Dr Cosmas Luckyson Zavazava took office as Director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on 1 January 2023. With more than 30 years in telecommunications, including over 20 years in ITU’s Development Sector, Dr Zavazava has promoted and implemented impactful information and communication technology projects around the world.

Prior to his election as BDT Director, he served as ITU’s Chief of Partnerships for Digital Development, overseeing development-related projects, strategic partnerships, and resource mobilization between 2019 and 2022, while launching new initiatives that have boosted the engagement of industry, private-sector, and academia members in ITU’s work. From 2010 until 2019, he was Chief of the Projects and Knowledge Management, responsible for ITU’s project portfolio, statistics, capacity building, and emergency telecommunications activities, as well as coordinating special assistance to least developed countries (LDCs), landlocked developing countries (LLDCs), and small island developing states (SIDS). Previously, as ITU’s Chief of Projects and Initiatives, he oversaw development projects focused on gender, youth, and people with special needs, along with capacity building, emergency telecommunications, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and e-waste management. Earlier, Dr Zavazava headed the Republic of Zimbabwe’s Government Telecommunications Agency and served as a senior diplomat. He also taught MBA classes at the UK’s Nottingham Trent University.

Throughout his career, he has focused on closing the digital and skills divide and accelerating digital transformation to achieve socio-economic development for all.

Dr Zavazava holds a PhD in Multilateral Trade from Business School Lausanne (Switzerland), and a Master of Laws degree in Telecommunications and Information Technology from the University of Strathclyde (UK), as well as a Master’s in International Relations from Webster University (US), and an MBA from the University of Zimbabwe. He also holds a Bachelor’s in Business Administration and diplomas in Telecommunications and Systems Engineering.

Mr Tomas Lamanauskas took office as Deputy Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union on 1 January 2023.

His 25-year experience in telecoms and digital policy, regulation and strategy includes positions of Member of the Board, CEO and Deputy General Director of national communications regulatory authorities in Europe, the Middle East and Caribbean, and senior government advisor on information and communications technologies policy in the Pacific. He also served as Head of Corporate Strategy as well as Special Advisor for Crisis Strategy (COVID-19) and Partnership Initiatives for the International Telecommunication Union, and Group Director Public Policy at VEON, a multinational technology and communications company.

Tomas has Master’s degrees in Public Administration (Harvard), Leadership and Strategy (London Business School), Telecommunications Regulation and Policy (The University of the West Indies) and Law (Vilnius University).

Mr Amandeep Singh Gill was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General as his Envoy on Technology in June 2022 and joined the Secretary-General’s senior leadership team as Under-Secretary-General in mid-July 2022.

A thought leader on digital technology, Mr Gill has a deep knowledge of digital technologies coupled with a solid understanding of how to leverage the digital transformation responsibly and inclusively for progress on the Sustainable Development Goals.

Before taking up the position as Envoy on Technology, Mr Gill was the Chief Executive Officer of the International Digital Health and Artificial Intelligence Research Collaborative (I-DAIR) project, based at the Graduate Institute, Geneva.

In 2018/19, Mr Gill was Executive Director and co-lead of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation. Between 2016 and 2018, he was India’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

Mr Gill holds a PhD in international learning from King’s College London, a Bachelor of Technology in electronics and electrical communications from Panjab University, Chandigarh, and an Advanced Diploma in French history and language from Geneva University. He is fluent in English, French, Hindi and Punjabi. He is married to Ashma, an educationist, and has a son and a daughter.

Honourable Emma Inamutila Theofelus is a young, 26-year-old Namibian woman who serves as a Member of Parliament and the Deputy Minister of Information and Communication Technology in the Republic of Namibia.
Before her appointment, Honourable Emma had always been policy adjacent and was a Youth Activist around issues of gender, children’s rights, and sustainable development and against youth unemployment. She served as the Deputy Speaker of the Youth Parliament of the Republic of Namibia, Board Member of the National Council of Higher Education and the Junior Mayor of the City of Windhoek amongst other roles. Honourable Emma has been awarded the Laureate in the Individual Category of the United Nations Population Award, 2022 and serves as a board member of the Leadership Council of Africa REACH and council member of Nala Feminist Movement.

Honourable Emma holds an LLB Honours Degree from the University of Namibia where she served as secretary General of the Student Union; a diploma in Business Management and a diploma in Afrikan Feminism and Gender Studies from the University of South Africa. She is currently a Master’s Candidate in ICT Policy and Regulation at the University of Witwatersrand and is preparing to sit for the bar exams at the Board of Legal Education in Namibia.

Honourable Theofelus is recognised as the BBC 100 Most Influential Women in the World 2021; named as Avance Media 100 Most Influential Young Africans in 2020, 2021 & 2022 and named as Avance Media 100 Most Influential African Women 2020 & 2021. She is further named as the New African 100 Most influential Africans of 2020; Reputation Poll 100 Most Reputable Africans 2020; named as the Emerging African Young Leader by the African Leadership Magazine 2022 and nominated for the One Young World Politician of the Year Award 2020 and in 2021.

Honourable Emma is regularly invited as a speaker at international fora in the areas of politics, technology, law, sustainable development, climate change, education and health.

A career diplomat since 1983, H.E. Ms Aurora Díaz-Rato Revuelta holds a law degree from Complutense University and a diploma in European law from the College of Europe in Bruges, as well as a diploma in international relations from the Diplomatic School of Madrid.

She served at the Directorate for Foreign Policy for Iberoamerica (1983-1985) and as Director-General for Cooperation with Iberoamerica at the AECID (2004-2008). She also served as Minister Counselor at the Embassy of Spain in San Jose, Costa Rica (1987-1991), and later as Ambassador of Spain in Montevideo (2008-2011). In addition, she worked in Brussels at the Spanish Representation to the EU, responsible for Latin American affairs and human rights (2013-2017).

In European affairs, she served in the Secretariat of State for European Affairs in various capacities. She was an advisory member from 1986 to 1987, Deputy Director-General for Political Affairs from 1993 to 1996, Deputy Director for General EU Affairs from 2001 to 2003, and Head of Institutional Affairs in 2011. From 2017 to 2020, she served as Ambassador in Bern, and since then she has been the Permanent Representative of Spain to the UN and other international organizations based in Geneva.

Dr Claire Melamed is the CEO of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. This growing network brings together several hundred members — governments, private sector, and civil society — to harness and leverage data and data technology towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. She was previously Managing Director of the Overseas Development Institute, and in 2014, she worked in the office of the UN Secretary General, writing the report of the Independent Expert Advisory Group on the Data Revolution, “A World That Counts”. Claire is based in London and heads up a global team based in ten countries. Claire is an Affiliated Researcher at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge and serves on a number of Boards and advisory groups for institutions including the UK Office of National Statistics Data Science Campus, Full Fact, and Mo Ibrahim Foundation Governance Index.

Ms Ruaa Alshehhi works in the UAE Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre. She graduated from the University of Nottingham with a BA Hons in International Media & Communications Studies, and recently graduated from Mohammad Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) Executive Program. Ruaa initially joined the organization as part of the Digital Enabling Sector and recently transitioned to the SDGs team. She also holds a position as a member of the UN Regional Hub for Big Data in the United Arab Emirates.

Dr Rami Amin leads several initiatives at The World Bank and in collaboration with the IFC, developing insight to inform clients and Bank-financed operations on how to accelerate digital transformation, investment, and economic growth. His advisory work focuses on 5G, AI, cloud and data infrastructure, technology adoption, and developing innovative solutions to close digital divides through affordable financing. He also co-leads the World Bank’s Secretariat for Mainstreaming Digital and Disruptive Technologies, manages its thought leadership series on Digital Development, and was appointed The World Bank’s IEG MAR focal point on Mobilizing Technology for Development. Outside of the Bank he participates in various multi-stakeholder working groups including the UN-Interagency WG on AI, GlobalPolicy.AI, the Global Forum for Law, Justice and Development, and IEEE’s Advisory Committee for Connecting the Unconnected.

Prior to joining The World Bank he coordinated Oxford University’s leading research center for interdisciplinary collaboration, providing early-stage funding for projects considered to be radically innovative with high-impact potential. Prior to this he worked for the ECIR Initiative at MIT, the Shorenstein Center at Harvard, and was also a Google Public Policy Fellow.

Rami was awarded a PhD / DPhil from Oxford, an MPP from Harvard, and was a policy and international affairs fellow at Princeton.

 

Mr Bernard Banda is currently Director for Economic Regulation and Consumer Protection at the Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority, the regulator of Information and Communication Technologies in Zambia. He is also the Chair of the Expert Group of Telecommunication Indicators at the International Telecommunications Union. Bernard has extensive experience in research design and implementation, policy analysis and data analytics. In the last few years, he has led several national demand and supply side surveys in Zambia and is actively involved in a number of regional initiatives in Africa.

Mr Alexandre Barbosa, Head of the Regional Center for Studies on the Development of the Information Society (Cetic.br), linked to the Brazilian Network Information Center (NIC.br). He is responsible for research projects to produce ICT-related data for the monitoring of national policies and international goals, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He coordinates capacity building programs in survey methodologies in Latin America and Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa. Mr Barbosa is a Member of Consultive Committee of the Brazilian Census (Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics) and member of the Board of Councelors of the Brazilian Center for Innovation in Education (CIEB). Chair of the Expert Group on ICT Households indicators (EGH) from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) from 2012 to 2017, expert at the OECD working party on Measurement and Analysis of the Digital Economy and working party on Artificial Intelligence Governance.

Mr Barbosa holds a PhD degree in Business Administration from Getulio Vargas Foundation (Brazil), a Master Degree in Business Administration from Bradford University (UK), a MSc Degree in Computer Science from Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil) and a BSc Degree in Electrical Engineering from Catholic University (Brazil) and conducted postdoctoral research at HEC Montreal (Canada).

Mr Fredrik Eriksson is a Data Scientist of the ICT Data and Analytics Division of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) with more than 15 years of experience in quantitative analysis from international organisations and across the private sector. Fredrik has previously been responsible for ITU’s data collection on ICT household statistics, and re-joined ITU in 2021 to focus on ITU’s work on big data after spending a few years in the private sector building a Data Science team at KPMG Sweden. Prior to first joining ITU, he also worked as Quantitative Analyst in the finance sector and spent eight years at the OECD analysing international finance flows for economic development. Fredrik holds a Master’s degree in Statistics from Uppsala University in Sweden.

Mr Torbjörn Fredriksson heads the E-commerce and Digital Economy Branch at the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The Branch’s work covers the Digital Economy Report, the eTrade for all initiative, eTrade for Women, the E-commerce Week, various capacity-building activities, and the Intergovernmental Group of Experts on E-commerce and the Digital Economy. Mr Fredriksson joined the UN in 2000.

 

Thierry Geiger is Senior Economist and Head of the Data and Analytics Division at the International Telecommunication Union. Prior to joining ITU in 2020, Mr Geiger spent 15 years at the World Economic Forum in various roles. As Head of research and benchmarking within the Centre for the New Economy and Society, he was in charge of several  benchmarking studies and initiatives, including the flagship Global Competitiveness Report and Global Gender Gap Report series, and led the development of a dozen of composite indicators. He led the Centre’s competitiveness practice for Asia and the Pacific and was responsible for technical assistance and capacity-building activities. Mr Geiger also worked for the World Trade Organization and Caterpillar Inc, and co-founded Procab Studio, a Geneva-based IT company. A Swiss national, Mr Geiger holds a BA in Economics from the University of Geneva, an MA in Economics from the University of British Columbia, and was a Fellow of the World Economic Forum’s Global Leadership Programme.

Ms Alana Gorospe Ramos is currently Chief of the Plans and Policy Monitoring and Evaluation Division (PPMED) of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) of the Philippines. Ms Ramos oversees ICT data generation and consolidation in support of the DICT’s ICT policy and planning agenda.

Her Team has pioneered the conduct of the first Philippine National ICT Household Survey, dedicated solely to ICT indicators and aligned with the ITU Core Household indicators. Recently, they had just completed, with the Philippine Statistics Authority, another landmark national survey on women and ICT development.

Alana holds degrees in Anthropology and Information Studies from the University of the Philippines where she also lectures on ICT for development.

With over 25 years in the Mobile Industry, Mr Graham has worked for a range of companies from the large infrastructure vendors to small start ups and has worked with networks across the world. Barry now heads up Opensignal’s Market Impact team, responsible for both public reporting, and our engagements with regulators and other industry bodies worldwide.

Ms Linda Kambale works as the Economic Regulation Manager at the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority. Ms Kambale has over 10 years of extensive experience in the field of competition and economic regulation and research. She has been instrumental in designing, planning, and collecting ICT and digital services statistics in Malawi both on the demand and supply sides. She has actively been involved in the works of the ITU expert groups on statistics. Ms. Kambale holds master’s degrees in Agricultural and Applied Economics, and Business Administration.

Dr Daniel Kardefelt-Winther leads UNICEF’s research on Children’s Digital Engagement and Protection, at the Global Office of Research and Foresight. He works at the intersection of child rights and digital technology and has many years of experience in designing, implementing and managing cross-national, comparative evidence generation projects involving children and adults. In his role at UNICEF, Daniel manages the Global Kids Online and Disrupting Harm projects, implementing household surveys and qualitative research with children in more than 30 low-middle income countries. Daniel holds degrees in Computer Science (BSc) and Psychology (BSc) from Stockholm University, as well as in Management (MSc) and Media & Communications (PhD) from the London School of Economics. He also holds a post-doctoral research position in the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute.

Mr Daniel Ker is an Economist-Statistician in the E-commerce and Digital Economy branch of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). His work is focussed on measuring aspects of the digital economy including e-commerce and digital trade. Daniel is an author of the IMF-OECD-UNCTAD-WTO Handbook on Measuring Digital Trade as well as the recent UNCTAD report Measuring the Value of E-commerce. Before joining UNCTAD in 2021, Daniel spent 5 years at the OECD working on topics including measuring the digital transformation and R&D statistics, as well as the G20 Roadmap toward a common framework for measuring the digital economy. Prior to that, Daniel worked at the United Kingdom Office for National Statistics in labour market statistics, National Accounts development, classifications, and as co-Deputy Director for Public Sector Statistics.

Mr Didier Kla, Director of Orange Business and Broadband, is a born leader and ardent advocate of technology for the benefit of business development, organizations, and civil society. Passionate about information and communication technologies with more than twenty years of experience under his belt, he is one of the pioneers behind the promotion of the internet and free software in Africa, particularly in Côte d’Ivoire. He has also been an integral part of the deployment of various technologies such as 3G, 4G, ADSL, and Fiber in Côte d’Ivoire.

An expert of the International Telecommunication Union since 2007, he has organized and led several international seminars on ICT development and telecommunications network security. Among these events is the first African regional conference on cybersecurity in 2008 in Yamoussoukro. This conference, which he initiated, was organized in partnership with the African Union, La Francophonie, and the former Telecommunications Agency of Côte d’Ivoire, now known as the Telecommunications Regulatory Agency of Côte d’Ivoire (ARTCI).

Mr Didier Kla holds an engineering degree and, eager for knowledge, has completed several training courses in the fields of Management, Leadership, Cybersecurity, and digital transformation from various recognized institutions such as ESSEC Paris, etc. He was first the Technical Director of Orange Côte d’Ivoire for more than 10 years before taking over the management of the Orange Business and Broadband division, which has a workforce of about 200 employees. This division is the section of Orange Côte d’Ivoire responsible for the development and sale of innovative solutions for both the enterprise market and the general public.

Dr Emmanuel Letouzé is the Director of Data-Pop Alliance, an international NGO he co-founded in 2013 with the MIT Media Lab and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, where he holds visiting academic appointments. He works on the applications and implications of data, Big Data, statistics, digital technology and AI for human development, humanitarian action and democracy. He holds a BA and MA from Sciences Po Paris, an MA from Columbia University where he was a Fulbright Scholar, and a PhD from UC Berkeley.

Mr Steve MacFeely is the Director of Data and Analytics at the World Health Organization, based in Geneva, Switzerland and Adjunct Professor at the Department of Economics at University College Cork in Ireland. He is co-chair of the Committee of the Chief Statisticians of the UN System (CCS-UN) and of the Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities (CCSA), chairs the Advisory Boards of the Statistical Journal of the IAOS, and of the International Statistical Literacy Project (ISLP), and the UN Productive Capacity Index Technical Advisory Board. Before joining WHO, Steve was Chief Statistician at UNCTAD. Prior to joining the UN, he was the Deputy Director-General at the Central Statistics Office (CSO) in Ireland.

 

Ms Esperanza Magpantay is the Senior Statistician of the ICT Data and Analytics division of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), where she has been working since December 2000. She is responsible for the collection, harmonization, and dissemination of ICT statistics. Ms Magpantay is the ITU’s representative to the Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development and its Steering Committee, the UN Inter-agency Expert Group on SDG Indicators and the UN Committee of Experts on Big Data and Data Science for Official Statistics (UN-CEBD) where she currently leads the Task Team on mobile phone big data. She has represented ITU in international meetings including the UN Statistical Commission, the UN Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities (CCSA), the UN World Data Forum (UNWDF) and other international and regional events giving presentations and trainings on ICT statistics. Before joining ITU, she worked for 7 years at the International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva as a statistical officer. Ms Magpantay holds a master’s degree in Business Analytics and Big Data from IE University in Madrid, Spain, and Bachelor of Science in Statistics from the University of the Philippines.

Syeda Marufa Shaki is the Deputy Director of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics where she works as Project Director of the Measuring ICT Access and Use by Households and Individuals project. She currently works as a focal point officer of the upcoming project Measuring District Wise ICT Access and Use by Households and Individuals. She has been working in the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics since 2012 where she originally joined as a Statistical Officer.

Mr Nathan Menton is a statistician in the ICT Data and Analytics Division of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecommunication Development Bureau where he focuses on the measurement of ICT indicators through household surveys. His work includes managing ICT data collection through country questionnaires and developing statistical models to estimate key ICT indicators such as individual Internet use and mobile phone ownership. Before joining ITU, Nathan worked as a statistician with the UN Economic Commission for Europe and the UN Statistical Division where he coordinated international data collection and analysis on transport, demography, and national accounts at various points. Nathan holds a master’s degree in statistical science from George Mason University.

Amit Misra is a Principal Data and Applied Scientist at Microsoft’s AI For Good Lab, where he works in a variety of areas, including leveraging Microsoft telemetry for measuring internet connectivity, causal inference via time series forecasting, and exploring use cases for LLMs inside and outside of Microsoft. Prior to joining the AI for Good Lab, he worked on a variety of projects across Microsoft, and also built pricing optimization models at a real estate company called OpenDoor. Prior to his time in the technology industry, he obtained his PhD in Astronomy and Astrobiology at the University of Washington.

Trevor Monroe is a Senior Program Manager with the Development Economics Data Group. Trevor leads programs that put modern data products and partnerships to work for development. He led the “Innovations in Big Data Analytics” program that accelerated data innovation across research and development operations. At the World Bank, Trevor has also worked in corporate, knowledge and operational departments.

Prior to the World Bank, Trevor held professional services and analyst roles at Development Gateway, Progressive Policy Institute, Vital Wave Consulting, and Lucent Technologies. Trevor holds a Master’s Degree in International Economics from the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California San Diego, and lives with his family in Washington, DC.

 

As a trailblazer in the field of ICT statistics, Ms Linah Ngumba spearheads this sector at the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, the National Statistics Office (NSO). She handles ICT-related research and analysis in the organization. Ms Ngumba was instrumental in establishing the ICT statistics division, introducing the Economic Survey report, orchestrating ICT enterprise and public institution surveys, and integrating an ICT module in the integrated household budget surveys and the 2019 Population and Household Census. Currently, she chairs the International Telecommunication Union’s Expert Group on ICT Household Indicators. Ms Ngumba hold master’s degrees in the fields of Communications Management and Economics, in addition to her bachelor’s degree in economics and Statistics.

Ms Sanghani’s experience includes DNS management for DEMON Internet, Provisioning Engineer at Level 3, Senior Operations Engineer at FLAG Telecom and Reliance Globalcom where she was involved from the beginning to build the FLAG IP network. In 2011 Bijal moved from an operational role to managing the Euro-IX operations.

Euro-IX is a non-profit membership association for Internet Exchange Points (XPs). In her role she brings the members together to share ideas, best practises, experiences on technical, commercial and regulatory matters, and works on other IXP related projects such as the IXP{DB} (IXP Database), The Peering Toolbox and others to help promote and support IXPs.

Bijal has been involved with the Peering and Interconnect Community since 2003, she’s been a RIPE NCC Services Working Group Co-chair since 2005 and served on various Program Committee during this time. Bijal also served on the PeeringDB Board as a Director from 2017 to 2023.

 

Mr Sarr holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Poitiers University in France and a Telecommunications Engineer Diploma from the Polytechnic Institute of Dakar. With over 17 years of telecom engineering experience, he has successfully managed the technical aspects of many IT projects for telecom regulators. Mr Sarr has worked as a telecom engineer and/or technical supervisor in numerous countries across the globe.

 

Mr Fabio Senne is Survey Project Coordinator at the Regional Center for Studies on the Development of the Information Society (Cetic.br), linked to the Brazilian Network Information Center (NIC.br). PhD degree in Political Science from the University of São Paulo (Brazil), a Master Degree in Communication from University of Brasília (Brazil) and a BSc Degree in Social Sciences from the University of São Paulo (Brazil).

Ms Julie Ssali is Manager of Mobile Forecasting and Modelling at GSMA Intelligence, specialising in core mobile networks and services. As a region specialist for Africa and Latin America, she provides market insights that covers 5G, next-generation technology and digital financial services in emerging markets.

Andy Tatem is Professor of Spatial Demography and Epidemiology at the University of Southampton and is the Director of WorldPop (www.worldpop.org), leading a group of 30 researchers and data scientists. He is interested in how populations, their characteristics and their dynamics can be mapped at high resolution across low and middle-income countries. His research has led to pioneering approaches to the use and integration of satellite, survey, cell phone and census data to map the distributions and movement patterns of vulnerable populations for disease, disaster and development applications. He runs international collaborations with national governments, UN agencies and data providers, and leads multiple research and operational projects funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, World Bank, GAVI, Clinton Health Access Initiative and others.

Mr Dániel Vértesy is an economist at the ICT Data and Analytics division of the International Telecommunication Union. His work focuses on measuring and analysing digital development and the affordability of ICT services in particular. Previously, he coordinated research projects at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission and was a research fellow at the United Nations University in Maastricht (UNU-MERIT).
His publications cover innovation system dynamics and technological change, the aerospace industry and the economic impacts of AI inventions. He has supported international organizations (including EU institutions, OECD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UNECA, WIPO) with developing monitoring tools and statistically coherent indicator frameworks.

He holds a Ph.D. in Innovation Studies and Development from Maastricht University and UNU-MERIT, a Ph.D. in Economics and an MA in International Relations from the Corvinus University of Budapest.