Sulyna Abdullah
Chief of the Digital Knowledge Hub Department, International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

Biography
Sulyna Abdullah is the Chief of the Digital Knowledge Hub Department in the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). She was formerly Chief Officer of Corporate Strategy and Chief Transformation Officer at the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, where she was for almost two decades. Before ITU, she had a short stint at Netflix. Sulyna is an Advocate and Solicitor of the Malaysian Bar.

Mr Bernard Banda
EGTI Chair
Manager for Policy and Research , Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA)

Biography
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 Bernard Banda
EGTI Chair
Manager for Policy and Research , Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA)

Biography
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 Iñigo Herguera
Associate Profesor in Economics , Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Spain

Biography
Iñigo Herguera is an Associate Professor in economics at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain) and has a number of publications in international refereed journals. His research field is industrial organization, anti-trust and regulation. He has been a consultant in anti-trust cases and regulation working both for private corporations as for regulators and public institutions (enery regulator, European Commission).

He holds a degree in Economics from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, a Diplom in European Studies from the Universitaet des Saarlandes and a PhD in Economics from the European University Institute. He has worked at the telecommunications regulatory commission in Spain and participated and chaired several international expert groups on telecommunication and ICT indicators, as Chair of the Expert Group on ICT/Telecom Indicators (ITU) and Chair of Expert Group on Benchmarking (Board of European Regulators for Electronic Communications, BEREC).

Iñigo has worked as consultant for the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as well as for a number of telecommunications regulatory authorities around the globe on issues from design of indicators and collection for digital policies monitoring, to regulatory issues and trends in the telecom/ ICT industries (Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Jamaica, East Africa Communications Organization, Asian Development Bank, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean- CEPAL).

 

Michael Minges
Digital Inclusion Research Lead, World Benchmarking Alliance

Biography
Michael Minges is the World Benchmarking Alliance Digital Inclusion Research Lead, guiding the methodology, evaluation and ranking of 200 keystone tech companies. His experience includes consultancy assignments with international organizations, assessing countries in areas including ICT infrastructure, e-government and e-commerce. He previously worked at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) leading the market research unit. He has authored numerous reports on digital development and has an MBA in Information Systems Technology from George Washington University in Washington DC.

Ms Bijal Sanghani
Managing Director , Euro-IX
United Kingdom

Biography
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.

 

Milton Kaoru Kashiwakura
Director of Special Projects and Development , Brazilian Network Information Center
NIC.br

Biography
Milton Kaoru Kashiwakura is Director of Special Projects and Development of the Brazilian Network Information Center - NIC.br (http://nic.br), non-profit civil entity that implements the decisions and projects designed by the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (http://cgi. br); assistant professor at the Pontificie Catholic University of São Paulo and Latin America and the Caribbean Internet Exchange Association (LAC-IX) representative at Internet Exchange Federation (IX-F). He holds a master's degree in electronic engineering from the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo, where he graduated in electrical engineering. At NIC.br, he is responsible for projects aimed at improving the quality of the Internet in Brazil and the dissemination of its use, with special attention to its technical and infrastructure aspects, some projects: IX.br (https://ix.br/ ), OpenCDN(https://opencdn.nic.br/), (IPv6 (https://ipv6.br/), NTP (https://ntp.br/), SIMET (https://simet.nic .br and https://medicoes.nic.br/), among others.

Mr Fredrik Eriksson
Data Scientist, ICT Data and Analytics Division
International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

Biography
Fredrik Eriksson is a Data Scientist of the ICT Data and Analytics Division of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) with nearly 20 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 building a Data Science team in the private sector. Prior to first joining ITU, he also worked 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 Thierry Geiger
Senior Economist and Head of the ICT Data and Analytics Division , International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

Biography
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.

Cinthya Arias Leitón
Manager of the General Markets Directorate , Superintendence of Telecommunications (SUTEL), Costa Rica

Biography
Manager of the General Markets Directorate with eleven years of experience in the Superintendence of Telecommunications (SUTEL) from Costa Rica, where she has had- among other responsibilities-, the creation and establishment a system of sectorial indicators since the beginning of the opening of the Costa Rican market to competition. As part of her work at Sutel, she has directed important and diverse work teams in the field of access and interconnection, the application of the sectorial competition regime, economic studies and analysis and development of new regulation.  More recently, she has been involved in the definition of strategies and of the regulatory body as Coordinator of the institutional regulatory Agenda.

She has also experience on market monitoring and market studies for the Costa Rican export products and services.

She is also alternate Commissioner at Coprocom, which is the national authority of competition in Costa Rica.

Economist and Master in Business Administration, Senior Management and Telecommunications studies.

Mr Bernard Banda
EGTI Chair
Manager for Policy and Research , Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA)

Biography

Mr Oliver Füg
Senior Advisor on Digital Infrastructure and Regulation , Telefónica

Biography
Oliver Füg is a Senior Advisor on Digital Infrastructure and Regulation with Telefónica. He previously was Director of Competition and Regulation at the european competitive telecommunications association (ecta) and worked for a number of years as a Legal and Policy Officer for DG CONNECT at the European Commission. He has more than 15 years of experience in convergent regulation and been involved in several EU-wide comparative projects on aspects of competition, telecommunications and media, including the lead on one of the key studies underpinning the 2018 new EU legislative framework on electronic communications. He has also assisted the Director-General of DG CONNECT’s participation in World Economic Forum work on the future of the media.

Mr Winston Oyadomari
Senior Survey Analyst, Regional Center for Studies on the Development of the Information Society (CETIC.br)
Brazil

Biography
Winston Oyadomari (he/him) is an expert on survey methodology with 15 years of experience in the private and non-profit sectors and a contributor to EGH since its inception, having led several subgroups. Currently, he is a researcher at CETIC.br (Regional Center for Studies on the Development of the Information Society), with special attention to innovative survey methods. He holds degree on Public Administration from Fundação Getúlio Vargas São Paulo (FGV-SP) and speaks Portuguese, English, Spanish, and Italian.

Mr Bernard Banda
EGTI Chair
Manager for Policy and Research , Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA)

Biography
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.

Ms Linah Ngumba
EGH Chair
Senior Statistician , Kenya National Bureau of Statistics

Biography
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 Linah Ngumba
EGH Chair
Senior Statistician, Kenya National Bureau of Statistics

Biography
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.

Camilo Andrés Mendéz
Head of International Affairs, National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE)
Colombia

Biography
Camilo Méndez is the Head of International Affairs at DANE (the National Statistics Office in Colombia) since April 2020. Mr. Méndez holds an M.A in Policy and Development in the Global South from Sciences Po Bordeaux and a B.A in International Relations from Universidad del Rosario. Before joining DANE, Mr. Méndez served as an advisor at the International Cooperation Directorate of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia and was a Lecturer at the Faculty of International, Political and Urban Studies of the Universidad del Rosario.