Ian Cumming, Keith Van, Joel Oleson, Matt Gray - Break Out Session - The Travel Tech Panel

Breakout Session - Two Simultaneous Sessions, You Choose One

THE TRAVEL TECH PANEL

The Travel Tech Panel at the Extraordinary Travel Festival explores the tools, platforms, and innovations shaping the future of global exploration. Bringing together founders, builders, and power users, the discussion highlights how technology is transforming the way people discover, plan, and document travel. From apps and data to mapping, content distribution, and community building, panelists share how they leverage tech to go further and travel smarter. The conversation also examines how technology enables extreme travelers to reach remote destinations and connect with global audiences. This panel offers insight into the intersection of innovation and exploration in the modern travel landscape. Feel free to join in on the Q&A.

BIOs

Ian Cumming - Moderator

Ian Cumming is the founder and developer of Travel Massive — the global professional network that connects thousands of innovators, executives and creators who are creating the future of travel. Ian is also a founding partner of Social Entrepreneurs in Tourism which provides industry support and recognition for social entrepreneurs to develop sustainable tourism projects in their local destinations.

🌎 Built the world’s first search engine for ocean research datasets (2005)

✈️ Developed Airlines of Tasmania’s first online reservation system (2006)

💬 Launched World Nomads’ “Ask A Nomad” Q&A Community (2009-2011)

🤑 Launched Australia’s first flight deals website “GetFlight” (2011-2012)

👶 Investor in TinyBeans.com family photo sharing app which floated on ASX (2014)

🇨🇳 Built Jambo — a crowdsourced interpreter network, trialed MVP in China (2014)

🔥 Investor in Firechat (mesh chat app) — until the CEO disappeared! 🙃 (2019)

📱 Investor in SkyHi — the world’s first subscription flight service (2019-2021)

💡 Founding team of the Social Entrepreneurship in Tourism Competition (2019-now)

🥾 CTO of MappyHour.org — a community for outdoor enthusiasts in the US (2016-2025)

Matt Gray - Panelist

Matt is the Founder of Pangea, the leading social app for frequent travelers, digital nomads, and extreme travelers to share their travel plans & recommendations with friends. He’s been to 110+ UN countries, lives and travels full-time as a digital nomad, and is on a personal mission to visit every country in the world with as many friends as possible.

Matt has more than 10 years of experience in product strategy and M&A leadership in both Fin Tech and Travel Technology spaces. He’s been involved in dozens of acquisitions and their subsequent integrations into the platforms that he built, most recently by consolidating two other social travel apps, Overlap and Nomadago into Pangea’s core platform.

Matt believes that fragmentation in travel technology is a key pain point for end users and is committed to using his extensive knowledge of travel, M&A and product leadership to build the social platform of the future for travelers.

Keith Van - Panelist

Keith leads community and partnerships at seats.aero, the world’s leading award travel search engine. With experience in corporate travel management, business development, and tech startups, he helps both travelers and companies unlock value at scale. He has worked and lived in four countries and been to 105 UN member countries, bringing a global perspective. He is a recognized voice in the points and miles community, frequently speaking on award travel trends, airline and hotel loyalty programs, partnership strategy, and the future of travel tech.

Joel Oleson - Panelist

Joel Oleson is a global technology leader, AI strategist, and world traveler who has visited every UN-recognized country. As an Architect at Sony Interactive Entertainment, he designs intelligent collaboration systems to drive innovation and connection at scale.

Blending a passion for exploration with deep technical expertise, Joel is passionate about travel, the future of work and philanthropy.