Agenda

Rebecca is a techie, writer and researcher. She is currently a community engagement fellow at
Mozilla, working towards building an open voice dataset in Kiswahili to promote voice
technology. She is working on establishing and supporting diverse Kiswahili language and tech
communities along axes of gender, age, regional origin, accent and vernacular usage towards
building an open voice dataset in Kiswahili. Before joining Mozilla, Rebecca has been an
Internet Society fellow, an Afrisig fellow, a Google Policy fellow, a national geographic explorer
and a digital rights program officer at Paradigm Initiative. Rebecca is also an enthusiast of digital
inclusion and media information literacy.She is also the co-founder of the Arusha Women school
of Internet governance which she coordinates at Kuza steam generation,an ngo promoting digital
innovation and STEM

Holly Helton-Anishinaabeqwa, descendant of St. Croix Band of Lake Superior Chippewa from Wisconsin, United States of America, and a member of the Marten clan. As an indigenous youth growing up, I was never taught my language, due to the acts of assimilation and threat of boarding schools in my great-grandmother’s day. Today, my family is trying to revitalize the use of Anishinaabe in our household. 

My Anishinaabe name is “Ogichidaakwe”, which means “Woman Who Speaks for the People”. I currently work for the Global Indigenous Languages Caucus to help Indigenous communities to preserve/revitalize their languages by setting up language programs. I’m currently learning my language Anishinaabe, as well as teaching my two sons. I’m a graduate of UW-Milwaukee with a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology with an emphasis on International relations and Indigenous Issues and working towards completing a master’s degree.

Alfonso Hernandez Maya has over 17 years of experience, both academic and professional, in the telecommunications sector. He is in charge of the General Coordination of User Policy at the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT). 
 
His experience within the Federal Telecommunications Commission (now IFT), has allowed him to become an expert on several aspects of broadcasting and telecommunications regulatory issues, as well as on the overall operation of the public telecom’s sector. He has participated in several projects such as spectrum auctions, the design of public policies, analysis of law initiatives, supervision of operators' obligations, proposals of important sanctions, diagnosis of national mobile coverage, among others. In his current charge, he has proposed the creation of several tools and public policies to foster users’ empowerment. Most of these tools and policies are a successful model in Mexico and throughout the world, thus were recognized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and REGULATEL, which is the most important LATAM forum for regulators. 

Mikaela Jade is a Cabrogal woman of the Dharug-speaking nation of Sydney. Her company, Indigital, founded in 2014, is Australia’s first Indigenous edu-tech company. Indigital is built on a belief that together we can use digital technologies to express 80,000 years of human knowledge while engaging our people in education that leads to skills, jobs, and wealth creation to build a stronger future for all.  
 
Indigital Schools, the company’s flagship program, is an Elder-led, fully curriculum-integrated exploration of cultural expressions, heritage and knowledge through augmented and mixed reality production. It exists to preserve, access and share traditional knowledge, language and law. Mikaela and her company have achieved several honours.  

Dr. Valts Ernštreits is the Director of the University of Latvia Livonian institute and culture policy advisor to the Minister of Culture of the Republic of Latvia. For decades he has been involved in revitalization efforts of the Latvia’s indigenous language and one of the most endangered languages in the world – Livonian. Being Livonian himself he has been involved in numerous activities of safeguarding and developing Livonian cultural life and widening the possibilities of the use of Livonian.  
 
Valts Ernštreits’ research interests include the building of digital resources and developing approaches for the research, safeguarding, and providing accessibility to the Livonian language and culture sources, as well as lexicography, language standardization and intangible heritage. He also represents Latvia at the Global Task Force for Making A Decade of Action for Indigenous Languages.