCIs accelerate human benefit while strengthening human agency, cognitive liberty, and democratic resilience.

A multilingual deep-tech leader with 15+ years of experience translating frontier science into global products and strategy, Nicola has founded and scaled AI ventures and led enterprise-wide AI transformations. He previously directed AI acceleration programs at Merck & Co. across 50+ markets and at Cisco he helped shape company-wide AI initiatives and co-founded the AI Center of Excellence. He holds a PhD in Physics and Neuroscience from ETH Zurich and an MSc in Engineering and Robotics from EPFL, and has served as a national innovation expert and evaluator of major European and Swiss innovation grants.