John has addressed over 1,500 conferences around the world and was a faculty member of the World Economic Forum from 2002-2008. He is the author or co-author of 20 books including the million selling Green Consumer Guide. His most recent book—Green Swans: The Coming Boom in Regenerative Capitalism—was published in April 2020 by Fast Company Press and has reinforced his reputation as ‘The Godfather of Sustainability’. He has helped inspire and incubate movements including the B Team, the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes, the Global Reporting Initiative, and B Lab UK. In 2009, he was named 4th in an international survey of the top 100 CSR leaders, after Al Gore, Barack Obama and Anita Roddick.  In 1994, John coined the phrase; ‘Triple Bottom Line,’ and in 1995 the popularisation ‘People, Planet and Profit’ (variously known as the 3Ps, TBL or 3BL). Among other things, the framework now provides the intellectual DNA for over 7,000 B Corporations worldwide. In September 2021, John received the World Sustainability Award.

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Mairead is an Investment Associate at Act Venture Capital and she is responsible for sourcing new deals, due diligence and monitoring of portfolio companies.

Prior to joining Act, Mairead worked in the Investment teams at Ireland’s development agency (Enterprise Ireland) and Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF). Mairead has also worked in Deloitte’s Corporate Finance division, as part of the M&A Transaction Services team.

Mairead is an ACA Chartered Accountant, and a graduate of both University College Cork (Undergraduate) and University College Dublin (Masters). She also most recently completed a Diploma in Artificial Intelligence from UCD.

In younger years, Mairead was heavily involved in music – teaching kids and adults violin and piano along with hustling for gigs as part of different music groups! Mairead has played at festivals of culture in the Netherlands, France, Bulgaria, Wales and Hungary. Mairead was also part of the National Folk Orchestra of Ireland that toured Ireland and London with performances marking seminal moments in Irish history.

Today, Mairead likes to challenge herself with new pieces of music to try out just for fun whilst also keeping active with her local running club!

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Erinch leads DEAL’s work on business and enterprise. For over 10 years, he has focused on the transformation of the business world to make sure it is regenerative and distributive by design – exploring governance and ownership models that embed social and ecological priorities. Erinch’s background spans business, government, social enterprise and NGOs. Most recently, he was the chief executive of the World Fair Trade Organization, a global network and verifier of social enterprises and cooperatives that practice Fair Trade. Previously, he spent 7 years at Oxfam leading campaign and advocacy initiatives, and founding Oxfam’s Future of Business Initiative. He has also worked at Procter & Gamble as a market strategy manager, established a furniture business and worked for Australia's aid programme. Erinch speaks and writes regularly on cooperatives, social enterprises and other enterprise alternatives to profit primacy. He has lectured extensively on sustainable business and holds degrees in finance and law, and an honorary doctorate from Oxford Brookes University.

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Female Founders, Europe's fastest growing community of entrepreneurial women, is on a mission to create an equitable and impact-driven European tech&innovation ecosystem. In her role as project manager, Elisabeth van Holthe tot Echten has created and implemented several programmes supporting women leaders and gender-diverse startups navigate the fundraising landscape. 

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With experience of working over 10 years in the tech industry, Klára founded Talkbase, a community analytics platform that helps global technology companies scale and measure community impact. Beyond her role at Talkbase, Klára is an angel investor and actively mentors in international female-focused organizations. She has commited to join govement-led projects where she speaks to elementary, high school and universitiy students. Currently, Klára is pursuing a master's degree in Gender Studies, deepening her commitment to empowering women in tech and beyond.

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Denny Royal is an established design leader with over 30 years of experience. He has served as a creative executive for a number of top design firms and start-ups. For each, he was responsible for the overall strategy, design, and implementation of all design and service design engagements. His background in design research, customer experience, brand, design, biomimicry, and technology allows him to bring a holistic and regenerative approach to solving clients' challenges.

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Kaija has 40 years of experience on successfully founding, growing and coaching deep tech companies. She started her first company in 1983, and after a successful exit in 1998 became an Angel Investor, Business Coach and Board Member in deep tech startups, growth companies and listed companies. She has been board member in Finnish Industry Investment and VTT Ventures, and is currently LP in three deep tech growth funds. Her own portfolio exits include Flockler and Ultimate.ai. Kaija is also a Horizon EIC Accelerator Business Coach since 2015, and a member of the EIC Scaling Club. She has coached hundreds startups through several incubator programs in Scandinavia and the Baltics, including Kiuas, Tribe Tampere, Innovasjon Norge and LuxInnovation. With an M.Sc. (Tech.) in operations research, data science and decision theory from Helsinki University of Technology (now Aalto), she is especially interested in creating new services and operative efficiencies from data, AI and ML.

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Matthew DiFranco is a Vienna-based health tech consultant with a background in engineering and computer science. Originally from New Jersey, Matthew moved to Austria in 2010 to pursue post-doctoral research in medical imaging and biomedical engineering. He has navigated career transitions from industry to academia, and back to industry, most recently as Chief Scientific Officer at ImageBiopsy Lab, an AI radiology startup. Matthew has a deep understanding of challenges facing med tech and digital health startups, including evidence generation, EU and US regulatory affairs, strategic partnerships, product strategy and team building. Additionally, he has also served as a startup mentor at Health Hub Vienna, supported researcher career development as a board member of the Marie Curie Alumni Association, and worked as an expert evaluator for the European Commission.

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For over 13 years, Jindřich Fáborský has been elevating the standards of marketing education in the Czech Republic through his innovative projects. He is the founder of Marketing Festival, one of Europe’s most prominent marketing conferences. Additionally, his project Digisemestr educates 250 marketers annually, contributing to the development of the next generation of marketing leaders. In 2016, he was recognized in Forbes' "30 Under 30" list. The following year, he founded and continues to lead the Dobrodění Foundation. Jindřich is also passionate about video production, and his motorcycle review channel, Jednoustopou, is one of the most influential motorcycle media outlets in the Czech market.

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Jana is the founder and managing partner of the law firm SEDLAKOVA LEGAL s.r.o., which she established in 2015 in response to the question of whether law can keep pace with the turbulent changes around us. With over 8 years of experience in IT and IP law, corporate law, investments, and startups, she reflects her passion for technology and entrepreneurship. Additionally, she is a partner at the tax and accounting firm TaxCounting, s.r.o. and the company Ochrana nápadů s.r.o., which focuses on assisting aspiring entrepreneurs. She has been mentoring Czech startups within the Startup Academy for a long time.

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Jindřich is, essentially, a designer. When he was only 17, he was making jewelry from industrial waste, and at 25, he was already showing his chandeliers at the world's greatest exhibition EXPO 2015 in Milano. This led him to establish Q Designers - an impact design studio that works with companies like Erste, Skanska or Ikea to design new products and services. He also co-founded The Greenest Company, which monitors employees' well-being, mentors young start-ups and leads a Design Thinking course with hundreds of absolvents.

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Kamila is the CEO of Lakmoos AI, an award-winning tech startup which copies minds to simulate customer behaviour. Her background is in behavioural science. Kamila started winning national prizes for original research as a teenager and has been publishing since her undergraduate. Applying her knowledge in business, she did corporate research for giants like Nestlé, The Nature Conservancy and Ogilvy. Now, Kamila automates collecting opinions for faster innovation at scale at Lakmoos AI.

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Amina has worked as a photographer, filmmaker, and designer for the past 8 years. She has been involved in the production and direction of two short films and various commercials. Additionally, she worked as an assistant in a dermatological practice for 3.5 years, enabling her to explain complex dermatological research to a non-scientific audience. As the "creative mind" of FPS, Amina designs the UX of the app, the corporate identity, the web presence, and the social media presence to successfully position the company.

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Milan is co-founder and CEO of company Sewio, which enables manufacturing companies to reach next level of profitability by tracking everything what moves under the factory roof. He brings experience from global business scaling, combination of HW, SW, SaaS and building global partner network. After ten years of continuous growth in US, Europe and South Korea, Sewio was successfully acquired by market leader HID Global and now continuous still as CEO of company under same brand to scale even faster.

Milan likes to talk and share knowhow about building communities, leveraging potential of startup ecosystems, building global partner networks and all about IoT, Smart Factories, High-tech and Automotive market.

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Lenka Novotná is the managing director of the Nové Veselí-based company Plastia. She founded the company together with her husband, who now oversees finance, sales and technology, while Lenka, originally a textile designer, focuses on development and design within the company. She advocates for a "design thinking" approach and has made design one of the main strategic pillars of Plastia, which has received several prestigious awards for product design, including the Red Dot.

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Cyril is a CEO and founder at Cyrkl.com - green-tech startup and trading platform with focus on circularity in waste management. In the European biggest recycling platform one waste could be a wealth for another and when using machine learning Cyrkl can manage the right match. Cyril has long been focused on meaningful innovations, especially in the circular economy. He received awards for a Global Digital Disruption by Globent and was selected among top innovators in Czechia for a year 2020.  He stood behind three publications Circular Czech Republic 1,2 and 3. Previously Cyril worked as an innovation leader in the Direct People, leading Czech innovation agency and before as a manager responsible for the corporate part of innovation at Raiffeisenbank, where he co founded Raiffeisen Advisory. He is a graduate of the University of Economics, where he continued to his doctoral studies.

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Stan is the former CEO and co-founder of Runecast, acquired by Dynatrace in March 2024. Originally from Bulgaria, he moved to Brno in 2006 to pursue a career at IBM as a virtualization architect. Stan became the first VMware Certified Design Expert at IBM globally, authored two IBM Redbooks, and established a Center of Excellence that designed, managed, and secured cloud infrastructures for IBM’s large customers. It was during this time that Stan met his Runecast co-founders. Together, they embarked on a mission to simplify the lives of IT administrators. Runecast, an AI-powered patented product, helps large organizations optimize and secure their hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Over the years, it has received numerous security awards and analyst recognitions. In 2024, Runecast was acquired by Dynatrace, a global observability leader, to create the world’s leading observability and security platform. Stan is now part of Dynatrace, ensuring this vision comes to life.

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Julie Dobrovolná is a leading expert in physiology Masaryk University, specializing in stress research and health resilience. She has gained international recognition for her pioneering work in stress research, particularly her development of real-time, non-invasive stress measurement methods used in high-risk environments such as space travel. As co-founder of the company Entrant, she spearheads the development of innovative technology aimed at improving human health under extreme conditions. In addition to her scientific achievements, Julie is a passionate advocate for women in science and has successfully balanced her demanding career with raising a family, including a daughter with autism​.

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Petr Pridal, founder and CEO of MapTiler, gained his Ph.D. in the field of cartography and geodesy and a master’s degree in computer science. He is a consultant, researcher, programmer, and entrepreneur. Within the last years he participated in several international research projects, and developed popular software.

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Alžběta Králová specializes in branding, strategic communication, and marketing, focusing on building and developing brands. She assists individuals, organizations, businesses, and politicians in formulating and transforming their values and visions into long-term sustainable communication. She gained experience on winning campaigns abroad, primarily in the United States and France, and adapts these campaign management trends and tools to the Czech environment, contributing to its professionalization. She has received five professional awards for her work.

Her long-term goal is to motivate women and support them in actively seeking elected positions, starting businesses, or advancing in their career ladders, thus enhancing their influence in both the public and private sectors. She actively teaches women how to effectively self-present and focuses on supporting women in business. An example of this is the Women’s Business, which educates women in crucial areas. Over six months, 6,000 women from across the Czech Republic participated in the program named Academy of Professional Development. She is a graduate of the prestigious U.S. government program - International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) and serves as the Vice President of the Czech IVLP Alumni Club under the U.S. Embassy in Prague.

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Gabriela is the co-founder and CBO of Recombee, a robust and scalable SaaS recommendation solution which leverages AI and machine learning, providing personalized content and product suggestions across various platforms such as Media, VOD and E-commerce around the world. She is currently responsible for developing and executing the growth strategy, marketing strategy and communications with premium clients that are primarily based in the United States and Canada. Throughout her solid career, she has attained multiple prestigious awards such as the Forbes 30 Under 30, Top Woman in the Czech Republic - Startup Category issued by the Hospodářské noviny (iHNed.cz), 1st place in the GSK Challenge Competition for the best marketing strategy for the Sensodyne brand and many more.
 

Gabriela has always been passionate about the topic of new technologies and her studies & work in Seattle (USA), Santiago (Chile), Neu-Ulm (Germany) and Prague (Czech Republic) have further strengthened her passion for international business and future technological developments. Gabriela graduated with a Master's degree in International Management from CEMS (one of the top 10 Masters in Management according to the Financial Times) with a double degree in Strategy, Marketing and Finance with a minor in Business.

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Petr Bittner is a Brno-based philosopher, journalist, moderator, podcaster, media consultant, spin doctor, and copywriter. His articles are published in the weekly magazine Respekt, and for the third year, he has been releasing the sustainably successful podcast Škrty with his brother Jan.

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Zuzana has been helping to expand tech companies for 8+ years across the EU and the USA. Thanks to this experience she started to work with the topic of inclusion and diversity closely and also understood its true meaning. Her experience in the USA, particularly in San Francisco inspired her to co-found LUMUS Investment Collective and be active in the gender diversity within the financial ecosystem. 

Zuzana is also a yoga teacher, passionate about traveling and hiking, and curious about new technologies that can help us to fight the current world challenges. 

At Lumus she is responsible for partnerships and she is also helping with startups evaluation.

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Jan Bittner is a rural economist currently balancing work as a labor market analyst, studying, and parenting. Jan is the spiritual father of the podcast Škrty and is also involved in the regular calculation of the Minimum Decent Wage. He enjoys mushroom picking.

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Jakub is a local CEO and co-founder of Nesnězeno, a pioneering app in the CEE region addressing food waste. Jakub's journey with Nesnězeno began at the end of 2018 during his university studies, initially as a Facebook page aimed at reducing food waste in restaurants, cafés, and bakeries. Over the past six years, Nesnězeno has expanded its presence to four countries, successfully saving over 2.5 million packages of unsold meals. The app has been downloaded by more than 2 million users and has secured major partnerships, including with supermarket chains and the entire Starbucks chain in the CZ, SK, and HU markets. In 2024, Jakub was honored by being listed in Forbes 30 Under 30.

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Dudu Gencel is a professional with a decade of experience in Vienna's thriving startup ecosystem. With a background in economics from the esteemed Vienna University of Economics and Business, Dudu has established herself as a reliable partner for startups and stakeholders in Vienna and beyond. She is dedicated to fostering growth and innovation and supporting an inclusive ecosystem where everyone has the chance to find its place.

During her tenure at the Vienna Business Agency, Dudu has been instrumental in driving initiatives to cultivate an inclusive startup environment in the city. As Team Lead, she orchestrates a diverse range of strategic projects aimed at propelling the growth of Startup City Vienna. Together with her team, she works on the implementation of soft-landing programs tailored for international startups, facilitates strategic city-to-city partnerships, and curates ViennaUP — a decentralized startup festival. The Vienna Business Agency is the official investment promotion agency of the business location Vienna and offers a wide range of services and support to both Viennese and international companies looking to set up or expand their business in Vienna.

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Michal has been involved in the development of Crowdberry since its inception. Today, Crowdberry has a portfolio of more than 100 companies and real estate assets, with over EUR 120 million in assets under management. He is currently co-responsible for leading the ECSP-regulated Crowdberry Investment Platform, which focuses on equity and debt financing for SMEs and real estate. He also manages an investment fund under CB Investment Management, a subsidiary of Crowdberry, which focuses on seed investments in startups and young dynamic companies. Michal has been active in this field for over 18 years, gaining experience on both the investor and founder sides. He has served as a member of the investment team at the Vienna-based venture capital fund GCP Gamma Capital Partners and as CFO of the software company Opvizor, which operates in Europe and the USA. He studied corporate finance and banking at the University of Vienna in Vienna, Austria.

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One of the founders of the Czech biotech company GeneProof. After 18 years of building the company from a startup into a well-established firm with an international business network, he decided to fulfill his angel dream. As an angel investor, through his family endowment fund Dendis Capital, he now supports the innovation environment in the Czech Republic.

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Vojtěch is a podcaster, podcast producer, moderator, and lecturer. He gained experience in spoken word mainly during his seven years at Czech Radio, where he started in the domestic editorial office. In 2018, he co-founded the scientific and technical magazine Experiment and later produced the scientific podcast Budoucnost R. Thanks to this, he also became involved in the topics of sustainability and the circular economy, to which he still dedicates himself, among others. In 2021, he decided to go freelance and try his luck as a podcaster and podcast producer with the ambitious mission of improving the quality of the Czech podcast scene. For the third year, he has been releasing his podcast on sustainability, LOOPA Vojty Kovala, in cooperation with CIRA Advisory. Under the banner of his Circular Studio LOOPA, he produces podcasts for ŠKODA AUTO, Czech Invest and the Ministry of Transport (Czech Space News), Vodafone (Tady Vodafone), the Ria brand (OnRia), the BlueGhost agency (Update), and the Europeum Institute.

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Antonín is a multi-faceted professional with a background in education, corporate innovation, startup consultancy, community activism, and negotiation. He started his career as an educator, deeply involved in pedagogy. Later, he transitioned to the corporate sector, working at Škoda, and finally he got into the startup world through Ynovate network. He has also been actively engaged in community development in Liberec and briefly participated in municipal politics. In addition to his pedagogical and community work, Antonín is also the founder and CEO of a company focused on innovations in digital health. He has long been dedicated to supporting startups and high-value companies. His long-term goal is to assist small and medium-sized enterprises in adapting to new technological and social challenges. He can work towards this goal thanks to a new innovation center being developed in Mladá Boleslav, which he is building with partners.

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Lukáš is an innovator, founder and CEO of the company MAIA, which utilizes AI to expedite endoscopic examinations and enhance their accuracy. 15+ years experience in sales and business development within international companies. Technical background in industry 4.0, AI, digitalization and IoT. In free time interested in traveling, skiing, mountaineering, music and socializing.

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Tomáš enjoys playing the role of an urban ninja who carries innovations in his head instead of a katana on his back. He has studied at HEC Paris and Oxford University, but don't worry, he hasn't lost touch with Czech realities. Tomáš is dedicated to improving hospitals, factories, and entire cities using technological buzzwords like #hack and #AI. He leads a consulting firm called Insane Business Ideas, which is as crazy as it sounds. Ten years ago, Tomáš introduced the concept of FuckUp Nights to the Czech Republic and wrote "The Great Book of Fuckups" - a guide for everyone who occasionally messes up.

In 2020, Computer World magazine named him the Top IT Personality of the Year. Being a personality wasn't enough for him, so he embarked on the project THEaiTRE, where artificial intelligence managed to write a play a hundred years after the premiere of Karel Čapek's R.U.R. It's like a computer winning at chess, but with dramaturgy. In 2022, he brought to life the global health tech incubator Caelestinus (www.caelestinus.tech), because why just improve the world when you can create it. And in 2023, Tomáš decided he hadn't said enough to the world yet and published the book "The Art of Failure" together with Prof. Josef Hynek. Because those who can turn failure into art can achieve anything.

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Vráťa Kalenda is a co-founder and the face of the Czech development studio Applifting, which creates software for leading domestic and international companies. He serves as an IT business partner for clients and focuses on meaningful leadership within Applifting. He enjoys motivating and leading people, placing their job satisfaction as his top priority. In his free time, he spends time with his family, engages in sports, and is regularly seen riding through the streets of Prague on an electric unicycle. In his own words, he "doesn't have a work-life balance, he has flow."

Applifting is built on a unique principle of complete openness. Every Applifter can influence the direction of the company and the selection of projects. Everyone knows each other's salaries and understands what they need to do to advance professionally and financially. This has fulfilled his dream of the ideal company culture, where the satisfaction of employees, clients, and the community is paramount. This is why it is considered a "teal organization," for which profit is merely a tool to achieve higher goals. Among the studio's main clients are Jablotron, Komerční banka, and the parent company Česká spořitelna Erste Group.

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Jan is an experienced project manager with a maker mindset, currently working to bring the world's biggest digital fabrication event, FABx, to the Czech Republic in 2025. With over 4 years at FabLab Brno, Jan has been on a mission to evangelize the maker movement, digital fabrication, and STEAM education in the Czech Republic and Central Europe. He enjoys a delicious cup of coffee and spends his free time in the FabLab making cool projects.

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Marketa has experience in both academia and the startup world. In the last eight years, she shifted her focus from academia to working with early-stage startups and high-tech university projects. Her expertise and passion are in blending academia and entrepreneurship. She helps university students develop an entrepreneurial mindset through collaborative initiatives designed in partnership with universities. These activities aim to nurture the next generation of innovation leaders.

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Kristýna is an editor at Forbes Czech Republic. At Forbes, she is responsible for the technology special Next, the Next Big Thing conference, and the ranking of the largest Czech family businesses. Additionally, she writes about business and billionaires, tests new cars, and travels – all the while encountering fascinating stories. She has been in the media industry for nearly 20 years, starting at Hospodářské noviny. She studied international relations and journalism.

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Libor is an entrepreneur and consultant at JIC. His entrepreneurial journey began at 13, and at seventeen, he founded Toprecepty.cz, which he later successfully sold. In Brno, he established DobroKávu, distributing over 27,000 coffees for good deeds. He invested in the Nesnězeno app against food waste and leads the non-profit news site Pozitivní-Zprávy.cz. In 2018, Forbes listed him among the 18 inspirational figures of the Czech Republic.

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