Connecting the world and beyond

Biographies

Bilel Jamoussi Chief of Study Group Department, TSB, ITU Tunisian born, Dr. Bilel Jamoussi is Chief of the Study Groups Department of ITU Standardization Bureau in Geneva Switzerland. Since 2010, he has been leading the bureau’s standards making activities into a new era characterized by rapid convergence and the need for increased collaboration with vertical sectors and partnership between developed and developing countries. Prior to 2010, Jamoussi worked for a Telecommunication equipment and solutions provider for 15 years in Canada and then in the United States where he held several leadership positions and was granted 22 US patents in diverse areas including packet, optical, wireless, and quality of service. He holds a BSc, MSc and PhD degrees in Computer Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University, USA. He is fluent in Arabic, French, and English and speaks some Spanish and German.
Paul Kavavu Head of M-PESA, New Business Ventures, Safaricom Mr. Paul Kavavu possess a wealth of experience for 18 years that spans across Finance, Strategy, customer operations, banking and Mobile money. He is currently the Head of M-PESA New Business Ventures at Safaricom Kenya responsible for evolution of M-PESA beyond mobile money service provider to a fully-fledged financial services provider. This involves fostering innovation culture and developing strategic business partnerships to drive financial inclusion and empowerment agenda. He pioneered the most current innovation on M-PESA; launch of the first overdraft facility on mobile “dubbed’’ Fuliza which allows customers to complete M-PESA transactions within the payment context when they have insufficient funds. He has been instrumental to the growth of M-PESA business with strong bias on formulation of business strategy and execution. He is credited with the launch various customer and merchant digital micro credit products using non-traditional data for credit profiling in partnership with various banking institutions. Some of the products include M-KOPA, MShwari, KCB M-PESA, Tala, Branch, bloom financing etc. Paul holds a Bachelor of Commerce Degree (Accounting Option) from the University of Nairobi and is also a Certified Public Accountant of Kenya, CPA (K).
Sebastian Valdecantos Director of Co-operatives Development, INAES Sebastian Valdecantos is Director of Co-operatives Development at INAES, the government agency that promotes and regulates the activities of co-operatives in Argentina. Among the main policies that Sebastian is working on to foster financial development in the social and solidarity economy are the construction of a guarantee fund and the development of a digital payment system for co-operatives and their environment. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics (Université Paris Sorbonne-Cité), where he studied monetary systems through the lenses of stock-flow consistent models. He worked for four years as Economic Affairs Officer at UN-ECLAC, where he was in charge of the analysis of the macroeconomic vulnerabilities of Latin American countries. In parallel, he co-founded the projects Moneda PAR and Circular. Moneda PAR is a mutual credit system built on Blockchain that allows communities to create their own monetary systems on the basis of the logic of reciprocity. Circular is a technological platform whereby communities can create their own monetary systems seamlessly and at a very low cost. Sebastian’s activities, both at the public level and in the field of the grassroots economy, intend to provide communities with the tools they require to become more autonomous and resilient.
Diana Wanjuhi Software engineer, Tala Diana Wanjuhi is a software engineer and tinkerer. Interested in the intersection of computers and finance, she is currently working to build a financial system that works for everyone at Tala. She has previously worked on payment APIs connecting banks, mobile money systems and card processors across Africa.