Speakers

Dr. Amani Abou-Zeid is the African Union Commissioner in charge of Infrastructure, Energy, ICT and Tourism. For more than 30 years, Dr Abou-Zeid has served in leadership positions in international organisations and has amassed a remarkable mix of experience from across continents and stakeholders.

She has managed AfDB largest operational portfolio and implemented national and continental multi-sectoral development programmes, including implementing the world’s largest solar power plant. In 2018, she launched the Single African Air Transport Market, delivering on the first flagship project for African Integration under African Union Agenda 2063. This year, she launched Africa’s digital transformation strategy and many other continental initiatives and projects.

An Egyptian national, Dr Abou-Zeid has a multi-disciplinary education: Electrical Engineering, Cairo University; MBA, Université Senghor; MPA, Harvard University; and Ph.D. Social and Economic Development, The University of Manchester. Dr. Abou-Zeid was selected twice, in 2012 and again in 2019, one of “The 50 Most Influential Women in Africa; and was decorated the Wissam Alaouite from Morocco; she was named “Personalité d’avenir” from France; and received the “Outstanding Alumni Award” from the University of Manchester, UK — some of numerous international awards and recognitions.

Dr Abou-Zeid is member of the prestigious Global Leaders Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, and the Global Commission for Urgent Action on Energy Efficiency, the Stewardship Board for System Initiative on Shaping the Future of Energy as well as of the high-level panel on road safety.
Dr. Abou-Zeid sets the example for women in STEM and in leadership and decision making positions and is long named and recognized as champion of gender equality and women empowerment.
Dr. Abou-Zeid is passionate about classical music, plays piano, is a certified alpinist and competes to top positions in desert car rallies – among other interests and activities.

Urmas Reinsalu is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Estonia as of 29 April 2019. He is a member of the political party Isamaa.

Employment history

Mykhailo Fedorov was appointed the Minister of Digital Transformation on August 29, 2019.  Prior to that, he served as general manager  of his own digital agency SMMSTUDIO and operating officer of the educational project Superludi.

During the 2019 presidential election, Mykhailo Fedorov headed “the digital sphere” of the campaign of Volodymyr Zelensky, the current President of Ukraine. His crew became the first absolute champion in the number of victories per country in the history of the  EAPC Polaris Awards, a global competition for election campaigns and political communications.  They won 6 gold and 1 silver statuettes in seven categories including digital campaigns and creative use of data/metrics/analytics. 

Heading the newly created Ministry of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov has taken digital transformation in Ukraine to a decisive new level. Fedorov’s team launched the Diia mobile app, that provides access to digital documents. Ukraine has become the 10th country in the world where citizens can use digital driver’s licenses, and one of 3 countries in the world where digital passport is implemented. Another important project of the Ministry of digital transformation is the web portal Diia, aimed to unite 100% of public services online and turn Ukraine into a convenient service for citizens.

John Whittingdale was appointed Minister of State for Media and Data in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on 14 February 2020.

Before serving as the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport from May 2015 until 14 July 2016, he was the chair of the House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport. He is a member of the OSCE and the Conservative Party where he was elected Conservative MP for Maldon in 1992.

Following a highly successful 25-year career building an international reforestation company and four years in the provincial cabinet of the B.C. Liberal government, the Honourable Joyce Murray was appointed the Minister of Digital Government on November 20, 2019.

The Member of Parliament for Vancouver Quadra since 2008, Joyce served as the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board following the 2015 general election, where she championed and helped lead the development of the Centre for Greening Government. Making federal government operations more environmentally friendly and efficient was a natural project for Joyce, whose entrepreneurial spirit was reinforced by building a company that has planted almost 1.5 billion trees – more than 500,000 of which she planted herself.

She received the Simon Fraser University Dean’s Medal as the top MBA graduate in 1992, was the chair of the board at Brinkman and Associates Reforestation, and served as British Columbia’s Environment Minister and Minister of Management Services in Gordon Campbell’s cabinet from 2001-2005.

Joyce Murray has always been a thought-leader, driving progressive new policies in government.  Whether advocating for strong, smart environmental measures or being an early advocate of the legalization and regulation of cannabis, Joyce’s ability to envision and deliver on bold new ideas comes from her depth of experience in politics and business.

She is passionate about investing in a fairer, greener economy that empowers future generations, and confident that digital innovation will offer important opportunities for improving services to Canadians.

Mrs. Evelyna Wever-Croes, LL.M. is the current Prime Minister and Minister of General Affairs, Integrity, Energy, Innovation, and Government Organization for the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba. During the last general election, Mrs. Wever-Croes’ party MEP obtained nine seats. Subsequently, she formed a coalition with the POR and RED parties. Aside from forming the first coalition government in over 20 years, she made history by being the first female Prime Minister of Aruba. After assuming the role of Prime Minister of Aruba, the big innovation gap and its impact on the Aruban economy became apparent.

Therefore, the vision of Aruba’s new Government is to achieve socio-economic resilience by accelerating the innovation capacity of the island through a human-centered approach, putting the Aruba people at heart of all policies. She is leading the national Digital Transformation agenda that will guide the Aruba Government to become a data-driven, pro-active, citizen experience-oriented institution of the future. A fierce advocate for integrity in governance, Mrs. Wever-Croes is also in the process of establishing an Integrity Bureau for the Government of Aruba.

The Integrity Bureau’s purpose is to safeguard integrity and establish good governance practices throughout government departments and state-owned companies. With much love and commitment, the Prime Minister’s ambition is to create better opportunities for all citizens and build a solid foundation for the younger generations that will have the task to carry Aruba into an uncertain future and rapidly changing world. She believes taking a human-centered approach to policy-making combined with significant investment in innovation is the only way to help build a more sustainable future for generations to come. She is an advocate for social (purpose-driven) innovation and for women in innovation and STEM. She believes in empowering women specially to reduce the gender gap in leadership roles.

Before assuming the role of Prime Minister of Aruba, she obtained a Bachelor of Law degree at the University of the Netherlands Antilles in 1986. She then moved to the Netherlands to pursue her master’s degree at the University of Leiden, specializing in tax law. Upon her return to Aruba in 1989, Mrs. Wever-Croes began her career as a tax agent at the Aruba government tax department. She served as head of the Aruba tax department since 1994 for ten years. In 2004, after a successful and fulfilling career in the public sector, Mrs. Wever-Croes took on a new challenge as a tax lawyer at the Croes Wever Tchong law firm leading many local and international corporate tax cases.

In 2009, she was approached by the leader of the political party MEP to become an official candidate for the party. After the 2009 general elections, she was sworn in as a member of parliament. In 2011, she was elected as the leader of the MEP party. After eight years serving as a member of the Aruban parliament, she was sworn in on November 17, 2017, as the first female Prime Minister of Aruba. Mrs. Evelyna Wever-Croes is devoted to her family, she is married and a mother of three children. More recently she became a proud grandmother of a baby boy. Additionally, Mrs. Wever-Croes is very passionate about giving back to her community and has served as a member of the civic organization Quota International, where she served as president of the Aruba board from 2009-2010.

Mrs. Aurelie ADAM SOULE ZOUMAROU is a skilled Telecommunications and ICTs professional who has built up an experience in the ICT industry (SFR France, Accenture France, ARCEP Benin, GSMA Afrique).  She started out with SFR France before headed to Accenture France as a Consultant in Information System. She returned to Benin in 2008 and devoted her time and work at the Regulator’s Office ARCEP BENIN, where her responsibilities included: but not limited to; radio-communications and radio frequencies management. In addition to all these, she played an active role in the participation of Benin and Africa in the 2015 ITU World Conference in 2015. Past challenges have led to earning a legitimate place in the team in charge of the GSMA’s involvement with Governments, Regulators and Regional Organizations in the African region. As senior policy Manager for Africa, she contributed into bringing mobile services to 635 million Africans until then without fair access to internet.

She obtained a Master’s degree with a focus on Telecoms and ICT Engineering from Telecom Sud Paris and also holds a Certificate in Management of Public Policies and Leadership from Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public affairs of Syracuse University (New York).

She has enrolled in a Ph.D program in Information Science and Communication at Ecole Doctorale Montaigne – Humanités de l’Université Bordeaux Montaigne in France since August 2017 and has been working on the thesis: “Analysis of Public Policies and the advent of Telecommunication Networks and ICTs Services in rural Africa”.

She is a Mandela Washington Fellow (MWF/YALI), an initiative of former US President Barack OBAMA for Young African Leaders.

In October 2017, the President of the Republic of Benin, His Excellency Patrice Talon appointed her as state Minister in charge of Digital Economy and Communications with the motive of: Making Benin a digital services platform provider for West Africa, in order to accelerate growth and achieve social inclusion.

She is also currently the president of the French-speaking network of ministers in charge of the digital economy.

Graduated in political science and administration at the University of Barcelona and with a training in public procurement and European grants at the College of Europe in Brussels, Judith Pallarès Cortés assumed the Ministry of Public Function and Administrative Simplification after Eva Descarrega.

Born in 1972, she’s a member of Liberals d’Andorra since 2001. She was part of the city council of La Massana from 2003 to 2007 and member of the Parliament between 2015 and 2019.

Gila Gamliel is an Israeli politician who currently serves as a member of the Knesset for Likud, and as Minister for Social Equality.

During her first term in the Knesset starting in 2003, she chaired the committee on the Status of Women, and in March 2005 was appointed Deputy Minister of Agriculture.

In April 2009, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Gamliel as Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office in his new government, with the portfolio of the Advancement of Young People, Students, and Women.

After the 2015 elections, Gamliel was appointed Minister for Senior Citizens in the new government. Her ministry was then reconstituted as the Ministry for Social Equality in August 2015.

Gamliel is married, with two daughters, and lives in Tel Aviv.

Mr. Balgobin holds a Minister of Technology, Communication and Innovation position in the Government of the Republic of Mauritius. Previously he has worked as the Executive Director at the National Productivity and Competitiveness Council and the Chairman of the Mauritius Housing Company. The Minister has MBA degree from Anglia Ruskin University in United Kingdom and BSc (Hons) Tourism and Hospitality Management degree from University of Technology in Mauritius.

Kyriacos Kokkinos is the Deputy Minister to the President for Research, Innovation and Digital Policy, since March 1st 2020.

He previously served as the Chief Scientist for Research & Innovation of the Republic of Cyprus, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Research & Innovation Foundation and Member of the National Board of Research & Innovation.

He is a distinguished professional with 30 years of experience in Executive Management, Technology and Business Consulting, having served at senior Executive roles in global corporations such as IBM Europe (Executive Director & Partner) and PwC. He also served at the Board of Directors of many Organisations, including Invest Cyprus (Cyprus Investment Promotion Agency), the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO), the Cyprus Port Authority (CPA), and the Board of Trustees of the Cyprus Institute.

He is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions for professional excellence, including the ‘Business Leader of the Year Award’ 2016, by Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and the ‘Quality Leader Award 2015’ by Cyprus Quality Association.

His Academic qualifications include Executive MBA in Strategic Management from Henley Management College (UK) and MSc & BSc in Electrical Engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology (USA).

He is a Computer Systems Engineer (1998), a graduate in Computer Science with an emphasis on Management (2000), and a Master in Educational Management (2011).
He counts with more than 22 years of experience in information and communication technologies with a focus on telecommunications and innovation processes for market and business development.
In the private sector, he has served in various positions of senior management in Central and South America such as VP of Business Development, Channel Management, Management of Premium Accounts, Manager of SMEs, Vice-presidency and General Management in the business of ICTs.
In scientific and technological matters, he has worked to promote research and development for innovation in projects of  national and international scope, including the improvement of the Public Administration through technology in areas of Digital Governance. He also has extensive experience in public policy development in the areas of science, technology, and telecommunications. He was the National Director of Electronic Government of Costa Rica (May 2002-July 2003) and Deputy Minister of Science and Technology (2003-2006) Since 2011 he serves as a Professor at the University of Costa Rica, for the Customs Administration and Foreign Trade major, in the courses of Digital Economy and Project Management in Foreign Trade.

Currently he holds a Minister of Science, Technology, and Telecommunications postition

Professional Experience:
2017-2019 Board Member At Microsoft Portugal – National Technology Officer
2012-2017 Government And Healthcare Lead At Microsoft Portugal
2008-2011 Chief Of Cabinet Of The Secretary Of State For Health
2005-2008 Parliamentary Legal Advisor:
Commission For Constitutional Affairs
Commission For Foreign Affairs
Commission For Ethics, Society And Culture
1995-2005 Lawyer And Legal Advisor In Both Government And Private Entities In Macau – China

Dragi Rashkovski was appointed as Secretary General of the Government of the Republic of North Macedonia in 2017.

He also holds a position of the Associate Professor in Introductory and theoretic law studies at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. He has been teaching in the same university since 2008. Dragi has a PhD in Law and Information Technology and a PhD in Public Relations,  and he has published several research papers and been a lecturer and presenter in many different events.

As a Partner in Digital and Infrastructure, Government and Healthcare (IGH), Alex brings a wealth of experience in helping public sector organizations unite the impact of the digital economy with their organization’s need for change. Alex brings a deep knowledge of the evolving digital needs of Canadians from his time spent in the public sector, previously serving as the Chief Information Officer of Canada and the Deputy Minister at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. An author of two books and a board member of multiple organizations focused on the arts and sciences, Alex’s multifaceted background can help navigate the challenges and opportunities facing Canada’s public sector.

David Rowan explains compellingly how emerging technologies will impact business — and how leaders should prepare now.

As founding Editor-in-Chief of WIRED magazine’s UK edition, David came to know the founders of WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Google, Didi, Spotify, Xiaomi, Nest, Twitter and countless other ambitious startups from Tel Aviv to Shenzhen. He has since invested in more than 60 early-stage tech companies, including two that became billion-dollar “unicorns”, and is an adviser to Lakestar, one of Europe’s largest venture-capital funds.

His best-selling book, Non-Bullshit Innovation: Radical Ideas from the World’s Smartest Minds (Penguin, 2019), has been published in Japan, Korea, Russia and beyond.

The book, a 20-country quest for bold corporate innovation in the face of technology-led disruption, sets out sixteen proven strategies for future-proofing a successful business — from “Turn products into services” to “Empower your team” and “Become a platform”.

David has been a technology columnist for The Times, GQ, Condé Nast Traveller and The Sunday Times, and hosts a new podcast series about tech founders called Walks With Founders.

And he is still searching for the future…

davidrowan.com

Luis Felipe Monteiro is Brazil’s Secretary of Digital Government. In such role, he has the challenge of accomplishing the digital transformation of the Brazilian federal government, promoting the provision and quality of public services to the Brazilian citizen. A member of the Planning and Budget Analyst career of the Brazilian civil service, he previously acted as Director of Modernization, having started the innovation movement in the public sector, with the creation of the InovaGov Network.

Postgraduate in Leadership and Digital Government from Harvard University, Master in Information Technology Management from the Catholic University of Brasilia and the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, has a degree in Computer Science from the Federal University of Santa Maria. In the private sector, he worked in companies such as Volvo, Politec and SAP, always

with a focus on modernization and information technology projects.

Varelie leads the Government of Aruba’s national innovation strategy as the country’s first-ever Chief Innovation Officer. She also spearheads the Futura Lab platform; the national Innovation Lab established in 2018. Varelie leads Aruba’s ambitious e-Government agenda to propel the island towards a resilient digital future.

She is a fierce advocate for Women in STEM and is at the forefront of pioneering initiatives like Stem The Gap and Supernova –  Aruba Girls Lounge. In 2018, she was listed as a woman leader to watch in a New York Times publication named “Aruba: Where Women Lead”.

As a Private Equity and Growth Equity expert with over a decade of experience in Financial Services, Varelie has spearheaded multiple billion-dollar global deals and worked with several of the world’s largest investment funds and Fortune 100 companies.

Prior to venturing into entrepreneurship and founding her first business, The Liv Group, Varelie has had a distinguished career as Director of International Tax Financial Services at PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York. She has worked in The Netherlands and Aruba as a tax lawyer. She received her Masters in Law from Leiden University, The Netherlands and completed the Exponential Technologies Executive Program at Singularity University, Silicon Valley.

As the Director of Public/Private-Sector Dialogue in the Office of the Prime Minister of Belize, Ishmael heads the Technical Secretariat which operationalizes the work of the Economic Development Council whose function is:

(i) to serve as the primary forum for Public-Private Sector Dialogue;
(ii) to recommend to the Prime Minister actions and reforms necessary for the improvement of the business climate;
(iii) to facilitate the implementation of approved reforms;
(iv) to promote a better understanding of business climate problems and provide solutions with input from the private-sector.

Ishmael brings over 15 years of professional experience spanning a broad range of fields and areas of expertise including: operations management, corporate governance, project design and implementation, strategy formulation and socio-economic development from international, public and private-sector perspectives. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Corporate Management from Anglia Ruskin University in Essex, England and a Master of Science degree in Economics from Galen University, Belize.

He is passionate about PPPs, Behavioral Economics, sustainable development, public policy, effective communication, the facilitation of dialogue, foreign languages and art history.

Matti Maasikas began his career in the Estonian civil service in 1996, as the Head of the Foreign Relations Department in the Chancellery of the Estonia Parliament. In 1999, he was nominated as Head of the Prime Minister Mart Laar’s Private Office. He then entered the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, first as Ambassador to Finland (2001-2005) and later (2005-2008) as Secretary-General in Tallinn. In 2009 he moved to Brussels where he joined the Cabinet of Olli Rehn, European Commissioner for Enlargement and Economic and Monetary Affairs. He was then (2011-2016) the Permanent Representative of Estonia to the EU. 2016-2019 Mr Maasikas served in Tallinn as Deputy Minister for EU Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including during the Estonian Presidency in the EU Council.

Mr Maasikas was nominated in August 2019 as EU Ambassador, Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine.

Mihhail Kõlvart (42) is the Mayor of Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia since spring 2019. He is a member of Estonian Centre Party (since 2008) and also a deputy Chairman of Party.

Mr Kõlvart has served the City of Tallinn since 1999, first as a member of one of Tallinn’s City Districts Lasnamäe. He was elected to the Tallinn City Council in 2009, served as the Deputy Mayor of education, culture, sports and youth issues in 2011 – 2017. In 2017 – 2019 Kõlvart was the Chairman of Tallinn City Council, the highest representative body of Tallinn.

Kõlvart made a name for himself as a top athlete nationally and internationally in the disciplines of boxing, kickboxing and Taekwondo, of which he has a black belt in. Starting in 1993, he worked in Tallinn as a Taekwondo coach, his students have several times won medals from European and World championships. In 1996, he was elected as the President of the Estonian National Taekwondo Association.

Since 2016 Kõlvart is the member of the Executive Committee of the Estonian Olympic Committee.

Mihhail Kõlvart has studied law in International School of Social Studies Lex and graduated I Studium College in business law cum laude.

I am an Architect who has specialised in development cooperation in the private and public sectors. I have more than 35 years of experience in managing a broad range of infrastructure projects in Europe and Africa. My experience of living and working in Somalia, and in EU Delegations in Nigeria, Uganda and Zambia enable me to work in a multicultural and multidisciplinary environment. I spent more than 25 years with The European Commission where I gained experience in of policy and strategy negotiation in international forums as well as project appraisal and implementation in many sectors, particularly in the urban development, water and transport sectors.

I now working in DG DEVCO as Head of Unit “Cities, Local Authorities, Digitalisation, Infrastructure” managing a team of about 20 people.

Jana Kunicová is a Senior Public Sector Specialist at the World Bank.  In her current assignment, she focuses on regional integration, digital economy, center-of-government reform, and capacity building across Africa. Since joining the Bank in 2006, Jana has worked on various aspects of improving public sector performance: digital service delivery, strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation, civil service, and public administration reform.  She has additional expertise in fostering integrity and anti-corruption systems, and in political economy analysis. Jana has managed lending operations, developed strategies, and authored analytical reports in over 40 countries across three world regions: Europe and Central Asia, East Asia and Pacific, and Africa. In her previous assignment at the World Bank’s Global Knowledge and Research Hub in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, she led the inaugural issue of the Global Report on Public Sector Performance.  Jana holds a PhD in political economy from Yale University.

Maksat  Dzhylyshbaev was appointed Deputy Chairman of the State Committee of Information Technologies and Communications of the Kyrgyz Republic in 2019. He has served in various positions in the Government Office of the Kyrgyz Republic and State Communications Agency under the State Committee of Information Technologies and Communications. He is an Associate Professor of the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications at the Kyrgyz State Technical University named after I. Razzakov, Senior Researcher, Institute of Automation and Information Technology, National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic.

Roger Christie is a leading social media expert and Founder of multi-award winning Australian social media consultancy Propel. For more than fifteen years, government agencies and top ASX-listed businesses have entrusted him to help them deliver returns and mitigate risk on social media.

As Managing Director, Roger helps clients: overcome barriers to positive customer experiences; improve team skills and confidence online; and get clarity around social media and digital investments. He understands firsthand the benefits social media training and skills can provide to communications, marketing, service, industry engagement and HR teams, and is committed to helping clients harness that potential.

Roger has set social media strategy, improved operational practices and upskilled employees across a range of public and private sectors clients including Austrade, the ACCC, the ATO, Australia Post, British Airways, CommBank, IAG, IBM, NSW & Queensland Governments, Platinum Asset Management, Suncorp Group, Telstra and Westpac.

Roger is also an active industry figure having presented at TEDx, advised the Australian Institute of Company Directors and commented regularly through industry conferences and media. He facilitates the Government Social Media Leadership Network for public servants.

Michael’s works has always been and continues to be about empowering Africa’s Forgotten Bottom Millions. Thought leader, Future of Work and Emerging Technologies, has a daily Podcast “Africa I gatcha”. He leads and works around initiatives economic empowerment, serving in varying sectors across platforms amongst interdisciplinary sectors within governments, NGO’s and the private sector, in Africa and globally. Member of the Distributed Ledgers and Artificial Intelligence Taskforce, Ministry of ICT, after completing his role as Minister responsible for the docket of Communication, Information and Technology – County Government of Kisumu.

He’s also a Global Fellow – Social Innovation (Rockefeller Foundation), Skoll Foundation Fellow 2019 and previously served as a within the wider creative industries sector, immensely contributed to developing The Road Map for Kenya’s creative industries sector, in collaboration with IBM, positioning the sector as a catalyst to Kenya’s economic growth, outlining how to double Kenya’s current creative industries contribution to GDP.
His formal academic background is in the Sciences (BSc Andrews Michigan), while his work history has primarily been within ICT and policy since 1994.

Jean Van Wetter is the managing director of Enabel, the Belgian Development Agency. After graduating from the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management (ULB) in 2000, he has worked several years as management consultant for Deloitte Consulting in Brussels. He then decided to change his career path to work in the humanitarian and development sector. He has 20 years of experience managing development projects in various countries in Africa, Europe and Asia, with a focus on education, health, governance and digitalization. Enabel implements and coordinates Belgium’s international development policy. It currently runs 150 projects in 20 countries, with an annual budget of 230 million EUR.

Björn Richter is heading the GIZ Sector Programme Digital Development, advising German Development Cooperation to utilizes digital technologies for leap-frogging. His team of tech-experts is supporting German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and partners from developing countries to develop innovative digital projects and new approaches to utilize digital transformation for development. Currently GIZ is working closely together with other EU member states in the Digital4Development hub, fostering “Team Europe” for joint approaches – such as the #SmartDevelopmentHack with over 1.000 digital innovations.

Before engaging in digital development he was working ten years in the media business, experiencing the impacts of digital transformation. Afterwards he joined German Development Cooperation and was advising senior representatives of partner countries in the ASEAN and SADC Countries as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan. These experiences can be utilized during his current assignment, as he taps into concrete experiences on the ground as well as first-hand expertise from disruption in the field of media.

Is programme manager, advisor and systemic coach in international cooperation. In his work, he focuses on digital transformation, entrepreneurship promotion, knowledge management and organizational learning.

Jan heads the “Digital Transformation in Africa“ unit at Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). In his work, he has established the “Tech Entrepreneurship Initiative ‘Make-IT in Africa’” and the “pan-African e-Commerce Initiative” on behalf of the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Prior to his present focus on digital transformation, Jan worked extensively in the field of transport and renewable energies and helped establish GIZ’s Academy for International Cooperation (AIZ) and Competence Center for “Global Knowledge Management”.

Jan has a strong background in economics and ecological economics. After his studies at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, he had several post-doc lecture activities at the Universities of Dalian (China), Warsaw (Poland) and others.

Nguonly Taing has been recently appointed as an executive director of Techo Startup Center, which is a government-funded startup accelerator under the innovation arm of the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Cambodia. Besides accelerating tech startups, he manages a project implementing Cambodia Data Exchange (CamDX) Platform which adopts the X-Road model to facilitate the data exchange between multiple governments’ systems. Online Business Registration Service will be the first grounding service to be operated on CamDX, and from that, we will expand to other digital services. He has more than 15 years of working experience in software industries. Since 2009, he has been also a visiting lecturer on Distributed Systems and Machine Learning at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

He received his M.Sc. in ICT from Waseda University, Japan, and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Dresden University of Technology, Germany. His research areas are run-time variability, anticipated adaptation, unanticipated adaptation, the programming model for IoT and software evolution. He is especially interested in applying the research and experimental development to explore the source of innovation for startups.

techostartup.center

Miguel A. Porrúa is the Coordinator of the Data and Digital Government Cluster at the IFD/ICS Unit of the Inter-American Development Bank. Prior to this position, Miguel was a senior e-Government Specialist at the Organization of American States (OAS) where he managed the Organization´s e-Government portfolio. Previously Miguel was the Director of Government Relations for Latin America at the electronic government company govWorks, based in New York, where he oversaw various electronic government projects in the region. Prior to his arrival in the US, Miguel lived in Montevideo (Uruguay) where he managed projects related to the modernization of the public sector for the Spanish government (Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development, AECID) and the United Nations (UNDP).

Miguel obtained his Bachelor Degree in Business and Economics at the University of Oviedo (Spain) and his MBA from Thunderbird Business School (Arizona, USA).

Miguel has written several articles and documents on electronic government and co-edited the book Latin America Puntogob. His article “e-Government in Latin America: a review of the success in Colombia, Uruguay and Panama” has been published in the Global Information Technology Report 2013 of the World Economic Forum. Miguel has coordinated the Latin America and Caribbean Cybersecurity Report 2016 jointly published by the IDB and the OAS.

Gintautas Mežetis is Director at Information Society Development Committee.

Committee makes information flow faster in Lithuania by creating  and maintaining Lithuania government digital platforms and methodologies.

Through accumulated knowledge and experience, Gintautas aims to create added value to those business and organizations which are going through a digital transformation. Key to his success has been understanding the full processes of the business/government and then amending them in order to achieve positive results, whilst motivating and encouraging others along the way.

Activities:
Leading Lithuania Government ICT consolidation
Published interactive Lithuania Information Resources map
Launched Lithuania Open Data portal: data.gov.lt
Launched Lithuania government COVID-19 info site: koronastop.lrv.lt
Implemented chatbot for Lithuania government COVID-19 info site: koronastop.lrv.lt

Darren is the Chief Solution Architect for Public Sector at Intel.  He works directly with governments and enterprise organizations such as IBM, GE, and Toyota to help them modernize their IT organizations. Through several executive and management positions (CIO, Director of Engineering), Darren has developed a unique ability to bring technology, people(culture) and process together to provide real transformational change to organizations. He focuses on Data Transformation through Data Architectures, Workload Migration, Cloud Native Application Development, Service Orchestration, and Hybrid Cloud Data Center Architectures. His research has resulted in patents in Cloud and Grid computing infrastructures that have been used in companies to decrease product development lifecycle time through build, test and deployment optimization, virtualization, and containerization.   Darren is a published author with 3 books on technology and technology management and over 80 articles published in several different industry trade magazines.

Richard holds the position of Chief Security Officer for Intel’s Global Cloud, Ent& Gov Group Sales and is responsible for business development and coordination of Intel’s security solutions and strategies to compliment all areas of the Datacentre, Cloud and Network Divisions.

Richard has been working for Intel for over 19 years and had held various leadership roles.

Richard has 40 years industry experience and has a strong personal brand in the EMEA IT industry.

His previous role was Security Officer for EMEA and worked with several Government Security Organization’s and EU entities as well as the F500’s in supporting their Security Transformation projects. He is a spokesperson for GDPR and works with key partners to enable secure Business Transformation. He also led business organizations in Solutions Marketing EMEA on Enterprise Computing, Cloud/Big Data, HPC, SMB and Telco. He also held posts as Business Development Sales Director EMEA and Consulting Services Director EMEA.

During his career he worked in several other multinational companies including 10 year tenures in both Compaq Computer EMEA & Concurrent Computer Corporation.

Richard graduated from Cork, Ireland in 1978.

Ratko Mutavdžić is Director, Cloud Services for Public Sector in Central Eastern Europe, with Microsoft. He was working on several management position in Microsoft, driving solution developments Public Sector, starting in a consulting practice and then leading several different sales and technology teams. Currently he is working on a number of advanced technology and platform topics, like Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, enabling them through the use of cloud platforms and technologies, where he research the methodologies and frameworks on how to deliver more efficient and sustainable Government and Enterprise environments.

He is the author of number of published papers on different aspects of the technology, successful blogs on new technologies, change and transformation and active contributor in a number of social networks exploring the use and advance of new ways to connect and share innovation and invention. He has studied at University of Zagreb and holds MScEE from Faculty of Computing and Engineering, Zagreb and MBA from Indiana Business School USA, and currently working on his PhD on Global Security and Economics with University of Zagreb.

Engaged in diplomacy since her accession to the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs 22 years ago, she has served in various positions in Tallinn and abroad. Prior to the current position, she worked as the Digital Affairs Counsellor in the Business Diplomacy Unit, mainly focusing on relations with the African continent. During her posting at the Estonian Embassy in Paris as Economic Affairs Counsellor, she worked closely with the French Government and private sector on digital transformation and e-governance matters. Previously, Kadi has worked in different positions related to the development cooperation and humanitarian aid, including at the Estonian Permanent Mission to the UN in Geneva.  She has served in Political and European Affairs Departments covering the bilateral relations with Germany, France, Benelux countries, and been posted to the Estonian Embassy in Bonn and Berlin.

A graduate of the University of Tartu, Kadi holds a Master´s degree in German language and literature. She has also completed European Studies programme at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna.

From 2019, Raul Rikk is the National Cyber Security Policy Director and leads the Estonian cyber security policy and strategy development and implementation.

He is the founder of the National Cyber Security Index www.ncsi.ega.ee

Previously he worked as the Director of National Cyber Security Programme at the e-Governance Academy and was engaged in digital society, e-governance and strategic cyber security capacity building in many countries and international programmes.

Raul Rikk was one of the founders of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn, leading its establishment between 2004-2008.  He has worked in the field of national defence and security since 1994. He has been part of the Estonian cyber security strategic planning since the beginning in 2007.

Raul holds a Master’s degree in Military Science from the Finnish National Defence University and a Master’s degree in Management of Information Technology from Tallinn University. He is also a graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff College.

Luukas Ilves is Head of Strategy at Guardtime, where he applies cutting edge technology to building a prosperous, secure and open world.

Guardtime is the world’s leading enterprise blockchain company. Its accredited technologies are deployed with some of the most demanding customers in the world in the domains of health, telecoms, aerospace, defence, cyber security, insurance and financial services.

Luukas leads Guardtime’s work with governments, international organisations and NGOs.  He focuses on solving tricky challenges and areas of strategic importance, such as digital sovereignty and cloud adoption, trustworthy AI, and the response to COVID-19.

Beyond Guardtime, Luukas engages actively in global discussions on technology, policy and society. He recently chaired the Council of Europe’s expert committee on the human rights and ethical dimensions of Artificial Intelligence and is a member of the advisory councils of Stanford University’s Libraries and the Lisbon Council, a Brussels-based thinktank. He is founder of the Tech Green Pledge, a network of tech companies committed to combatting climate change.

Previously, during a decade of government service, Luukas serving in various positions for the Government of Estonia and the European Commission, including leading digital policy during Estonia’s 2017 Presidency of the EU Council, as a member of staff for European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes and as Head of International Affairs for RIA, Estonia’s e-government and cybersecurity agency.

Luukas is a graduate of Stanford University, a reserve officer and a member of the Estonian Defence League’s Cyber Defence Unit. He has been decorated by the President of Estonia with the Order of the White Star, one of the youngest recipients in the history of the award.

Maarika works as the Head of Startup Estonia – Estonian governmental programme to boost and develop the Estonian startup ecosystem.

Maarika has 10+ years of international experience in startup sector as a sales and project management specialist working in e-commerce, B2B SaaS businesses but also HR management platform companies. Since 2012 she has also been part of the non-profit organisation Garage48 (garage48.org) organising or mentoring the intensive week-end hackathon events boosting the local startup communities around the Eastern European region and emerging countries such as Oman, Kyrgyzstan, Uganda.

Ilja Livenson is an IT expert specialising in cloud solutions. Ilja works as IT architect in OpenNode – an Estonian-based company building private and public cloud solution. He has been active in the area of analysis, design and implementation of distributed systems for over 12 years both in academic sector and industry. Currently Ilja acts as an architect of the Estonian Government Cloud – a public-private partnership for a hybrid cloud platform – and a Estonian Scientific Computing Infrastructure project (ETAIS) aimed at providing core infrastructure for all Estonian data-driven R&D activities using computational, storage and operational resources of the major Estonian universities. Ilja has been actively involved in several European projects aimed at building infrastructure for academic and public sector and served as an architect for creation of the Government Cloud solution in the Sultanate of Oman.

Peeter is an attorney focusing on matters concerning intellectual property and information technology law.

Prior to joining TRINITI in 2017, he gained almost a quarter century’s worth of hands-on IT experience, having held technical and managerial positions in various IT companies including Proact, Skype, MicroLink and Cybernetica. He’s probably the only attorney in Estonia who holds an ITIL Practitioner certificate.

Peeter has extensive understanding of open source licensing, and teaches intellectual property with the IT Law programme at University of Tartu.

Peeter is fluent in Estonian and English. To an extent, he can also communicate in Finnish, Russian, German, French and Spanish.

Kristo has worked as a senior engineer, tech team lead, consultant and technology architect in the fields of banking, government and internet media, creating multiple applications and designing numerous infosystems for business and private use for almost twenty years. He is most known for being an outside-the-box-thinking evangelist for event driven microservice architecture and Domain Driven Design. He works as a Chief Technology Officer for Estonian government and spearheads the long term architecture and technology vision with his team.

Raido Kaju is an experienced developer and architect, who started his career working as a developer on the Estonian population registry. He has since worked as a developer and architect on different public and private sector projects utilizing X-Road as well as other data-exchange solutions. Raido has experience in such fields as e-elections, legislation, healthcare, taxation, customs and logistics. He is currently working as a software engineering manager leading the X-Road software core development team at the Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS).

Sanjay Krishen is the Regional Director for IT@Intel. He covers the Asia Pacific region with additional focus on the Middle East and Africa. Sanjay is an Electrical Engineer with an MBA from Monash University, Australia.  With 22+ years of experience in the IT industry, he has played a variety of roles including Business Analyst, Project Manager, Program Manager and IT Manager at Intel India.  Sanjay also worked in Intel Russia, as Department Director managing the SAP and Business Analytics teams and in Intel Costa Rica, to set up Intel’s IT operations there. As Director for Customer Business Engagements, he delivered strategic IT solutions to Intel’s Sales and Marketing teams. Being a technology evangelist, Sanjay has spoken at numerous Industry events.

Sven Beckmann has worked within the technology sector for the last 23 years and has successfully held numerous roles within Intel. He currently leads a team focused on Public Sector covering emerging markets. Sven’s career includes vertical and horizontal leadership, business development, channel/partner management and technical positions within Intel. Together with his wealth of expertise he has a passion for enabling people and contributing towards making the world a better place through the adoption and use of technology. Sven is an INSEAD Alumni and is based in South Africa. He is married with 2 children and enjoys the outdoors, travelling and great food.

Hannes Astok is an enthusiastic speaker for the information society, especially promoting the role of local governments and challenges of mobile governance and new technologies in government.

Hannes is Deputy Director for Strategy and Development at the e-Governance Academy. As a senior expert, he provides training and consultancy for governments in Central Asia, Caucasus, South-East Europe, Middle East, Africa and other transition regions. During the last years, he has been working closely with the governments of Ukraine, Namibia, Moldova, Palestine, Georgia, and Mauritius, among others.

Hannes served as Member of the Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu) in 2007-2011, where he mainly dealt with the development of information society and issues related to regulation of intellectual property and electronic communication. Prior to that, in 1997-2005 Hannes worked for the City of Tartu as Deputy Mayor. Today Tartu is one of the world’s leading cities in e-governance, providing its citizens and businesses with a wide variety of Internet and mobile services.

In 2012-13, Hannes was Adviser to the President of Estonia on Information Society development.

He started his political career in Tartu, working for the decade for the City of Tartu as Deputy Mayor.  Today Tartu is one of the world’s leading cities in e-governance, providing for citizens and businesses wide variety of Internet and mobile phone based services.

Hannes holds a journalism and public relations degree from Tartu University.

Hannes speaks Estonian, English, Russian and Finnish.

When traversing the European tech scene of the last 20 years, you’ll likely run into Linnar. He’s a former executive at Skype and Fortumo, advisor at the Nordic Investment Bank, and Board Member of the European Institute for Innovation and Technology. Linnar lectures innovation management in Estonian IT College and Tartu University and has been advising Estonian and many other governments on ICT and innovation policy. Linnar is co-founder and member of the board of Pocopay – all European everyday banking app and Mobi Solutions – active investment and holding partnership in European startup scenery. Not surprisingly at all – Linnar is one of the founders and early phase leaders of Estonian e-Governance Academy as well.

Kristina Reinsalu is Programme Director of e-Democracy at the e-Governance Academy. She has been involved in several local and international research and implementation projects related to open governance and the use of ICT in implementing its principles, focusing on e-participation and its implementation at the local level. She was also researcher and lecturer on social communication at the Institute of Media and Communication at the University of Tartu.

Kristina’s latest projects include promoting open governance in countries such as Estonia, Georgia and Moldova, consulting the City of Tartu on participatory budgeting, and working on the “Electoral Compass” produced for Estonia’s parliamentary elections. In addition, she has contributed to several publications, e.g. the “Situation Review on e-Democracy and Cyber Security in Eastern Partnership Countries.

Kristina holds an MA in Public Relations and a PhD in Media and Communications. Her articles have been published in various international scientific journals and newspapers.

Kristina speaks Estonian, English, Spanish, German and Russian.

Epp Maaten is Programme Director of National Cyber Security at the e-Governance Academy.

Epp Maaten has 20 years of experience from Estonian public sector institutions. She worked as Advisor and Deputy Head of the Electronic Voting Committee.

She has advised the President of Estonia and the Chancellor of Justice on information society related matters. Previously Epp served at Estonian Information System Authority and managed governmental policy and projects concerning critical infrastructure protection and IT risk management. Epp has been also auditor at Eesti Energia and National Audit Office. Until 2007, she coordinated the IT projects of the National Electoral Committee, including Internet voting.

She is a certified IT auditor (CISA) and graduated from the IT College of Tallinn University of Technology as an IT systems administrator and reached a master degree in public administration.