Agenda

Mr. Jaroslaw K. Ponder, Head of the Office for Europe at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) (Geneva, Switzerland), representing ITU in Europe and directing actions, projects, initiatives and experts groups targeting 46 countries of the Europe Region. His portfolio includes set of Regional Initiatives for Europe, designed by the European Member States and focusing on the ICT In frastructure, Digitization, Digital Inclusion, Accessibility, Innovation and Cybersecurity. Along the professional career, Mr. Ponder held official positions in the public sector and was a contributor to the legislative projects having the impact on the public policy. Since 2014 Mr. Ponder has been working for ITU holding diverse positions in the General Secretariat, Telecommunication Development Bureau, and Regional Presence, addressing complexity of information society development and digital transformation at national, regional, international level, including United Nations level. For several years he has managed ITU's work on the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process, leading towards the establishment of the annual WSIS Forum, WSIS Prizes, WSIS Stocktaking, others. 

Ms. Tuerk is Director of the Economic Cooperation and Trade Division (ECTD) at 
UNECE and leads the Division’s work across its four Sections: Cooperation and 
Partnerships, Innovative Policies Development, Market Access and Trade 
Facilitation. 
Prior to that, Ms. Tuerk acted as Chief of the Section on International Investment 
Agreements (IIAs) in UNCTAD’s Division on Investment and Enterprise (DIAE), 
where she led the Section's work across the three pillars of UNCTAD activities: 
research and analysis, capacity-building and consensus-building. Ms. Tuerk also 
coordinated the Section's contribution to other UNCTAD products, such as the joint 
UNCTAD/OECD monitoring of G20 countries' investment policy changes, the annual 
World Investment Report (WIR), and the biennial World Investment Forum (WIF), 
including key events such as Ministerial Roundtables. 
Ms. Tuerk’s earlier professional activities included functions in UNCTAD’s Division 
on International Trade and Commodities (DITC), covering e.g. WTO accessions and 
GATS negotiations, in the Geneva office of the Center for International 
Environmental Law (CIEL) and in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Ms. Tuerk 
holds a master’s degree from the World Trade Institute (WTI) in Bern, Switzerland, 
and both a degree in international management and a degree in law from the KarlFranzens Universität in Graz, Austria

Currently finishing her master's in Management of Digital Transformation of Organisations at HEC Montreal in Canada, she is researching the use and impact of artificial intelligence chatbots on access to justice. Overall, she is interested in how digital technologies can be used to address certain issues and contribute to the accomplishment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. She is also a Youth Delegate at UNITE 2030, following the Youth Delegate Program in the female changemaker track. Recently, she started a podcast called "Teching Time with Athéna" which aims to demystify tech and make it more accessible by hosting conversations with tech entrepreneurs. Finally, she is also an advocate for gender empowerment in tech, involved with Women in Digital Empowerment in Luxembourg (WIDE).

Romina Kostani holds the position of the Director of Innovation and e-Gov Sectorial IPA at the Albanian National Agency of Information Society. During the past couple of years, she has worked on the digitalization of public services, the development and promotion of the e-Albania e-Government Portal, interoperability of systems and open data, ICT innovation in public administration etc. She holds a MSc. and Bachelor Degree in “Information Systems/Business-Informatics" by the Faculty of Economy, a Master's degree in “EU Business Law" by the Faculty of Law, University of Tirana and has experience in university level teaching of information systems.

Talant Sultanov is the Chair and Co-Founder of the Kyrgyz Internet Society. He coordinates projects such as Community Internet Networks for rural areas, IlimBox.kg online school (listed among seven worldwide digital education initiatives by Thomson Reuters Foundation), digital literacy for youth and women in rural areas (Sanarip Insan), and cybersecurity for civil society (Tech4Society). Talant is a member of the UN Secretary General’s Multistakeholder Advisory Group for Internet Governance (UN IGF MAG). Talant has over 25 years of experience in finance, communications, and digitalization in public sector and in international organizations, including the World Bank, the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), and the World Affairs Council in San Francisco. He has served in the Kyrgyz Government as the Adviser to the Prime Minister in charge of the Taza Koom Digital Transformation Strategy and as the Director of Government Think Tank NISI. Prior to the government he was the CFO of the American University in Bishkek. Additionally, he served on boards of the Kyrgyz National TV and Radio Corporation, the Business Council of the Kyrgyz Parliament, the Bank of Asia, and Humo Microcredit Foundation in Tajikistan.

Ana Mickovska-Raleva is project coordinator at the Macedonian Civic Education Center from Skopje. She has decennial experience in policy review, analysis and evaluation in the areas of education, good governance, gender equality and human rights. Her current interests are: development of 21 century competences within students with a focus on: social and civic competence, digital competence and learning to learn. She holds a BA in Psychology and MPhil in Education.

Marijana Petrović is a Full Professor in the Department of Management and Economics at the University of Belgrade - Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, Serbia, where she works from 2004. She received BSc and MSc in 2003 and Ph.D. in 2011, with a thesis titled "Modelling telecommunications policy through the process of benchmarking". Her research interests include policy analysis and modelling in transport, communications and cross-cutting issues like climate change, sustainability, employability, smart specialization and gender equality.  Dr. Petrović has published three books and has authored numerous papers in journals (including Omega, Decision Support Systems, Government Information Quarterly, Applied Mathematical Modelling, Annals of Operations Research) as well as conference articles in her research field. She has worked with many national (ministries, national agencies, CSOs) and international organizations (including REC, SEETO, UNDP, RCC) in the field of policy analysis.

Note: Regional Environmental Centre (REC), South East Transport Observatory (SEETO), Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) and other international organizations in the field of policy analytical support.

A social entrepreneur with a multidisciplinary background in Human Rights Law, Social Anthropology, Public Health and Innovation.

She has more than 5 years of experience in tech startups,  6 years of experience working with CSOs and 7 years of experience in lecturing and research in Europe and Yerevan State Medical University.

Bojana Zorić is Senior Policy Analyst in the Regional Cooperation Council, where she manages the overall coordination activities on Common Regional Agenda (CRM) agenda, oversees and coordinates the Balkan Barometer editions on an annual basis and acts as the overall coordinator of the gender dimension within RCC, particularly in the area of women economic empowerment, labour markets and STEM. She is also responsible for maintaining the existing and building new partnerships with regional and international partners. Bojana holds Master’s degree in Russian philology and Pedagogy from the University of Zagreb and Master’s degree in European Union-Russia studies from the University of Tartu. She is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Masaryk University, with the primary focus on the security research of non-Western actors in the Western Balkans. Prior to joining RCC, Bojana worked on democracy building with political parties in the post-Soviet countries and in the private sector. With Croatian being her native language, she speaks fluently English, Russian and Spanish and is an independent user of French. 

Dr. G. Anthony Giannoumis is an action researcher that focuses on technology policy and practice. He is an internationally recognized expert in universal design of information and communication technology (ICT) and conducts state-of-the-art research on implementing universal design principles in practice. Anthony leads and participates in several large-scale research and innovation projects based in over 17 countries. Anthony is an Associate Professor of Universal Design of ICT at the Department of Computer Science at Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet). He maintains several international appointments including at the Harvard Law School Project on Disability at Harvard Law School, the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University, the Department of Science and Informatics at the University of Eduardo Mondlane, and the Department of Education at Roma Tre University. He works with the United Nations (UN) International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as the Vice Rapporteur for the subcommittee on ICT Accessibility and Access Coalition Liaison for EQUALS. He is founder and Chair of the Board for the Global Universal Design Commission Europe AS and MyGoverNext Oslo. He is a member of the board for the Global Universal Design Commission and the Gender Equality in Technology student organization. He has been a member of the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) Task Force​ on Diversity and Inclusion and was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship as part of the DREAM research network. Since 2014, Anthony has acted as a principal investigator for research and innovation projects with budgets totaling over nine million EUR. He maintains a 25% success rate in acquiring grants and external funding and has an average score of 10.7 out of 15 for proposals submitted to the European Union’s Horizon ​2020 program. He has authored over 30 peer-reviewed academic publications in leading international journals. He has accrued over 79 citations. Anthony has taught over 2,300 students and supervised 19 Master theses and one Ph.D. dissertation. He has also mentored over 18 startups, half of which have been led by women. Anthony has received awards from the UN, OsloMet, Cambridge University, and other foundations and associations. He regularly teaches courses and lectures around the world, appears frequently on national and international media, and maintains a strong presence on several social media platforms.

Manuel da Costa Cabral is a Senior Consultant for International Connectivity and Submarine Cables in the General Direction of Information and Innovation of ANACOM. He was a Portuguese Representative to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and to the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT).Manuel was the Chair of COM-ITU (Committee for ITU Policy) & CEPT Co-President. He was also a Policy Officer at the European Commission (DG Information Society and Media). Manuel holds a business degree from Católica-Lisbon Business School and a Post-Graduation in Communication and Multimedia Management. Specialties: Electronic communications, External affairs, European Institutions, Regulation, Economics

Dr. Ingrid Teich is a Biologist with a strong background in Applied Spatial Statistics. Over the last 15 years she´s worked as a Researcher in the field of Ecology and Evolution and as a Professor of Biostatistics. She currently works as a Geospatial and Land Degradation specialist for the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT), supporting countries to achieve their SDGs targets. For this, she co-develops and provides geospatial tools for decision makers to better allocate resources, monitor and prioritize sites for interventions, using new technologies and bottom-up approaches based on local knowledge. She also works for FAO GEF Unit in the design and implementation of GEF projects in Central Asia, Latin America and Africa.  

Norbert Pfaffinger is IT Business analyst at the Environment Agency Austria since 2005. He works on national and international e-Government solutions, with a focus on interoperability, electronic data interchange and standardisation. He is a long-term contributor to UN/CEFACT and serves as coordinator of UN/CEFACT’s environment domain. Norbert earned his master’s degree in Technical Mathematics and Computer Science at the Vienna University of Technology.

Ms. Natalia Mochu holds bachelor’s degree in mathematics and informatics and master’s degree in information technology from the State University of Moldova. Before joining the ITU in February 2020, Natalia occupied the post of Senior Manager for Global Stakeholder Engagement for Eastern Europe and Central Asia at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). In 2012-2018 she worked as Deputy Head of Laboratory at the Radio Research and Development Institute (NIIR) in Moscow. From 2006 to 2012 Natalia worked for the Executive Committee of the Regional Commonwealth in the field of Communications (RCC), in particular she was the RCC Executive Committee Deputy Director General in 2008-2012. Natalia started her professional career as Specialist of the Ministry of Information Development of the Republic of Moldova in 2002.  Natalia participated in ITU high-level conferences and meetings, including ITU Plenipotentiary Conferences, Councils and Sectoral Conferences; contributed to the activities of RCC working bodies, European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations, as well as ICANN, RIPE NCC and other relevant organizations.

Maria Rosaria CECCARELLI Chief, Trade Facilitation, UNECE Maria Rosaria Ceccarelli has more than 23 years of experience in Trade & Transport Facilitation and electronic Business within UNECE where she is Chief of the Trade Facilitation Section. She is responsible among other of the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and electronic Business (UN/CEFACT). She manages a group of more than 1000 experts working on Trade Facilitation and eBusiness projects to produce Trade Facilitation Recommendations and eBusiness standards, that can foster growth in international trade and related services. Under her supervision UN/CEFACT is working at the moment on more than 25 projects on Trade Facilitation and eBusiness across the all value chain including projects on Blockchain and Internet-of-Things. In her former position in the UNECE’s Transport Division, where she has been working for 12 years, she has organized and delivered training to promote the development of border-crossing and transport facilitation and provided advisory services on customs questions affecting transport