Steve Huffman

CEO and Co-founder, Reddit

Kathy Brown

President and CEO of ISOC

Kathryn C. Brown joined the Internet Society as President and Chief Executive Officer in January 2014. A veteran of Internet policy development and initiatives that have aided in the Internet’s global expansion, Ms. Brown leads the Internet Society in its mission to keep the Internet open, thriving and benefitting all people throughout the world.

The Internet Society is at the center of the largest global network of people and organizations focused on ensuring the Internet continues to evolve as a platform for innovation, collaboration, economic development and social progress. As the Internet faces escalating challenges in the areas of privacy, security and governance, the Internet Society serves as a powerful voice for the Internet community as an internationally respected expert on Internet technical, development and policy issues.

Ms. Brown’s career spans the public and private sector, including serving in the United States National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and leading policy and global corporate social responsibility initiatives for telecom provider Verizon. She received her J.D., summa cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law and her B.A., magna cum laude, from Marist College. Ms. Brown has served on the advisory boards of the Public Interest Registry (.ORG), the mPowering Development Initiative of the ITU, and the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab.

Mitchell Baker

Executive Chairwoman, Mozilla

As the leader of the Mozilla Project, Mitchell Baker is responsible for organizing and motivating a massive, worldwide collective of employees and volunteers who are breathing new life into the Internet with the Mozilla Firefox Web browser and other Mozilla products. Mitchell was born and raised in Berkeley, California, receiving her BA in Asian Studies from UC Berkeley and her JD from the Boalt Hall School of Law.

Mitchell has been the general manager of the Mozilla project since 1999. She served as CEO of Mozilla until January 2008, when the organization's rapid growth encouraged her to split her responsibilities and add a CEO. Mitchell remains deeply engaged in developing product offerings that promote the mission of empowering individuals. She also guides the overall scope and direction of Mozilla's mission. As Chair of Mozilla, Mitchell continues her commitment to an open, innovative Web and the infinite possibilities it presents. TIME Magazine profiled Mitchell under “Scientists and Thinkers” in its 2005 TIME 100.

Nighat Dad

Executive Director, Digital Rights Foundation

Nighat Dad is the Executive Director of Digital Rights Foundation, Pakistan. She is an accomplished lawyer and a human rights activist.Nighat Dad is one of the pioneers who have been campaigning around access to open internet in Pakistan and globally. She has been actively campaigning and engaging at a policy level on issues focusing on Internet Freedom, Women and technology, Digital Security and Women’s empowerment. Ms.Dad has been recently included in Next Generation Leaders List by TIME's magazine for her work on helping women fight online harassment.

Nathaniel Gleicher

Head of Cybersecurity Policy, Facebook

Nathaniel Gleicher is an engineer and a lawyer, and works at the intersection of technology, policy, and law. He has taught computer programming, built and secured computer networks, prosecuted cybercrime at the U.S. Department of Justice, and served as Director for Cybersecurity Policy at the National Security Council (NSC) in the White House. At the NSC, he developed U.S. government policy on key technology and cybersecurity challenges, including encryption, cyber deterrence, internet governance, and network security. Since leaving government, Nathaniel served as head of cybersecurity strategy at Illumio, and is currently the Head of Cybersecurity Policy at Facebook.

Steve Crown

Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at Microsoft

Alix Dunn

Executive Director, the Engine Room

Alix is a recovering researcher with a passion for applying creative solutions to difficult problems. She is a hunter and gatherer, identifying data and technology strategies that can empower social change initiatives around the world to maximise their impact and make the most of their resources. She co-founded The Engine Room and leads it to be a nimble organisation that provides direct support where, when, and how initiatives need it. She sits on the Advisory Council of Open Technology Fund, and the Technology Advisory Council of Amnesty International. She plays a mean game of chess

Nanjira Sambuli

Digital Equality Advocacy Manager, World Wide Web Foundation

Nanjira leads the Web Foundation’s advocacy efforts to promote digital equality in access to and use of the Web. A Nairobi-based researcher and analyst, Nanjira brings broad expertise as an advocate and consultant working at the intersection of governance, media, culture and society.

Immediately prior to joining the Web Foundation, Nanjira was Research Lead at the iHub in Nairobi, where she helped shape governance and tech research, and provided strategic guidance for the growth of technology research in East Africa. Her recent research includes work on the ICT and Governance Landscape in East Africa (iHub Research), Cybersecurity and Cyber-resilience in East Africa (CIGI), research into the challenges of promoting Internet access in developing countries while upholding net neutrality principles (Journal of Cyber Policy), and Technology Innovation Hubs and Policy Engagement (Making All Voices Count). Nanjira is also a columnist for the Daily Nation newspaper in Kenya, a member of DFID’s Digital Advisory Panel and served as a deputy on the United Nations High Level Panel for Women’s Economic Empowerment (2016-17).

Kathryn Hume

Vice President Product & Strategy for integrate.ai

Kathryn Hume is Vice President Product & Strategy for integrate.ai, a SaaS startup applying AI to drive growth and customer satisfaction for large enterprises, and a Venture Partner at ffVC, a seed- and early-stage technology venture capital firm, where she advises early-stage artificial intelligence companies and sources deal flow. As the former Director of Sales and Marketing at Fast Forward Labs (Cloudera), Kathryn helped Fortune 500 companies accelerate their machine learning and data science capabilities. Prior to that, she was a Principal Consultant in Intapp's Risk Practice, focused on data privacy, security, and compliance. A widely respected speaker and writer on AI, Kathryn excels at communicating how AI and machine learning technologies work in plain language. She has given lectures and taught courses on the intersections of technology, ethics, law, and society at Harvard Business School, Stanford, the MIT Media Lab, and the University of Calgary Faculty of Law. She speaks seven languages, and holds a PhD in comparative literature from Stanford University and a BA in mathematics from the University of Chicago.

Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin

Chair, CNIL (French Data Protection Authority)

Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin graduated in France from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC), the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA) and the Multimedia Institute. She held various posts within the “Conseil d’Etat” from 1986 and became a State Counselor (“Conseiller d’Etat”) in November 2001. She created and managed from 2001 to 2010 the French Internet co-regulation body. She was elected as Chair of the French Data Protection Authority (“CNIL - Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés”) in 2011. From February 2014 to February 2018, Isabelle has also been chairing the EU Article 29 Working Party (WP29), gathering the European Union’s national data protection authorities. In September 2017, she has been elected as Chair of the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners (ICDPPC) executive committee.

Ahmad Primo

Founder, Verify-Sy

Ahmad Primo is the Founder of Verify-sy, a platform working to verify news sources coming out of Syria. He is a journalist and studied programming and web development in Aleppo, Syria. He has written for several news websites since 2009.

Harlem Désir

Representative on Freedom of the Media, OSCE

Harlem Désir was appointed as the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media on 18 July 2017 for a period of three years. Prior to this position, Désir (France) was French Minister of State for European Affairs, attached to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, since April 2014.

Harlem Désir was a Member of the European Parliament for three consecutive terms from 1999 to 2014. He was a member of the Committee on Industry, Energy and Research, the Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Development. He was also Vice-President of the Delegation for relations with the United States (2002-2004), member of the Joint ACP-EU Parliamentary Assembly (2002-2009) and member of the Delegation for relations with India (2009-2014). Désir served as Vice-President of the Socialist Group of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2009 and as First Secretary of the French Socialist Party from 2012 to 2014.

In October 1984, Harlem Désir co-founded the French not-for-profit association “SOS Racisme”, whose objective is to fight against racism, anti-Semitism and all other forms of discrimination. In 1989, he also co-founded the international federation of “SOS Racisme”. Désir was President of both “SOS Racisme” France and of the eponymous international federation. Harlem Désir holds a Bachelor's Degree in Philosophy from the Paris I Sorbonne University. He has been awarded the Olof Palme Prize (Sweden, 1990) and the Grand Cross of the Order of the Phoenix (Greece, 2016).

Matt Chessen

Senior Technology Policy Advisor, U.S. Department of State

Matt Chessen is a career U.S. diplomat, technologist and author who is currently serving as a Senior Technology Policy Adviser in the Office of the Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State. From 2016-2017, Matt was the State Department Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the George Washington University, where he researched the international implications of artificial intelligence, computational propaganda, cognitive security, and machine-driven communications. From 2014-2016, Matt was the Coordinator for International Cyber Policy for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs where he led the regional implementation of the US International Strategy for Cyberspace.   Matt holds a J.D. from Georgetown University, and an M.B.A. and B.A. from the University of Arizona. He has earned eight honor awards for his service at the Department of State, including Superior Honor Awards for his work on the Afghan Peace Process and his efforts advancing US international cyber policy.

Alp Toker

Executive Director, Turkey Blocks

Alp Toker is founder of internet shutdown watchdog Turkey Blocks and chief technologist at TVHI Media Lab, the R&D group behind NewsKit, a suite of secure publishing, verification and investigative tools for journalists.

Alp is currently heading up development of a technology platform that can detect and classify mass-scale social media censorship and internet restrictions in real-time to identify emerging threats to media freedom and freedom of expression online.

Alp studied Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh and coordinates research on immersive storytelling, Virtual Reality and algorithmic journalism as part of his work at the lab. Over the last year he has run workshops with Reporters Without Borders, Freedom House and Columbia School of Journalism, writing and reporting for international news outlets on the intersection of conflict and cyber-security and working to enable the free and independent exchange of information online.

Marietje Schaake

Member of European Parliament

Marietje Schaake has been serving as a Member of the European Parliament for the Dutch Democratic Party (D66) with the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) political group since 2009. She serves on the International Trade committee and is the spokesperson for the ALDE Group on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Schaake also serves on the committee on Foreign Affairs and the subcommittee on Human Rights. She is the founder of the European Parliament Intergroup on the Digital Agenda for Europe.

Furthermore, Marietje Schaake is the Vice-President of the US Delegation and serves on the Iran Delegation and the Delegation for the Arab peninsula. She is a Member of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace and is a Young Global Leader and a Member of the Global Future Council on Future of Digital Economy and Society with the WEF.

Julie Owono

Head of Africa Desk, Internet Sans Frontières

Julie Owono is a lawyer and the founder of start-up Feowl, a platform that produces data on energy in African cities. She is the head of the Africa Desk at Internet Sans Frontières (Internet Without Borders), where she focuses on Rights and Freedoms in the digital space, and develops the organization globally. She regularly writes columns for various publications, including Al Jazeera English and Quartz, on issues related to politics, law and innovation in the Gulf of Guinea. She often appears as a Gulf of Guinea expert on International TV channels (France 24 English, BBC World, Russia Today, Huff Post Live, etc).

Michael Geist

Professor, University of Ottawa

Dr. Michael Geist is a law professor at the University of Ottawa where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law and is a member of the Centre for Law, Technology and Society. He has obtained a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, Master of Laws (LL.M.) degrees from Cambridge University in the UK and Columbia Law School in New York, and a Doctorate in Law (J.S.D.) from Columbia Law School.

Dr. Geist serves on many boards, including the Canadian Internet Registration Authority board, Internet Archive Canada board, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation Advisory Board. He has received numerous awards for his work including the Kroeger Award for Policy Leadership and the Public Knowledge IP3 Award in 2010, the Les Fowlie Award for Intellectual Freedom from the Ontario Library Association in 2009, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award in 2008, Canarie’s IWAY Public Leadership Award for his contribution to the development of the Internet in Canada and he was named one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2003.

Japleen Prasicha

Founder & Editor-In-Chief of Feminism In India

Japleen Prasicha is the Founder & Editor-In-Chief of Feminism In India.com, a social movement to learn, educate and develop a feminist consciousness among the youth. It aims to serve as India’s first feminist portal for resource & documentation purposes for everything related to feminism in India and a new media community platform for people to break their silence and raise their voices. The platform deals with themes like feminism, women, gender, sexuality, intersectionality and brings forth the minority, marginalized and powerless voices.

Edward Santow

Human Rights Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission

Edward Santow has been Human Rights Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission since August 2016.Ed leads the Commission’s work on detention and implementing the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT); refugees and migration; human rights issues affecting LGBTI people; counter-terrorism and national security; modern slavery; freedom of expression; and freedom of religion.Ed’s areas of expertise include human rights, public law and discrimination law. He is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), and serves on a number of boards and committees, including the Australia Pro Bono Centre.In 2009, Ed was presented with an Australian Leadership Award, and in 2017, he was recognised as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.From 2010-2016, Ed was chief executive of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, a leading non-profit organisation that promotes human rights through strategic litigation, policy development and education.Ed was previously a Senior Lecturer at UNSW Law School, a research director at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law and a solicitor in private practice.

Matthew Prince

Co-Founder & CEO, CloudFlare

Mr. Matthew Prince co-founded CloudFlare, Inc. in 2009 and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Prince worked as an attorney for one day before jumping at the opportunity to be a founding member of a tech startup. He served as President of CloudFlare, Inc. He served as a Director of CloudFlare, Inc. Mr. Prince attended the University of Chicago Law School and earned MBA from Harvard Business School in 2009.

Gbenga Sesan

Executive Director, Paradigm Initiative

Gbenga Sesan is the Executive Director of Paradigm Initiative. Originally trained as an Electronic & Electrical Engineer at Obafemi Awolowo University, Gbenga completed Executive Education programs at Lagos Business School, New York Group for Technology Transfer, Oxford University, Harvard University, Stanford University, Santa Clara University and University of the Pacific. His consulting experience includes assignments completed for numerous institutions, including Microsoft, Harvard University and United Nations agencies, among others, in over 30 countries.

A Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year (2014) and former member of the United Nations Committee of eLeaders on Youth and ICT, he is a CyberStewards Fellow, Crans Montana Forum Fellow, Archbishop Desmond Tutu Leadership Fellow, Ashoka Fellow, Our Common Future Fellow and Cordes Fellow. Gbenga served as a member of the Presidential committees on Harmonization of Information Technology, Telecommunications and Broadcasting Sectors (2006) and Roadmap for the Achievement of Accelerated Universal Broadband Infrastructure and Services Provision (2013), and was listed by CNN as one of the Top 10 African Tech Voices on Twitter and by Ventures Africa as one of 40 African Legends Under 40.

Alexander Dirksen

Manager, Strategy and Engagement, First Nations Technology Council

Daphne Keller

Intermediary Liability Director, Stanford Center for Internet & Society

Daphne Keller studies the ways that Internet content platforms – and the laws governing them -- shape information access and other rights of ordinary Internet users. As the Director of Intermediary Liability at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, she has written and spoken widely about the Right to Be Forgotten, copyright notice-and-takedown systems, cross-border content removal orders, platforms’ own discretionary content-removal decisions, and more. She has testified on these topics before legislatures, courts, and regulatory bodies around the world. In her previous role as Associate General Counsel at Google, Daphne worked on cases including Viacom, Perfect 10, Equustek, Mosley, and Metropolitan Schools; and was the primary counsel for products ranging from Web Search to the Chrome browser. Daphne has taught Internet law at Stanford, Berkeley, and Duke law schools. She is a graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, and mother to some awesome kids in San Francisco.

Carolina Rossini

Global Connectivity Policy Manager, Facebook

Carolina Rossini is an experienced international professional with over 16 years of work in the internet and telco sector. She is a World Economic Forum Young Global Lead with a demonstrated history of working in for-profits and non-profit organizations. She is skilled in Internet and Telecommunications Law, Regulation and Policy; Human Rights Law and Advocacy; and Intellectual Property transactions, including open licensing. Carolina graduated in International Relations (Masters), Law (LL.M and JD), and Management (MBA).

Jim Halloran

Chief Digital Officer, GLAAD

As GLAAD’s first-ever Chief Digital Officer, Jim oversees the organization's entire digital footprint including communications, operations, analytics, and multimedia. Prior to joining GLAAD, he was Head of Global Content Management at Twitter and served as the company’s corporate spokesperson and advisor on LGBTQ issues.

Additionally, Jim served on the White House LGBT Tech & Innovation briefing under President Obama and has provided contributions to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. He currently serves on the advisory board for Lesbians Who Tech.

Heather Leson

Data Literacy Lead, ICRC

Heather is the Data Literacy Lead at International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. As a technologist, she strengthens community collaboration via humanitarian technologies and social entrepreneurship. She builds partnerships, curates digital spaces, fosters volunteer engagement and delivers training while inspiring systems for co-creation with maps, code and data. At the International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent, her mandate includes data skills global advocacy and training programs in partnership with the 190 national societies and over 11 million volunteers. Previously, she was lead programs on community, social innovation, and technology at Qatar Computing Research Institute (Qatar Foundation), Ushahidi, and Open Knowledge (School of Data).

Her experience also includes working on internet technologies including domain name services, network operations, and software-as-a-service. She is a current Board Member at OpenStreetMap Foundation and a past Board Member at the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (4 years). She co-wrote a chapter on Open Communities and articles the power of data and digital literacy for the World Economic Forum and Civicus Datashift. Heather holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Combined Political Science and History from Carleton University, as well as a Library and Information Technician diploma from Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology.

Melody Patry

Advocacy Director at Access Now

Melody Patry (Email: [email protected]) is Advocacy Director at Access Now. She leads on global advocacy, communications, and campaigns, working closely with the Policy and Tech teams to develop the strategies and partnerships needed to protect the internet and those who use it. Previously, Melody was head of advocacy at free speech organization Index on Censorship in London, where she worked with human rights defenders, government officials, and in coalitions such as the Global Network Initiative, the Civic Solidarity Platform, and Don’t Spy on Us. Before that, she worked with Cairo-based grassroots organizations and artists on campaigns addressing women’s rights issues, assisted the Representative to the European Union for Doctors Without Borders, and acted as a political advisor for the Delegation of the European Union to the United Nations. She holds an MA in International Security from Sciences Po Paris and a BA in Law and Political Science from Lille II University.

Waqas Naeem

Project Manager, Media Matters for Democracy

Waqas is a journalism instructor and former journalist. He has previously worked as a news reporter at The Express Tribune, the Scripps Howard News Service, and the Columbia Missourian. He has taught journalism and communication courses as an assistant professor at the NUST department of mass communication. Waqas completed his MA from the Missouri School of Journalism and was trained in data journalism at the National Institute of Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR). His research interests include digital journalism practices, political economy of the news media, and the concerns related to the rights of access to information and freedom of expression. Waqas in Media Matters for Democracy is leading a data and investigative journalism project, that aims to produce public interest journalism content mainly using Right to Information as an information collection tool. As a part of this initiative, Media Matters for Democracy is also demonstrating the potential of RTI as a tool for journalists. The initiative is primarily aimed at creating a demand for data journalism in news consumers and inspiring mainstream journalists to incorporate data elements into their stories and to access public data through RTI.

Jackeline Steward

Spitfire Strategies

Jackeline Stewart is a crisis communication specialist with experience in creating and disseminating transformative narratives in the face of opposition to help advance immigration reform, racial justice, criminal justice reform and Obama administration technology and green priorities. She has collected invaluable experience working with national nonprofits and thought leaders to develop dynamic strategies that not only reach, but engage diverse audiences to spark change. Her clients include the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Ford Foundation’s Civil Rights Table and the New Americans Campaign.Before joining Spitfire, Jackeline worked with the Opportunity Finance Network to launch Venturize, a national campaign designed to help women small business owners and entrepreneurs of color access fair and affordable loans from responsible lenders. She also modernized the organization’s communication strategies, leading efforts to create a unified brand experience and create relevant and relatable messaging.Jackeline served in the Obama administration as press secretary at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), securing top-tier media placement and using social media to provide the American people with the critical policy and program information they need and expect from a 21st century government. A reporter tweeted that GSA is “one of the coolest agencies in federal government.” In less than 140 characters, his message was testament to successful communication and marketing strategies that transformed public opinion of the government agency.The combination of Jackeline’s love of writing and passion for social justice fuels her drive to tell powerful stories. Jackeline started her career working on health care, immigration reform, and education issues at the National Council of La Raza. She then helped develop the Latino worker narrative at the Service Employees International Union and was a writer for the 2012 Democratic National Convention Committee.

Rebecca MacKinnon

Director of Ranking Digital Rights

Rebecca MacKinnon is director of the Ranking Digital Rights project at the New America Foundation, developing a system to rank the world's most powerful Internet, telecommunications, and other ICT sector companies on free expression and privacy criteria.

Author of Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom (Basic Books, 2012) MacKinnon is co-founder of the citizen media network Global Voices Online, whose Board of Directors she presently chairs. She also serves on the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists and was a founding board member of the Global Network Initiative. She is also a visiting affiliate at the Annenberg School for Communication’s Center for Global Communications Studies. Before launching Ranking Digital Rights, she was a senior research fellow (2012-2013) and Bernard L. Schwartz senior fellow (2010-2012) at the New America Foundation.

Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, MacKinnon was CNN’s Beijing Bureau Chief from 1998-2001 and Tokyo Bureau Chief from 2001-2003. Since leaving CNN in 2004 she has held fellowships at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press and Public Policy, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the Open Society Foundations, and Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy. For two years in 2007-08 she served on the faculty of the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre, and taught as an adjunct lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in Fall 2013. She received her AB magna cum laude from Harvard University and was a Fulbright scholar in Taiwan.

Rachel Racusen

Director of Communications for Snap

Fatema Ahmad

Deputy Director, Muslim Justice League

Fatema is a former biomedical engineer turned community organizer with experience organizing against racism and Islamophobia in North Carolina. She was an organizer with Muslims for Social Justice and the American Friends Service Committee of the Carolinas under the Communities Against Islamophobia project. She helped lead the Stop CVE at UNC campaign and worked with organizations across North Carolina to connect Muslim, Black, and/or Latinx communities around criminalization and surveillance.

Ei Myat Noe Khin

Digital Rights Program Manager, Phandeeyar

Ei Myat Noe Khin currently leads digital rights activities at Phandeeyar ("Creation Place"), an ICT Hub where the tech community comes together with Civil Society Organizations, media, and others to build the apps, tools, and content to accelerate change and development in Myanmar.

Mario Oetheimer

Head of Sector Information Society, Privacy and Data Protection, EU FRA

Dr. Mario Oetheimer (PhD) is Head of Sector Information Society, Privacy and Data Protection at the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). Mario is managing the Agency’s research project on National intelligence authorities and surveillance in the EU. His areas of expertise with respect to the FRA’s work include: data protection and freedom of expression and international human rights, in particular the European Court of Human Rights’ case law. Mario coordinates the cooperation between the FRA and the Council of Europe.He previously worked for the Council of Europe for thirteen years – first with the Council of Europe media division, human rights directorate and then with the European Court of Human Rights research division.Mario Oetheimer studied law, and is the author of the book Harmonisation of Freedom of Expression in Europe (2001) in French. He has authored several articles on freedom of expression and the European Court of Human Rights.

Amie Stepanovich

U.S. Policy Manager, Access Now

Amie Stepanovich is U.S. Policy Manager at Access Now. Amie is an expert in domestic surveillance, cybersecurity, and privacy law. At Access Now, Amie leads projects on digital due process and responds to threats at the intersection of human rights and communications surveillance. Previously, Ms. Stepanovich was the Director of the Domestic Surveillance Project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, where she testified in hearings in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, as well as in State legislatures. She was co-chair for the 2014 Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference and is the Committee on Individual Rights and Responsibilities' Liason to the American Bar Association's Cybersecurity Working Group.

Amie was named as a Privacy Ambassador by the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Canada and was recognized in 2014 as one of Forbes magazine’s 30 under 30 leaders in Law and Policy. Stepanovich has a J.D. from New York Law School, and a B.S. from the Florida State University.

Ron Deibert

Director of the Citizen Lab, author, and co-founder of Psiphon

Ron Deibert (PhD, University of British Columbia) is Professor of Political Science, and Director of the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies and the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary research and development hothouse working at the intersection of the Internet, global security, and human rights. He is a co-founder and a principal investigator of the OpenNet Initiative and Information Warfare Monitor (2003-2012) projects.

Deibert was one of the founders and (former) VP of global policy and outreach for Psiphon Inc. Deibert has published numerous articles, chapters, and books on issues related technology, media, and world politics. He was one of the authors of the Tracking Ghostnet report that documented an alleged cyber-espionage network affecting over 1200 computers in 103 countries, and the Shadows in the Cloud report, which analyzed a cloud-based espionage network. He is a co-editor of three major volumes with MIT Press: Access Denied: The practice and policy of Internet Filtering (2008), Access Controlled: The shaping of power, rights, and rule in cyberspace (2010), and Access Contested: Security, Identity, and Resistance in Asian Cyberspace (2011). He is the author of Parchment, Printing, and Hypermedia: Communications in World Order Transformation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), and the forthcoming book Black Code: the battle for the future of cyberspace (forthcoming: McClelland & Stewart, 2013). He has been a consultant and advisor to governments, international organizations, and civil society/NGOs on issues relating to cyber security, cyber crime, online free expression, and access to information. He presently serves on the editorial board of the journals International Political Sociology, Security Dialogue, Explorations in Media Ecology, Review of Policy Research, and Astropolitics.

Deibert is on the advisory board of Access Now, Privacy International, and is a member of the board of directors of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper.

Deibert was awarded the University of Toronto Outstanding Teaching Award (2002), the Northrop Frye Distinguished Teaching and Research Award (2002), and the Carolyn Tuohy Award for Public Policy (2010). He was a Ford Foundation research scholar of Information and communication technologies (2002-2004).

Mark Graham

Director of the Wayback Machine, Internet Archive

Mark is Director of the Wayback Machine, at the Internet Archive. Mark was Senior Vice President, & General Manager of Stringwire, an NBCUniversal News Group company, and managed their San Francisco office.Mark managed iVillage-West, the SF-based product and software development branch of the core NY-based iVillage organization, contributing a range of services for the company including vendor selection and management, product development, technology assessment, and general business development.Under his leadership as Vice President, and later Senior Vice President, Mark was General Manager of two profitable iVillage business units, Astrology.com and GardenWeb, where he drove the development of new web and mobile product development, delivery methods, marketing campaigns, and a diversified set of revenue streams.As an early internet pioneer, in 1992, Mark was responsible for building AOL's first interface to Internet based services, and prior to that work, in 1990 he managed technical operations for the US side of the US-Soviet email venture Sovam Teleport.

Michael R. Nelson

Public Policy, Cloudflare

Michael R. Nelson works on Internet-related global public policy issues for CloudFlare, a startup that has improved the performance and security of more than 2 million Web sites. Prior to joining CloudFlare in early 2015, he was a Principal Technology Policy Strategist in Microsoft’s Technology Policy Group and prior to that was a Senior Technology and Telecommunications Analyst with Bloomberg Government. In addition, since January, 2009, Michael Nelson has been teaching courses and doing research on the future of the Internet, cyber-policy, technology policy, innovation policy, and e-government in the CCT Program at Georgetown University.

Prior to joining the Georgetown faculty, Nelson was Director of Internet Technology and Strategy at IBM, where he managed a team helping define and implement IBM's Next Generation Internet strategy. His group worked with university researchers on NGi technology, shaping standards for the NGi, and communicating IBM's NGi vision to customers, policy makers, the press, and the general public. He has served as Chairman of the Information, Communication, and Computing Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, is a member of the AAAS's COSEPP committee, serves as a Trustee of the Institute for International Communications, and was selected to be a Global Leader of Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum.

Priyanka Chaudhuri

Counsel, SFLC.in

Priyanka obtained her B.A. L.L.B. (Hons.) from Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur, specializing in Constitutional law and Intellectual Property Rights, following which she litigated at the High Court of Calcutta. Her areas of interest include Constitutional law, Technology law and Human Rights. She is enrolled as an advocate in the Bar Council of West Bengal. At SFLC.in, she is involved in policy and research work, particularly in the areas of Freedom of Speech and Expression, Privacy, Data Protection and Intermediary Liability.

Hillary Hartley

Chief Digital Officer, Province of Ontario

Tara Denham

Director, Democracy Unit, Global Affairs Canada

Tara Denham is the Director of the Democracy Unit at Global Affairs Canada, which includes the Digital Inclusion Lab. Her team is responsible for supporting the department in defining and advancing democracy through various policies and programming initiatives, including looking at how technology can be used in innovative ways to advance foreign policy priorities. The Digital Inclusion Lab focuses on engagement, research, analysis, and testing of tools in order to understand the rapidly evolving intersection of technology and foreign policy.

Previously, she managed programming teams within the Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force, including the portfolios of the Middle East, Afghanistan, democracy and human rights, and peace support operations. She has also been deployed to Afghanistan as the Chief of Staff to the Representative of Canada to Kandahar (2009-2010). She has worked with the Department for 14 years, and previously worked in the non-governmental sector. Ms Denham has a Masters degree from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, with a focus on conflict studies.

Daniel Therrien

Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Daniel Therrien was appointed Privacy Commissioner of Canada on June 5, 2014 after three decades serving Canadians as a lawyer with various federal departments where human rights issues were important.Commissioner Therrien has said that the over-arching goal of his mandate is to increase the control Canadians have over their personal information. Shortly after his appointment, Commissioner Therrien was plunged into the debate over a new cyberbullying bill, legislation to reform Canada’s federal private sector privacy law and a review of the RCMP’s lawful access practices. He has also championed privacy rights in the public debate over national security and public safety, and led research and investigations into privacy issues that go to the heart of consumer trust and confidence. Commissioner Therrien has identified new strategic privacy priorities and strategic approaches that will guide the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s work in the coming years, and has spoken publicly on a range of privacy issues throughout Canada and around the world. He values collaboration and consultation and works with public and private sector stakeholders, academia, civil society organizations, consumer groups and individuals to help improve privacy protections for Canadians.Commissioner Therrien began his career practising correctional law for the Department of the Solicitor General, the Correctional Service of Canada and the National Parole Board. He then practised immigration law at the Department of Justice and Citizenship and Immigration Canada, becoming Assistant Deputy Attorney General, Public Safety, Defence and Immigration Portfolio at the Department of Justice in 2005. In that capacity, Commissioner Therrien had a leadership role in giving legal advice to government on public safety and national security issues. He was also instrumental in negotiating the adoption of privacy principles governing the sharing of information between Canada and the U.S. under the Beyond the Border accord.Commissioner Therrien holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Licence en droit from the University of Ottawa. He was called to the Quebec Bar in 1981.

Carmelyn Malalis

Chair and Commissioner, NY City Commission on Human Rights

Carmelyn P. Malalis was appointed Chair and Commissioner of the New York City Commission on Human Rights (the Commission) by Mayor Bill de Blasio in November 2014 following more than a decade in private practice as an advocate for employees' rights in the workplace.Prior to her appointment, Commissioner Malalis was a partner at Outten & Golden LLP where she co-founded and co-chaired its Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Workplace Rights Practice Group and its Disability and Family Responsibilities Discrimination Practice Group; and successfully represented employees in negotiations, agency proceedings, and litigation involving claims of sexual harassment, retaliation, and discrimination based on race, national origin, sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, pregnancy, disability, and religion.Throughout her career, Ms. Malalis has demonstrated a fierce commitment to promoting diversity and inclusion and preventing and prosecuting discrimination and intolerance. Since she assumed her role as Chair and Commissioner at the Commission in February 2015, Commissioner Malalis has revitalized the agency, making it a recognized venue for justice for all New Yorkers through increased enforcement and robust public education and outreach to prevent discrimination in New York City.She is currently a member of the New York City Bar Association's Executive Committee and previously served on Human Rights Watch's Advisory Committee of the LGBT Rights Project, the American Bar Association's Section on Labor and Employment Law Committee on Diversity in the Legal Profession, the New York City Bar's Committee on LGBT Rights, and the board of Queers for Economic Justice.Commissioner Malalis earned her J.D. from the Northeastern University School of Law and received a B.A. in Women's Studies from Yale University. She and her wife live in Brooklyn with their two children.

Judith Hellerstein

Chair of the Global Indigenous Ambassador Program, ICANN

Judith Hellerstein is the founder of Hellerstein & Associates, a research consultancy which specializes in opening up telecom and tech opportunities around the world, by providing research, analysis, strategy and advisory consulting to help clients by providing solutions to help clients meet their economic and social objectives. She does this by providing innovative, creative, and out of the box solutions to situations to help clients solve their problems.Judith has over twenty years experience in developing policies, regulations, building regulatory capacity, and on Internet Governance issues having worked on several high profile projects while she was at the International Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission, MCI Communications, and Former Vice President Gore’s Reinventing Government office before founding her firm. She advises private sector companies, Governments, and multilateral organizations on Internet Governance, policy consulting, regulatory reform, regulatory capacity building, broadband strategy, competition policy, e-government assessment, convergence and its impact on regulatory frameworks, and Intellectual Property.Judith is the Chair of the At-Large Technology Task Force within ICANN, Chair of the Global Indigenous Fellowship and past Secretariat of NARALO, the North American Regional At-Large Organization within ICANN. Judith is also a Director of the Washington DC Chapter of the Internet Society, the Founder and President of Capital Area Globetrotters, an ICANN At-Large Structure. Judith has written extensively on telecommunications, competition policy, Internet Governance, broadband access & development, and convergence strategies.

Jac sm Kee

Women's Rights Programme Manager, APC

Brenda Wambui

Host and Executive Producer, Otherwise? Podcast

Brenda Wambui is a young Kenyan interested in the intersections of technology and media, feminism and identity. She has chosen digital media as her tool for change. She works as a digital media consultant and researcher, and is the co-founder of Brainstorm Africa, and the host of the Otherwise? podcast. Brainstorm Africa is an online media organization whose mission is to address the need for critical thought in Kenya, and the rest of Africa. Otherwise? is a weekly podcast explaining the Kenya’s “big topic” of the week, and its impact, as chosen by the audience. She is a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) graduate and an ACCA Affiliate. Brenda is also an Acumen Fellow. Brenda is fluent in English and Kiswahili and tweets as @brendawambui.

Alex Walden

Counsel, Free Expression and Human Rights, Google

Alex Walden works on free expression and human rights at Google. Her work includes representing Google in the Global Network Initiative (GNI) and participating as a member of the Freedom Online Coalition's working group on transparency. Alex joined Google from The Raben Group, where she was a director focused on civil rights, women's rights, criminal justice reform issues, and nominations.

Prior to joining TRG, Alex worked at the Center for American Progress. She has also served as a law clerk for the U.S. House of Representatives in the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights & Liberties and the U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary. Alex also worked with the U.S. EEOC, U.S. Department of Labor, and Bay Area Legal Aid during law school. Before attending law school, Alex spent almost four years working in the D.C. Office of Legal Momentum (formerly NOW Legal Defense & Education Fund). Alex holds a B.A. in political science from American University and a J.D. from University of San Francisco School of Law.

Pierre Gentile

Head of Protection Division, ICRC

Since February 2007, Mr. Gentile has worked at ICRC’s headquarters in Geneva as the head of the Protection of the Civilian Population Unit. In this capacity, in 2008 and 2009 he oversaw a project to elaborate and disseminate professional standards for protection work for the sector as a whole, working in consultation with many humanitarian and human rights actors. Since September 2011 he has worked on the update of these standards with the support of an advisory group composed of experienced protection specialists from different humanitarian organizations. Over the last couple of years, he also supervised the realisation of a set of 19 training modules for ICRC staff working on protection, with a strong component of E-learning, including multidisciplinary approaches to address the vulnerabilities and capacities of population groups.

He began his career with the ICRC in 1996 as a delegate in Vukovar, Croatia, working to address the needs of internally displaced persons and the whereabouts of missing persons. Since that time, he has spent 10 years working in various ICRC delegations. In Rwanda, Mr. Gentile conducted detention visits to prisons and local police stations, and in Colombia, he advocated for the protection of civilians with armed groups. He also served as Head of Subdelegation in Herat, Afghanistan, where he managed a large portfolio of assistance programs aimed at preventing displacement in the area. In Peru, Mr. Gentile served as Deputy Head of Delegation where he liaised with the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Peruvian Ombudsman’s office. Then, as protection coordinator in Ethiopia, he supervised a team that conducted more that 200 detention visits per year, as well as engaged the penal administration on improving staff curricula, developing alternatives to imprisonment, and strengthening construction standards. Mr. Gentile again served as protection coordinator for the ICRC in Jerusalem, where he worked to increase respect for civilians during hostilities and law-enforcement operations, as well as to address the effects of long-term policies in the occupied territories on the resident population.

Arnaud Castaignet

Head of Public Relations, e-Residency, Republic of Estonia

Arnaud Castaignet is the Head of Public Relations of Estonia's e-Residency programme, a government-issued digital ID available to anyone in the world. It offers the freedom for every world citizen to open and run a global EU company fully online from anywhere. Previously, he worked for the French President François Hollande as a communication officer. Prior to his time at the French Presidency, he has worked as an international communications consultant in Paris, advising governments, politicians and corporations and as a business journalist in Istanbul (Turkey) and Mumbai (India). He started his career at the United Nations Environment Programme office in Brussels.

Renu Mandhane

Chief Commissioner, Ontario Human Rights of Ontario

Renu Mandhane was appointed Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission in October 2015. She is the former Executive Director of the award-winning International Human Rights Program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. She has an LL.M in international human rights law from New York University. Renu began her practice focused on criminal law, and in that capacity she represented many survivors of sexual violence and prisoners. Renu sits on the Canada Committee of Human Rights Watch, and has appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada and the United Nations. Most recently, Renu was recognized by Canadian Lawyer magazine as one of Canada’s most influential lawyers for her advocacy related to solitary confinement.

Cindy Cohn

Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Cindy Cohn is the Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. From 2000-2015 she served as EFF’s Legal Director as well as its General Counsel. Ms. Cohn first became involved with EFF in 1993, when EFF asked her to serve as the outside lead attorney in Bernstein v. Dept. of Justice, the successful First Amendment challenge to the U.S. export restrictions on cryptography.

The National Law Journal named Ms. Cohn one of 100 most influential lawyers in America in 2013, noting: "[I]f Big Brother is watching, he better look out for Cindy Cohn." She was also named in 2006 for "rushing to the barricades wherever freedom and civil liberties are at stake online." In 2007 the National Law Journal named her one of the 50 most influential women lawyers in America. In 2010 the Intellectual Property Section of the State Bar of California awarded her its Intellectual Property Vanguard Award and in 2012 the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists awarded her the James Madison Freedom of Information Award.

Eileen Donahoe

Director of Global Affairs, Human Rights Watch

Eileen Donahoe is the Director of Global Affairs at Human Rights Watch where she represents the organization worldwide on human rights foreign policy, with special emphasis on digital rights, cybersecurity and Internet governance. She served as the first US Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva from 2010-2013.

Donahoe is a Co-Chair of the NETmundial Initiative on global multi-stakeholder Internet governance. She serves as a member of the Freedom Online Coalition Working Group on Freedom & Security focused on bringing a human rights based approach to cybersecurity policy. She is an Affiliate at the Center for International Security & Cooperation and a Visiting Scholar at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. Research interests include implications of digital technology for human rights, adaptation of the international human rights law framework for the digital context, cybersecurity through a human rights lens, development of the multi-stakeholder Internet governance ecosystem, international norms governing use of force, UN reform, and ethical justifications for humanitarian military intervention.

In her earlier career, Donahoe was a technology litigator at Fenwick & West in Silicon Valley. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth, a master’s of theological studies from Harvard, a master’s in East Asian studies from Stanford, a J.D. from Stanford Law School, and a Ph.D. in Ethics and Social Theory from GTU at UC Berkeley. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of Freedom House and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Milton Mueller

Professor, Georgia Tech School of Public Policy

Milton Mueller is an internationally prominent scholar specializing in the political economy of information and communication. The author of seven books and scores of journal articles, his work informs not only public policy but also science and technology studies, law, economics, communications, and international studies. His books Will the Internet Fragment? (Polity, 2017), Networks and States: The global politics of Internet governance (MIT Press, 2010) and Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace (MIT Press, 2002) are acclaimed scholarly accounts of the global governance regime emerging around the Internet. Mueller’s research employs the theoretical tools of institutional economics, STS and political economy, as well as historical, qualitative and quantitative methods.

Dr. Mueller’s prominence in scholarship is matched by his prominence in policy practice. He is the co-founder and director of the Internet Governance Project (IGP), a policy analysis center for global Internet governance. Since its founding in 2004, IGP has played a prominent role in shaping global Internet policies and institutions such as ICANN and the Internet Governance Forum. He has participated in proceedings and policy development activities of ICANN, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and regulatory proceedings in the European Commission, China, Hong Kong and New Zealand. He has served as an expert witness in prominent legal cases related to domain names and telecommunication policy. He was elected to the Advisory Committee of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) from 2013-2016, and appointed in 2014 to the IANA Stewardship Coordination Group. Dr. Mueller has also been a practical institution-builder in the scholarly world, where he led the creation of the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet), an international association of scholars.

Sherif Elsayed-Ali

Director of Global Issues and Research, Amnesty International

Sherif Elsayed-Ali is head of technology and human rights at Amnesty International, a program he established in 2015. He works both on threats posed to human rights by new technologies, and opportunities to leverage technology to enhance the protection of rights. Previously, Sherif led Amnesty International's global work on refugee and migrants' rights. He has more than 15 years experience in human rights research and advocacy internationally. Sherif studied engineering and international law at the American University in Cairo and has a master in public administration from Harvard Kennedy School.

Maryam Al-Khawaja

Bahraini human rights activist

Maryam Al-Khawaja is a Bahraini human rights activist and the co-director of the Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR).

Craig Silverman

Media Editor, Buzzfeed News

Craig Silverman is an award-winning author and journalist and one of the world’s leading experts on online misinformation, fake news, and content verification. He is the media editor of BuzzFeed News where he leads a global beat covering platforms, online misinformation, and fake news.

Craig previously was the founding editor of BuzzFeed Canada, and was also the founder of Emergent.info, a rumor tracking project that was developed as part a fellowship with the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. From 2004 to 2015 he wrote Regret The Error, a blog about media accuracy and corrections, which became part of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and was the basis for an award-winning book of press criticism. In 2010, Craig was part of the team that launched OpenFile, an online news startup the delivered community-driven reporting in six Canadian cities. He is the former managing editor of PBS MediaShift and has been a columnist for The Globe And Mail, Toronto Star, and Columbia Journalism Review. Craig also edited The Verification Handbook and The Verification Handbook for Investigative Reporting for the European Journalism Centre.

His journalism and books have been honored by the Mirror Awards, U.S. National Press Club, National Magazine Awards, Canadian Online Publishing Awards, and Crime Writers of Canada.

Ihsaan Gardee

Executive Director, National Council of Canadian Muslims

A graduate of the University of Windsor and the University of Western Ontario, Ihsaan Gardee has been involved with the NCCM for several years. As an employee, Ihsaan joined in 2006 when he first served as Community Relations & Operations Director. In October 2008, he took the helm of the organization as Executive Director.

As Executive Director, Ihsaan regularly appears on local and national news media & programs on issues related to Canadian Muslims, Islam and civil liberties and his writings have appeared in major Canadian dailies as well as international publications. He also speaks at numerous Canadian and global forums and conferences on public policy matters. In his professional capacity, Ihsaan has provided expert testimony to several Parliamentary and Senate committees on how proposed legislation, including national security laws, could adversely impact civil liberties and diverse communities.

Ihsaan has a background working in both the public and private sectors primarily in marketing, communications and management roles and has worked, lived and travelled extensively across Canada, Europe, the Middle East and South Africa.

Camille Francois

Affiliate, Harvard Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society

Camille Francois is an Affiliate, Harvard Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society and Cybersecurity Fellow, New America Foundation. Previously, she was a Principal Researcher at Jigsaw, a think tank and technology incubator within Google / Alphabet, where she led an interdisciplinary research program focused on State-sponsored cyber threats against civil society, and media manipulation. She also established an internal working group on fairness and algorithmic biases in machine learning.

Previously, Camille served as a Special Advisor to the CTO of France within the Prime Minister's Office, led research projects on cybersecurity and human rights for the Mozilla Foundation or the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and worked for Google’s Market Insights team. A Fulbright Fellow, Camille holds a Masters Degree in Human Rights from the French Institute of Political Sciences (Sciences-Po) & a Masters Degree in International Security from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

Ryan Dochuk

CEO, TunnelBear

Ryan is the CEO & Cofounder of TunnelBear, a company that has helped over 20 million people browse a more private and open Internet. Previously, Ryan worked as a product manager at Microsoft for six years on Microsoft Office & Business Intelligence products and worked at a number of startups.He is an active member of the Toronto startup community and is passionate about great design, information security and Internet of Things.

Laura Okkonen

Head of Human Rights at Nokia

Nushin Sarkarati

Senior Staff Attorney, Center for Justice and Accountability

Nushin Sarkarati, Senior Staff Attorney, is a U.S. lawyer based in San Francisco, California. Ms. Sarkarati represents victims and survivors of mass atrocities and severe human rights abuses in U.S. courts and before international and regional bodies. Her work is focused on survivor-centered investigation and litigation, and she partners directly with survivor communities to achieve justice and redress against perpetrators responsible for violations of international law.

Ms. Sarkarati litigates impact cases on behalf of survivors of torture and other severe human rights abuses from Cambodia, Somalia, and Latin America. She has presented testimony and other substantive evidence resulting in favorable trial verdicts: against two senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia; and in U.S. federal court on behalf of a Somali constitutional law professor who was brutally tortured for his political beliefs.

Pedro Vilanova

Co-Founder, Operação Serenata de Amor

Bishakha Datta

Executive Director at Point of View

Michael Posner

Director of NYU Stern Center for Business & Human Rights

Michael Posner is the Director of the Center for Business and Human Rights and the Jerome Kohlberg Professor of Ethics and Finance at NYU Stern. From September 2009 until March 2013, he served in the Obama Administration as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor at the U.S. State Department. From 1978 to 2009, he was the Executive Director and the President of Human Rights First, a U.S.-based human rights advocacy organization.

As Assistant Secretary of State, Michael traveled to more than 40 countries where he represented the U.S. government on a wide range of human rights issues. He has played a major role in shaping U.S. policy from inside and outside of government on issues ranging from refugee and asylum law and policy, national security and human rights, Internet freedom, and business and human rights. Michael played a key role in proposing and campaigning for the first U.S. law providing for political asylum, which became part of the Refugee Act of 1980, as well as the Torture Victim Protection Act, which was adopted in 1992. Michael holds a JD from the University of California, Berkeley Law School, and a BA with distinction and honors from the University of Michigan.

Deborah Brown

Global Policy Advocacy Lead, APC

Deborah Brown is APC's global policy advocacy lead. She focuses on internet rights advocacy and fostering good internet governance. She leads APC's engagement in various UN processes, and has represented APC at the UN Human Rights Council, UN General Assembly, World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and the International Telecommunication Union, among others. Deborah also represents APC on the Civil Society Information Society Advisory Council (CSISAC) at the OECD Committee on Digital Economy Policy, and serves as a member of the Collaborative Council for Coding Rights and as a research advisor for the Global Commission on Internet Governance. Previously, Deborah worked at Access Now, the United Nations Foundation, and the National Democratic Institute. Deborah received her master’s degree from Georgetown University in Democracy and Governance and Arab Studies, and her bachelor’s degree from Barnard College, Columbia University in Political Science and Human Rights.

Jason Kint

CEO, Digital Content Next

Jason Kint is CEO of Digital Content Next, the only trade association to exclusively serve the unique and diverse needs of high-quality digital content companies that manage trusted, direct relationships with consumers and marketers. Jason guides DCN's diverse and powerful group of members — established brands such as The New York Times, NBC, Conde Nast and ESPN, and digital natives, such as Vox, Slate and Business Insider — into the future and on setting the agenda for discussions on issues ranging from net neutrality to revenue innovation to privacy. Jason also serves as Chairman of TrustX, a cooperative digital advertising marketplace designed to address the industry's trust, transparency and accountability challenges in digital advertising. TrustX is a wholly-owned subsidiary of DCN operating as a public benefit corporation (B Corp). A 20-year veteran of the digital media industry, Jason led the evolution of CBS Sports into a multi-platform brand and served in various executive roles launching and leading the websites for Sporting News and all of Times Mirror Magazines’ flagship websites under the ownership of Times Mirror, Paul Allen and later Condé Nast.

Nicole Karlebach

Global Head, Business and Human Rights at Oath

Nicole Karlebach is Yahoo’s Senior Legal Counsel, Business & Human Rights, leading and executing Yahoo’s efforts to promote privacy and free expression on the Internet and to identify innovative solutions to human rights challenges. Prior to joining Yahoo, Nicole worked as an attorney at Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP in New York, as an international policy fellow at Human Rights First examining issues of business and human rights and national security law and policy and as a human rights consultant to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons. Nicole has also worked at the UN in the Office of the Legal Counsel and at the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Special Department for War Crimes in Sarajevo.

Nicole received her LL.M. in International Legal Studies from New York University School of Law, her J.D. from Boston College Law School and her B.A., magna cum laude, in Politics and Sociology from Brandeis University.

Laura Tribe

Executive Director, OpenMedia

Laura Tribe is the Executive Director for OpenMedia, an organization working to keep the Internet open, affordable, and surveillance-free. Leading OpenMedia's campaigns and advocacy on digital privacy, Laura has a strong interest empowering Internet users to stand up for their rights online. With a background in the intersection of human rights and information communication technologies, she loves the internet and is excited about fighting for what makes it great. Laura holds a BA in Media, Information and Technoculture from Western University, and an MA in Communications from Carleton University.

Deji Bryce Olukotun

Head of Social Impact, Sonos

Mark Surman

Executive Director at the Mozilla Foundation

Ronaldo Lemos

Director of the Institute for Technology and Society of Rio

Ronaldo Lemos is an internationally respected Brazilian scholar and commentator on intellectual property, culture, and technology. He founded the Center for Technology & Society at the Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) Law School, where he is also head professor of intellectual property law. He is also Project Lead of Creative Commons Brazil and an affiliate and Brazil´s liaison to the director at the MIT Media Lab. He holds law degrees from University of Sao Paulo Law School and Harvard Law and has published a number books and journal articles. He was a Visiting Fellow at Princeton University in 2011 and 2013. Lemos is a founder of Overmundo, for which he received the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in the category of digital communities. Lemos was one of the creators of the Marco Civil a draft legislation for regulating the Internet in Brazil protecting civil rights, privacy and net neutrality.

He is a member of the Council for Social Communication, a governmental body created by article 224 of the Brazilian Constitution to deal with matters related to communication, media and freedom of expression. Lemos writes weekly to Folha de S.Paulo, the largest national newspaper in Brazil, and contributes to a number of other publications, including Foreign Affairs, Harper's Bazaar, and Bravo!

Frederike Kaltheuner

Data Exploitation Programme Lead, Privacy International

Frederike leads Privacy International's Data Exploitation programme. She also develops PI's positions on the privacy and security challenges of connected spaces.Frederike regularly speaks at tech, policy and art conferences and comments on emerging technologies in the British and international press. In 2016, she was a Transatlantic Digital Fellow on cybersecurity and platform regulation with the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin and New America Foundation in D.C. Previously, she worked with the Centre for Internet and Human Rights, as a technology reporter and in the R&D department of an online newspaper.Frederike holds an MSc in Internet Science from the University of Oxford and a BA in Philosophy and Politics from Maastricht University. She was previously a researcher at the University of Amsterdam and a visiting scholar at Bogazici University, Istanbul.

Charlotte Lindsey-Curtet

Director of Communication and Information Management, ICRC

ICRC's Director of Communication and Information Management since July 2010, Charlotte's responsibilities include public and corporate communication, ICT, Archives & Information Management and Data Protection.  Charlotte leads the development and implementation of the ICRC's Information Environment Strategy and digital transformation.Charlotte joined the ICRC in 1993 and has previously held the following positions: the deputy Director of Communication, deputy head of division for policy and Movement relations, Head of the Women and War Project, as well as serving for five years in various ICRC field delegations.Charlotte Lindsey-Curtet has a degree in business studies and a master's degree in communication management.  She is author of Women facing War.

Theresa Swinehart

Senior Vice President, ICANN

A leading advocate for an open and secure Internet and an expert in global Internet governance and cooperation, Theresa Swinehart is the Senior Advisor to the President on Global Strategy at ICANN. She works with stakeholders and policymakers around the globe to advocate the Internet's multistakeholder model, and oversees a team with overarching responsibility for a range of initiatives including development of the organization's five-year strategic plan. She rejoins ICANN after serving three years as the Executive Director of Global Internet Policy for Verizon Communications, where she specialized in emerging issues and stakeholder and policy leader engagement.

Theresa spent nearly ten years at ICANN prior to joining Verizon in 2010. Her previous position at ICANN was as Vice President, Global and Strategic Partnerships, at ICANN. Her responsibilities included contributing to its reform process, leading the international team, the organization's strategy for global engagement and outreach, and representing the organization in international forums, particularly those relating to Internet governance. She worked with a wide range of stakeholders, including business, regional and international organizations (governmental and non-governmental), technical community, government and civil society, on a range of issues bridging technical, political and policy expertise and experience (e.g. Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)).

Before joining ICANN, Theresa was Director for Global E-Commerce at MCI, where she was responsible for emerging international Internet issues, including ISP liability, data protection and the company's participation in Internet related forums including the formation of ICANN. Theresa began her career in international human rights with a focus on economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights. Theresa holds a law degree from American University Washington College of Law (USA), a post graduate degree in International Studies from the University of Vienna (Austria), and a BA in International Relations from the University of California, Davis (USA).

Courtney C. Radsch

Advocacy Director, Committee to Protect Journalists

Dr. Courtney C. Radsch is the Advocacy Director at the Committee to Protect Journalists. As a veteran journalist, researcher, and free expression advocate she writes and speaks frequently about the nexus of media, technology, and human rights. She is the author of Cyberactivism and Citizen Journalism in Egypt: Digital Dissidence & Political Change (Palgrave Macmillan 2016) and several other book chapters and articles about the Arab Spring, media, terrorism, and human rights. Her commentaries and articles have been published in The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, Al Jazeera, Columbia Journalism Review, and the Huffington Post. She is regularly sought out for her expertise by a range of media outlets including the BBC, MSNBC, PBS Frontline, Voice of America, and others.

Dr. Radsch has participated in expert consultations at the United Nation, OSCE and E.U. on countering violent extremism, online violence against women, and journalist safety, and has led advocacy missions to more than a dozen countries, U.N. bodies, and the Internet Governance Forum. Prior to CPJ she worked with UNESCO's Section for Freedom of Expression, where she coordinated strategy in the Arab region and edited the flagship publication "World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development." Dr. Radsch previously managed the Global Freedom of Expression Campaign at Freedom House, where she edited Policing Belief: The Impact of Blasphemy Laws on Human Rights. She has worked as a journalist for The New York Times, Al-Arabiya in Dubai, and the Daily Star in Lebanon and was a freelancer in Egypt. Dr. Radsch holds a Ph.D. in international relations from American University, a master's of science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a bachelor's degree with highest honors in mass communication from the University of California, Berkeley. She speaks Arabic, French, and Spanish and can be found on Twitter at @courtneyr.

Elinor Buxton

Deputy Head, EU & International Data at Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Elinor is the Foreign Office’s specialist on international cybersecurity and internet policy. As part of the Foreign Office’s National Security Research Group she provides advice and analysis to inform and influence policy on internet-related issues from net neutrality to offensive cyber doctrine.

Before joining the diplomatic service in March 2014, Elinor was a science and tech policy adviser at the Royal Society (the UK’s national science academy) where she worked on priorities for cybersecurity research, and an analyst at a Canadian consultancy where she advised broadcasters, tech companies and governments on human rights, technology and internet policy in the Middle East, Central Asia, Iran, Russia and China. Elinor graduated from the University of Oxford with a master’s degree in Physics and Philosophy and also holds a postgraduate diploma in law.

Alissa Starzak

Head of Public Policy at Cloudflare

Francisco Brito Cruz

Director, InternetLab

Francisco Brito Cruz is the Director of InternetLab and project lead for the InternetLab Reports project. He is a lawyer and works on issues related to digital rights, intellectual property, media and consumer rights. He is a member of Brazil’s Empirical Legal Research Network (REED) and winner of the “Brazil’s Internet Framework Bill & Development Award” (Google/FGV-SP). In 2013, Francisco was a visiting researcher at the Center for the Study of Law and Society from the University of California-Berkeley and from 2012-2014, coordinated the Internet, Law & Society Nucleus at the University of São Paulo (NDIS-USP). Francisco holds a master’s degree in Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law and a bachelor's degree (LL.B., 2011) from the University of São Paulo (Brazil).

David Kaye

UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression

Prof. Kaye’s scholarship and teaching focus on public international law, especially international human rights law, international humanitarian law, accountability for violations of human rights, and the law governing the use of force. He is just as interested in efforts to translate international law—especially human rights law—in a domestic American context, whether in courts, legislatures, or the executive branches of government, at federal and state levels.Prof. Kaye has been appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to serve as Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, effective August 1, 2014, for three years.

With the assistance of students in his International Justice Clinic, Prof. Kaye will report to the UN on some of the key issues in free expression worldwide, such as the safety of journalists, severe restrictions placed on Internet access and usage, the chilling effects of electronic surveillance, hate speech and incitement to violence. Prof. Kaye began his legal career with the U.S. State Department, handling such subjects as international claims, nuclear nonproliferation, international humanitarian law, and accountability for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Prior to joining UC Irvine, he co-founded UCLA’s International Human Rights Program and founded its International Justice Clinic, working on projects dealing with accountability for international crimes around the world.

In addition to his scholarship and teaching, Professor Kaye is an active member of the American Society of International Law, for which he served on its Executive Council and Executive Committee, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has also published essays and opinion pieces in mainstream publications such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times.

As a clinical teacher, Professor Kaye aims to help students discover and put to use tools to advocate for implementation of human rights law and accountability for serious violations and to assist those worldwide who are looking to build the rule of law in their own countries. He also believes in scholarship that helps advance our understanding of how international law operates—and in translating that scholarship, as much as possible, to the broader public and policymaking communities.

Iryna Chulivska

Executive Director, Digital Security Lab Ukraine

Iryna Chulivska works as a project coordinator and campaign manager at Ukrainian NGO Institute of Mass Information, which protects freedom of speech and journalists’ rights. She works as a trainer on digital security for journalists, human rights defenders, activists and others. Together with other trainers and specialists she is a co-founder of Digital Security Lab Ukraine. Iryna has a degree in Journalism and graduated from the ISC Project ToT program on digital security.

Julie Brill

Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at Microsoft

Mira Milosevic

Executive Director, Global Forum for Media Development

Ms Mira Milosevic is the Director of the Brussels-based Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD) since March 2017. Mira is a media expert who was a Director of Media Development Programmes at WAN-IFRA (World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers), has served as Chief Platform Officer at Indie Voices and as a Director of the Belgrade based Media Center. More recently, she is the author of the World Press Trends reports, the most authoritative global source of data in the international newspaper industry, published by WAN-IFRA. She holds a Master’s degree in Communications from Westminster University in London.

Kevin Bankston

Director of the Open Technology Institute (OTI) at New America

Kevin Bankston is the Policy Director of the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, where he works in the public interest to promote policy and regulatory reforms to strengthen communities by supporting open communications networks, platforms, and technologies, with a focus on issues of Internet surveillance and censorship.

Prior to leading OTI’s policy team, Kevin was a Senior Counsel and the Director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a Washington, DC-based non-profit organization dedicated to promoting democratic values and constitutional liberties in the digital age. From that position, he spent two years advocating on a wide range of Internet and technology policy issues both international and domestic, most recently organizing a broad coalition of companies and civil society organizations to demand greater transparency around the US government’s surveillance practices. He also has served since 2005 on the board of the First Amendment Coalition, a non-profit public interest organization dedicated to advancing free speech and a more open and accountable government, and previously was a nonresidential fellow at the Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet & Society.

Prior to joining CDT, he worked for nearly a decade at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, specializing in free speech and privacy law with a focus on government surveillance, Internet privacy, and location privacy. As a Senior Staff Attorney at EFF, he regularly litigated issues surrounding free expression and electronic surveillance, and was a lead counsel in EFF’s lawsuits against the National Security Agency and AT&T, challenging the legality of the NSA warrantless wiretapping program first revealed in 2005. He originally joined EFF as an Equal Justice Works/Bruce J. Ennis First Amendment Fellow, studying the impact of post-9/11 anti-terrorism surveillance initiatives on online privacy and free expression. Before joining EFF, he litigated Internet-related free speech cases at the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York City as a Justice William Brennan First Amendment Fellow. He received his JD at the University of Southern California Law School after receiving his BA at the University of Texas at Austin.

Fen Osler Hampson

Director of Global Security Research, CIGI

Fen Osler Hampson is a distinguished fellow and director of CIGI's Global Security & Politics program, overseeing the research direction of the program and related activities. He is also co-director of the Global Commission on Internet Governance. Most recently, he served as director of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA) and will continue to serve as chancellor’s professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.Fen holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University where he also received his A.M. degree (both with distinction). He also holds an MSc. (Econ.) degree (with distinction) from the London School of Economics and a B.A. (Hon.) from the University of Toronto. A fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, he is the past recipient of various awards and honours, including a Research and Writing Award from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellowship from the United States Institute of Peace (a non-partisan, congressionally-funded think tank) in Washington, D.C. He has also taught at Georgetown University as a visiting professor.Fen is the author or co-author of 10 books and editor or co-editor of more than 26 other volumes. In addition, he has written more than 100 articles and book chapters on international affairs. His book, The Global Power of Talk (co-authored with I. William Zartman) was published in March 2012. His most recent book is Brave New Canada: Meeting the Challenge of a Changing World, co-authored with Derek Burney.

Jen Castro

Program Director, Digital Democracy

Maryant Fernandez Perez

Senior Policy Advisor, European Digital Rights (EDRi)

Maryant is a Senior Policy Advisor at European Digital Rights (EDRi) and a lawyer admitted to the Madrid Bar association. Maryant defends human rights and fundamental freedoms online in the European Union. She works on surveillance and law enforcement, intermediary liability (e-commerce, hate speech, counter-terrorism, child protection), digital trade, net neutrality and transparency. Maryant is the author of several publications and speaker at multiple conferences in Europe and around the world.

Prior to joining EDRi in 2014, she gained experience at the law firm CCA-ONTIER, Décathlon, the Spanish Ministry of Public Works, the European Law Moot Court Society and the CEU San Pablo University. Maryant received her education from the CEU San Pablo University, the Université Catholique de Lille, the Instituto de Empresa and the Universidade Católica Portuguesa. She holds an LLM in Law in a European and Global Context. Maryant is fluent in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

Tarah Wheeler

Cybersecurity Policy Fellow, New America; Author, "Women In Tech"

Tarah Wheeler (MS, CSM, CSD, CISSP) is an information security researcher, author, entrepreneur, keynote speaker, nonprofit founder, scientist, and poker player. She is currently Cybersecurity Fellow at New America and Principal Security Advisor at Red Queen Technologies. She is the lead author of the best-selling Women In Tech: Take Your Career to The Next Level With Practical Advice And Inspiring Stories.

She has been Senior Director of Engineering and Principal Security Advocate at Symantec Website Security. She founded and now sits on the board of Fizzmint, an end-to-end secure HR management company. She has led projects at Microsoft Game Studios (Halo and Lips) and architected systems at encrypted mobile communications firm Silent Circle. She founded the Red Queen Group, including Red Queen Technologies and Red Queen Security, Infosec Unlocked (initiative to add diversity in infosec conference speakers), and Hack The People Foundation (nonprofit mentorship initiative focused on underprivileged people in technology).

Hans de Zwart

Executive Director, Bits of Freedom

Hans de Zwart is the Executive Director of the Dutch digital civil rights organisation Bits of Freedom, fighting for freedom of communication and privacy on the internet. In the past he was Shell’s Senior Innovation Adviser for Global HR and Learning Technologies, before that a Moodle consultant for Stoas Learning and he started his career as a Physical Education teacher at a high school in Amsterdam.

He operates on the intersection between technology (which he prefers to be “open”) and society, often viewing issues through a civil rights lens. He knows that technology is always political and believes in the power of design.

Ann Cavoukian

Former Three-Term Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario

Dr. Ann Cavoukian is recognized as one of the world’s leading privacy experts. She is presently the Distinguished Expert-in-Residence, leading the Privacy by Design Centre of Excellence at Ryerson University. Dr. Cavoukian is also a Senior Fellow of the Ted Rogers Leadership Centre at Ryerson University, and a Faculty Fellow of the Center for Law, Science & Innovation at Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. Dr. Cavoukian served an unprecedented three terms as the Information & Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Canada. There she created Privacy by Design, a framework that seeks to proactively embed privacy into the design specifications of information technologies, networked infrastructure and business practices, thereby achieving the strongest protection possible. In 2010, International Privacy Regulators unanimously passed a Resolution recognizing Privacy by Design as an international standard. Since then, PbD has been translated into 40 languages.

Dr. Cavoukian has received numerous awards recognizing her leadership in privacy, including being named as one of the Top 25 Women of Influence in Canada, named among the Top 10 Women in Data Security and Privacy, named as one of the ‘Power 50’ by Canadian Business, named as one of the Top 100 Leaders in Identity, she was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal by the Governor General of Canada for her outstanding work on creating Privacy by Design and taking it global (May, 2017), named as one of the 50 Most Impactful Smart Cities Leaders, (November, 2017), and most recently, was named among the Top Women in Tech.

Gabe Sawhney

Executive Director, Code for Canada

Gabe Sawhney is an experience designer, creative technologist and innovation strategist. For over 15 years, he's been using design and technology to address creative and business challenges, with particular focus in digital media & entertainment, experiential marketing, and games. As an innovation strategist, Gabe helps organizations to discover emerging opportunities, build consensus, and navigate ambiguity. As a creative technologist, Gabe explores and tests ideas using functional prototypes (hardware & software), to imagine future use cases, assess user experience, and build buy-in. While completing his MDes at OCADU's Strategic Foresight and Innovation program, Gabe's research work covered organizational change, corporate sustainability, social innovation, big data and information visualization. His creative projects often focus on community, storytelling, and place: [murmur] is a site-specific oral storytelling mobile documentary, and SEED is an interactive video installation which raises funds and awareness for urban reforestation programs. He has served on the boards of Heritage Toronto and Wireless Toronto, and on the founding steering committee of the Mobile Experience Innovation Centre (MEIC). He has presented at conferences and festivals in Canada, the US, the UK, China, Australia and Brazil.

Sanja Kelly

Freedom on the Net Director, Freedom House

Sanja Kelly is the director for Freedom on the Net, Freedom House’s assessment of global internet freedom. In that capacity, she oversees all research, writing, and administrative operations for the project, and manages a team of over 70 international analysts. She has authored and edited numerous articles, reports, and books examining internet freedom, democratic governance, and women’s rights. She regularly briefs the private sector, government agencies, and NGOs on internet freedom trends, and is frequently interviewed by domestic and international media. Her commentary has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Guardian, Al-Jazeera, Fox New, CNN, and other outlets.

Ms. Kelly served as a member of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group for the IGF between 2012-2014, and also co-chaired the Freedom Online Coalition working group that drafted the Tallinn Agenda in 2014. During her 12-year career, she has also led various international research missions and represented Freedom House at high-level meetings in over 30 countries. In addition, Ms. Kelly has worked extensively on gender issues in the Middle East and North Africa and produced one the largest studies of women’s rights in the MENA region completed to date. A native of Bosnia-Herzegovina, she holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from Columbia University.

Sarah Moulton

Senior Technology Innovation Analyst, National Democratic Institute

Sarah Moulton is a Senior Manager for Technology Innovation and works with NDI’s staff and partners to design and deploy technology solutions across NDI’s global portfolio of programs. Throughout her career she has focused on the use of technology to enhance access to information, economic opportunities, and civic participation and has extensive experience implementing technology-based approaches in challenging contexts, particularly closed societies and conflict-affected communities. Prior to NDI, she managed ICT programs at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) in Washington, DC, as well as spent six years working for both national and international organizations in the Middle East, overseeing technology-driven development projects in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Sarah holds BAs in international studies and German from the University of Oregon, and an MSc in ICTs for Development from the University of Manchester in the UK.

Luca Belli

Head of Internet Governance, FGV

As Senior Researcher at the Center for Technology and Society (CTS) of Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV), Luca heads the Internet Governance project. Luca is also associated researcher at the Centre de Droit Public Comparé of Paris 2 University. Both FGV and Paris 2 are considered top institutions in their respective fields.Before joining CTS/FGV, Luca worked as an agent for the Council of Europe Internet Governance Unit; served as a Network Neutrality Expert for the Council of Europe; and worked as a consultant for the Internet Society and earned a Ph.D. in public law from Université Panthéon-Assas, Paris 2. Over the past decade, Luca authored and edited a variety of research outputs in English, French, Italian and Portuguese, amongst which “De la gouvernance à la régulation de l’Internet”, edited by Berger-Levrault, Paris, the “Net Neutrality Compendium”, edited by Springer, as well as “Community Networks: the Internet by the People, for the People” and “Platform Regulations: How Platforms are Regulated and How They Regulate Us,” edited by FGV and officially released at the UN Internet Governance Forum 2017.His works have been used i.a. by the Council of Europe to elaborate the Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers on Network Neutrality; quoted by the Report on Freedom of Expression and the Internet of the OAS Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression; and published or quoted by a variety of media outlets, including Le Monde, The Hill, O Globo, El Pais, El Tiempo and La Stampa.Luca is the co-chair of three multistakeholder groups of the UN Internet Governance Forum, dedicated to the analysis of specific digital-policy issues: the IGF Dynamic Coalitions (DCs) on Community Connectivity, on Platform Responsibility and on Network Neutrality.Luca is an Italian and a Brazilian citizen, enjoys learning and consider myself themself a very happy person.

Sarah Saska

CEO of Feminuity

While pursuing her Ph.D. at Western University, Sarah developed research on the importance of diversity in innovation. Realizing the importance of her research, Sarah became a fellow at MaRS Discovery District to gain the support she needed to translate her research into practice. Now, as the Co-founder and Managing Partner of Feminuity, Sarah works with innovative companies around the world to help them embrace diversity, inclusion, and belonging strategies to design better products, processes, and services and to build company cultures where people can thrive.

Sarah is a member of the Advisory Council for The MATCH International Women's Fund, she sits on the Board of Directors for Wen-Do Women's Self Defence, and she is named amongst Women’s Executive Network’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada. Sarah's lives in Toronto with her dog, Gordon.

Jen Ellis

Vice President of Community and Public Affairs at Rapid7

Judith Lichtenberg

Executive Director at Global Network Initiative

As Executive Director, Ms. Lichtenberg will be responsible for further strengthening GNI as a global multi-stakeholder platform for freedom of expression and privacy rights in the ICT sector. Ms. Lichtenberg brings to GNI extensive experience from her private sector career in telecommunications and her work with civil society on behalf of human rights.

Before joining the GNI, Ms. Lichtenberg was Head of Regulatory Affairs & Digital Rights at Vodafone Netherlands in Amsterdam, where she worked in a variety of roles since 2008. At Vodafone Netherlands, she previously served as Head of Privacy & Sustainability and before that as Head of Legal Affairs. Prior to joining Vodafone in 2008, she was Executive Director of the Lawyers for Lawyers Foundation, a Dutch NGO on whose board she continues to serve. Her international human rights experience includes serving as an international election observer in Ukraine and Armenia, and as a law clerk with the International Criminal Court and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Judith’s background embodies GNI’s multi-stakeholder approach,” said Robert Mahoney, GNI Board member and Deputy Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. “Judith’s experience with privacy and law enforcement compliance give her the perspective and credibility necessary to engage with companies seeking to uphold GNI’s core principles. And her work with at-risk lawyers around the world shows her deep commitment to human rights.”

Bertrand De La Chapelle

Executive Director, Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network

Bertrand de La Chapelle is the Director and Co-Founder of the Internet & Jurisdiction Project. He served as a Director on the ICANN Board from 2010 to 2013. From 2006 to 2010, he was France’s Thematic Ambassador and Special Envoy for the Information Society, participating in all WSIS follow-up activities and Internet governance processes, including in particular the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), and was a Vice-Chair of ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). Between 2002 and 2005, he actively participated in the World Summit on the Information society (WSIS) to promote dialogue among civil society, private sector and governments, including as Director of the collaborative platform WSIS-online.

An engineer, diplomat and civil society actor, he also has nine years of private sector experience, including as co-founder and President of Virtools, now a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes. Bertrand de La Chapelle is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique (1978), Sciences Po Paris (1983) and Ecole Nationale d’Administration (1986).

Jan Gerlach

Public Policy Manager, Wikimedia Foundation

Jan Gerlach is a Public Policy Manager at the Wikimedia Foundation, where he advocates for laws that promote openness and free knowledge. He holds a PhD in Legal Studies from the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland. For much of his research, he has focused on the relationship between public discourses and Internet regulation. Jan is a Member of the Advisory Board of the Nordic Centre for Internet & Society at BI Business School in Oslo, Norway and a Fellow at the Research Center for Information Law at the University of St.Gallen. Jan has previously worked as the Executive Manager of the Research Center for Information Law and spent time as a Visiting Researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University (formerly: Berkman Center) and at the Berkeley Law School. His research has been supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Gawain Morrison

CEO and Founder, Sensum

Gawain Morrison is the CEO and co-founder of Sensum, The Emotions Company. Sensum’s emotions AI technology has underpinned solutions for a range of industries from research to sports, media to automotive. As a multi-talented digital entrepreneur he has undertaken many different projects during his career. Prior to developing Sensum’s technology he worked across multiple creative industries, producing films, music, apps, alternate reality games & emotional response entertainment.

María Paz Canales

Executive Director, Derechos Digitales

Maria Paz Canales is a Chilean antitrust lawyer and UC Berkeley Master of Laws with a Certificate of Specialization in Law & Technology. She is the Executive Director of Derechos Digitales.

Abby Vollmer

Policy Network Manager at GitHub

Kyung-sin Park

Director, Open Net Korea

Professor K.S. Park is one of the founders of Open Net Korea, a forum for discussion and collaboration on ICT freedoms and human rights. He is currently Open Net’s director. Since 2006, he has also served as the executive director of the PSPD Law Center, a non-profit entity that organized several high-impact litigations in the areas of free speech, privacy, and copyright.

Additionally, K.S. was a key drafting partner in two pivotal NGO-led and standard-setting international efforts in online privacy and free speech: the Principles of Application of International Law on Communication Surveillance and the International Principles on Intermediary Liability.

Some of the notable cases he provided testimony for include the blogger Minerva, the internet real name verification law, the military’s seditious book blacklisting, the newspaper consumers’ boycott, and the case of Park Jung-Geun.

Dia Kayyali

Program Manager, Tech+Advocacy, WITNESS

Carolina Botero

Director, Fundacion Karisma

Carolina Botero is the Director of Fundación Karisma, a leading Colombian digital rights organisation. Carolina is an investigator, lawyer and writer on themes related to law and technology in Colombia and Latin America. She has a weekly column in the Colombia newspaper, El Espectador.

Joana Varon

Founder and Director, Coding Rights

Sean Brooks

Research Fellow, Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity

Toby Mendel

Executive Director, Centre for Law and Democracy

Prior to founding the Centre for Law and Democracy in January 2010, Toby Mendel was for over 12 years Senior Director for Law at ARTICLE 19, a human rights NGO focusing on freedom of expression and the right to information. He has provided expertise on these rights to a wide range of actors including the World Bank, various UN and other intergovernmental bodies, and numerous governments and NGOs in countries all over the world. In these various roles, he has often played a leading role in drafting legislation in the areas of the right to information and media regulation. Before joining ARTICLE 19, he worked as a senior human rights consultant with Oxfam Canada and as a human rights policy analyst at the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). He has published extensively on a range of freedom of expression, right to information, communication rights and refugee issues, including comparative legal and analytical studies on public service broadcasting, the right to information and broadcast policy. Toby has an Honours B.A. in mathematics from McGill University and an L.L.B. from Dalhousie University.

Jutta Treviranus

Director, Inclusive Design Research Centre

Jutta Treviranus is the director of the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) which she founded in 1993. The mission of the IDRC is to proactively ensure that emerging technology and socio-technical practices are designed to be inclusive of the full range of human diversity. Jutta also established a graduate program in inclusive design and is a professor at OCAD University. For more than 35 years she has been working to develop strategies, policies, and culture-changing frameworks to catalyze an education system that both supports and benefits from human diversity. Her name is unique, making it easy to find her many roles and accomplishments on the Web.

Brett Solomon

Executive Director and Co-founder, Access Now

Brett Solomon is the co-founder and Executive Director of Access—a non-profit human rights organization focused on digital freedom. The Access mission is to ensure open global internet access and an uncensored and secure digital sphere, working to create a world where citizens can be active participants in their future by freely seeking, receiving and imparting information digitally. Prior to Access, he was the Campaign Director at the 6.5 million member strong Avaaz.org, and before that the first Executive Director of GetUp!, an Australian grass roots political organization with over 430,000 members.

Solomon completed a Bachelors of Law at the University of Sydney, a Masters in International Law at the University of NSW, founded the International Youth Parliament and worked for many years at both Oxfam Australia and Amnesty International Australia.

Zahra Ebrahim

Co-Lead, Doblin Canada

Zahra Ebrahim is the co-lead of Doblin’s Canadian practice. Her experience helping large organizations innovate has led her to obsess over process and experience design, and how organizations embody the creative behaviour they seek to infuse into the things they put out to the marketplace. An adaptive mindset, she believes, is the key element to creating institutional innovation that lasts. She cares as much about the mindset of the organization as she does the products and services they innovate.

Before joining Doblin, I founded and led archiTEXT, one of the first design-based innovation studios in Canada—focused exclusively on innovation that drives greater social change. I spent a decade working with Canada’s largest charities, philanthropic organizations and governing bodies to help them understand how to better engage the people they’re trying to serve in the process of creating solutions. I’ve piloted and taught programs at OCAD University, the Museum of Modern Art, and currently teach at the University of Toronto.

When she's not obsessing over process, she'll find any excuse to talk about Jane Jacobs and the organization whose board she chairs, Jane’s Walk. You’ll also find her hanging out with my fellow urbanists, working actively to make community-led change happen in the city and pretending that she knows where to find cool music.

Trinh Nguyen

Digital Advocacy Director, Viet Tan

Alexa Koenig

Executive Directly, Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley

Alexa Koenig, Ph.D., J.D., is the executive director of the Human Rights Center (winner of the 2015 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions) and a lecturer-in-residence at UC Berkeley School of Law, where she teaches classes on human rights and international criminal law. Her research and commentary have appeared in such diverse outlets as the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, the Huffington Post, and US News and World Reports. She is an author, with Victor Peskin and Eric Stover, of Hiding in Plain Sight: The Pursuit of War Criminals from Nuremberg to the War on Terror (UC Press 2016); the editor, with Keramet Reiter, of Extreme Punishment: Comparative Studies in Detention, Incarceration and Solitary Confinement (Palgrave MacMillan 2015); and a contributor to The Guantánamo Effect: Exposing the Consequences of U.S. Detention and Interrogation Practices (UC Press 2009). Prior to her appointment at Berkeley Law, she served as program manager of the Witness to Guantánamo Project. She is currently a member of the Technology Advisory Board of the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, and is often called upon to speak about the role of emerging technologies in human rights practice. Koenig has won numerous honors and awards for her research, including a fellowship with the American Association of University Women and grants from the National Science Foundation. She earned her Ph.D. with honors or high honors in all classes from UC Berkeley’s Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program, her J.D. magna cum laude with a certificate in intellectual property and cyberlaw from the University of San Francisco, and her B.A. summa cum laude from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Guy Berger

Dir. Freedom of Expression & Media Development. UNESCO

Caroline Giraud

Independent Consultant

Jon Penney

Professor, Dalhousie University; Research Fellow, Citizen Lab

Jon Penney is a legal academic and social scientist. He is presently a Research Fellow at the Citizen Lab located at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, a Research Affiliate of Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy, and teaches law as an Assistant Professor at Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University in Canada. And from 2012 to 2015 was a Berkman Fellow and then research affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Jon studied law at Columbia Law School as a Fulbright Scholar and at Oxford as a Mackenzie King Scholar and holds a doctorate in information/communication sciences from Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford. As of January 2018, he is also a research associate of the Civil Servant Project based at the MIT Media Lab, which pursues citizen science toward a better, safer, and fairer internet.

Jon’s research lies at the intersection of law, technology, and social science, with an emphasis on privacy, censorship, surveillance, and automated/AI legal processess. His doctoral work at Oxford on chilling effects associated with online surveillance and other personal and regulatory online threats, for example, received international attention, including coverage in the Washington Post, Reuters International, New York Times, Newsweek, TIME Magazine, Le Monde, and The Guardian, among others, as well as coverage by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Glenn Greenwald in The Intercept.

Mary Bridger

Head of Operations and Engagement for Equal Measures 2030

Mary Bridger is Head of Operations and Engagement for Equal Measures 2030, a new cross-sectoral partnership focused on connecting data and evidence with advocacy and action to drive gender equality progress across the SDGs.  In this role, she leads on external engagement and collaboration with stakeholders and broader audiences, while also overseeing partner relationships. She is also responsible for driving internal operations, resource mobilization and project management for Equal Measures 2030.  Previously, Mary worked with Plan International and UN Women and is a graduate of both the School for Oriental and African Studies and University of Toronto.

Michele Mosca

Co-founder, President, and CEO, evolutionQ Inc.

Dr. Michele Mosca is an award-winning researcher, globally recognized for his drive to help academia, industry and government prepare our cyber systems to be safe in an era with quantum computers. He is a founder of the Institute for Quantum Computing, and a founding member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and Waterloo’s Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute. He co-founded evolutionQ Inc. to help organizations evolve their quantum-vulnerable systems and practices to quantum-safe ones. His work on quantum computing has been published widely in top journals and textbooks.

Wojciech Wiewiórowski

Assistant Supervisor at the European Data Protection Supervisor

Before his appointment as Assistant Supervisor, he served as Inspector General for the Protection of Personal Data at the Polish Data Protection Authority, a position which he had held since 2010. He was also Vice Chair of the Working Party Article 29 Group.

Anika Verma

Senior Manager - Media Campaign, Breakthrough India

Anika Verma has a working experience of 11 years as a creative producer across various media. Her focus in the past 7 years has been on using digital media for storytelling and leveraging media tech for public discourse against social injustices. Currently, she is the Senior Manager - Media Campaign at Breakthrough India, working on media communication to counter various gender issues. She, along with her team, aims to create a feminist counter-narrative using new media and empowering young people through media trainings with focus on intersectionality, masculinity and nuances of gender politics in the online landscape.

Eric Meerkamper

Global Head, Citizen Engagement, RIWI Corp.

Eric is the Global Head, Citizen Engagement at RIWI Corp., a global survey technology and predictive analytics firm based in Toronto. Eric leads global citizen research and ad-testing initiatives on politically-sensitive issues ranging from digital human rights and internet freedom, to refugees and SOGI minorities in every country in the world. Eric frequently speaks on leveraging innovation in citizen-generated data for increasing global social and development impact.

Eric has over 25 years’ experience in global insights generation and emerging technologies, including previously as President and co-owner of one of the world’s first companies to develop and apply online research methodologies. Eric holds a degree in International Political Science from the University of Western Ontario and an MBA from the Ivey Business School. He is the co-founder and past Chair of the Centre for Social Innovation, and past Chair of the Daily Bread Food Bank.