Agenda

Hon. Neema Lugangira (MP) is a Member of Parliament in Tanzania who bring forward extensive experience and successful track record in championing policy and legislative reforms for improved investment enabling environment for the agricultural, mining and oil & gas and health sectors to mention a few. As a Parliamentarians her personal prioritised agendas include food and nutrition security; digital development, community health, gender equality in politics and NGOs sector development in Tanzania and across Africa. Her continued passion and commitment for sustainable and economic development not only in her country Tanzania but also Africa led her to be the Founding Chair of the African Parliamentary Network on Internet Governance (APNIG) and the Founding Chair of the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund – Tanzania Chapter. Hon. Lugangira is also the Founder of two NGOs; Agri Thamani, which is committed to ending malnutrition in Tanzania; and Omuka Hub that aims to accelerate digital inclusion in peripheral regions of Tanzania. Internationally, Hon. Lugangira is a Member of the International Parliamentary Network on Education (IPNEd); the UNITE – Global Parliamentarians Network to End Infectious Diseases; serves as the Co-Chair of Global Parliamentary Group to Combat Neglected Tropical Diseases; Vital Voices Fellow; and WSIS Gender Trendsetter for Advancing Digital Gender Inclusion.

Yvette RAMOS, Ms. Science of Engineering (electronics-telecom), EPF (1992), and Ms. Human Resource Management, MBA(IAE2002) – France. PhD candidate Climate Change and Sustainable Development Policies – Portugal http://alteracoesclimaticas.ics.ulisboa.pt/en/ 

With a background in Engineering and twenty five years professional experience, starting with a position of Project Manager in the Industry (Schlumberger, Ascom) to Expert in Strategic planning and Change Management, including capacity development for telecom companies and hydrological, meteorological and climate services at international level, she has developed extensive experience on managing teams and projects abroad. 

Over the last twenty years, she had the chance to work with international teams, in the private and public sector, in the business and development environment. She holds the position of Expert at the specialized United Nations Agency the ITU, the International Telecom Union, Development Bureau, and the World Meteorological organization, both with HQ in Geneva, Switzerland. 

She had recently the challenging position of Project Manager (2018-2021) in the World Bank project for the modernization of the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology of the Union of Myanmar. 

She is the Managing Director of an IP- Intellectual Property Law firm based in Geneva. 

First woman president of the +100 years aged Swiss Engineering Geneva chapter (2011-…) and founder and president of WOMENVAI, an international NGO a platform for innovative projects in Environment and High-Tech – led by women – supported by women AND men. 

Gabdibé GAB-HINGONNE was born on March 21, 1973 in Pala, Chad. She is a graduate specializing in Education Sciences in ICT and Training from the University of Montreal in Canada, she has a degree in geography in 1998 at the University of N'Djamena, a master's degree in Education Sciences, option secondary education. She has been a geography teacher in a high school in N'Djamena and an educational advisor since 2003. But since January 2022, she has been a trainer in educational technology at the Virtual University of N'Djamena in Chad. She is the National Coordinator of Action for the Education and Promotion of Women (AEPF-Tchad), a civil society organization that has been campaigning for the empowerment of women since 2007. In addition to educational activities, she has been involved since 2013 in the organization of the International Girls in ICT Day as Vice-President of the organization. She is a member of ISOC, ICANN and the AEPF-Chad focal point for the protection cluster and GBV sub-cluster. It allowed the organization: Action for the Education and Promotion of Women to be granted special ECOSOC status in August 2018. It has been organizing, since 2014 until today, training for leaders of groups and associations of women in ICT to enable them to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Internet for their empowerment.

Susana Arrechea works at New Sun Road, a Californian start-up incubated at UC Berkeley. She is leading the Internet-enabled solar Digital Community Centers project, funded by the US Agency for International Development, Microsoft, and DAI.   

Arrechea's local team organizes Mayan indigenous Q'eqchi' women to achieve digital and leadership skills and get new income sources from providing Internet and power services to the community.  

Arrechea earned an undergraduate in chemical engineering from the University of San Carlos of Guatemala (USAC). She received a scholarship from Fundación Carolina to study a Master of Science and a Ph.D. degree in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology from the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain. She described more than 14 new organic molecules derived from porphyrins with applications in solar devices. In 2015, she was a visiting researcher at UC Berkeley, under the Fulbright NEXUS program. From 2016 to 2020, she was a Research Professor at USAC.   

In 2017, she won the Galardón de Guatemaltecos Ilustres award and the TWAS Young Scientists Award in Guatemala. In 2020, she won the OWSD-Elsevier Foundation Award for Early-Career Women Scientists in the Developing World representing Latin America and co-founded the OWSD Guatemala chapter.