Abel Adugam | SpeakerHub

Personal Details

Bio

Abel Adugam is a venture capitalist, product strategist, and global voice on ethical and human-centered AI innovation.

As Managing Partner at the Softdroom AI Fund, he leads investments in startups building artificial intelligence with purpose balancing technological progress with societal responsibility.

A lifelong entrepreneur and ecosystem builder, Abel has advised founders, VCs, and policymakers on responsible AI frameworks, startup scaling, and the intersection of capital, conscience, and code. His talks blend sharp humor, deep insight, and real world experience inspiring audiences to rethink what progress means in the age of intelligent machines.

Presentations

Presentations (6)

How to raise money without losing your mind (or your company)

Startup funding has turned into a theatre of hype, handshakes, and “how fast can you scale?” moments. Everyone’s raising, or pretending to and the FOMO is real.

We’ll dive into what actually happens when you raise, what to never say in a pitch, how to avoid the “I raised $1M but I’m broke” trap, and why some of the best founders are quietly building, not broadcasting.

We’ll also talk about funding fitness: knowing when to raise, how much to raise, and how not to give away 30% of your company for a desk and a coffee machine.

Burnout, loneliness, and why founders secretly Google “jobs at Google” at 2AM

Let’s talk about the emotional cost of building a company. The stress, the isolation, the “I should be further along by now” guilt trip.

This isn’t your usual “mental health in startups” talk. It’s a real, raw founder-to-founder session about what it feels like to lead when you don’t feel like leading, how to protect your energy, and when to hit pause before you hit the wall.

Think of it as a group therapy session for ambitious humans pretending to have it all together.

AI HYPE VS. AI REALITY

Everyone’s building “AI” but mostly it’s fancy autocomplete with a landing page.

Let’s cut through the noise. “AI-powered” startups are raising millions while still manually labeling data in Google Sheets. But the real revolution isn’t in hype decks it’s in how founders actually apply AI to create value.

We’ll explore what real AI innovation looks like (and what’s just clever marketing), how to navigate investors who don’t know GPT from GPU, and why building quietly with substance beats shouting “AI” on LinkedIn every day.

Bonus: I’ll show you how to detect AI vaporware in 10 seconds flat.

AI APOCALYPSE OR AI AWAKENING?

Why the race for efficiency might be writing our own end credits

Everyone’s building “AI.” Faster models, cheaper inference, bigger datasets but no one’s asking the one question that matters: Should we?

In the rush to automate everything, we’re ignoring the quiet disaster unfolding bias baked into models, unaccountable algorithms deciding who gets hired or denied, and startups chasing efficiency at the cost of ethics.

This session dives into what it really means to build ethical AI not as a PR tagline, but as a design philosophy. We’ll talk about:

- Why AI safety isn’t just for regulators it’s a builder responsibility.

- How “move fast and break things” breaks people when applied to intelligence.

We’ll explore how to build AI that elevates humanity instead of replacing it.

Because the real existential threat isn’t AI itself it’s the people building it without a conscience.

AI WITHOUT A SOUL: WHY ETHICS IS THE NEXT FRONTIER OF INNOVATION

We’ve built intelligent machines, now it’s time to build a moral compass.

The AI revolution has moved faster than our ethical imagination. We’re optimizing for performance, scale, and profit but forgetting purpose.

This session explores why ethics isn’t a brake on innovation, but its next great accelerator. We’ll dive into:

The hidden biases shaping how AI sees the world.

Why ethical frameworks are the new competitive advantage.

How to embed moral reasoning into your model design, team culture, and investment thesis.

Because the future belongs to innovators who build machines with conscience not just code.

ALIGN OR DIE: HOW TO KEEP AI FROM TURNING ON ITS CREATORS

What happens when intelligence evolves faster than intention?

As AI systems grow more autonomous, the question isn’t whether they’ll surpass human capability but whether they’ll align with human values when they do.

This talk explores the science and philosophy of AI alignment how to ensure machines act in ways that reflect human ethics, empathy, and accountability.

We’ll discuss the potential paths to “AI drift,” the cost of misalignment, and how startups and investors can build safeguards into their innovations from day one.

Because if we fail to align AI with humanity, the future won’t be artificial it’ll just be alien.