Agenda

Konstantinos Komaitis is a resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Democracy + Tech Initiative at the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab). He leads the Council’s work on global digital governance and democracy and brings decades of experience in developing and analyzing internet policy to ensure an open, interoperable, and global internet.

Komaitis has more than ten years of experience in policy development and strategy. Before joining the Atlantic Council, he worked for The New York Times, focusing on data governance issues. Previously, he served as a senior director at the Internet Society, where he led initiatives on connectivity, regulation, and internet governance, including the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition. Komaitis also spent seven years as a senior lecturer at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, where he researched and taught internet policy, focusing on governance, intellectual property, trade, and cybersecurity.

Komaitis has provided strategic advice on internet governance and public policy to companies, governments, and international organizations. A recognized public speaker, he has delivered talks worldwide, including at TEDx, and has published in Politico, the Atlantic Council, Brookings, Slate, TechDirt, and EurActiv.

He holds two master’s degrees and a doctorate and is the author of a book on domain name regulation. Komaitis serves on the board of the Global Network Initiative (GNI) and is a member of the Advisory Network at the Freedom Online Coalition (FOC). He also co-hosts the Internet of Humans podcast.

As the Managing Director of ICT Development Associates, David provides expertise concerning ICTs, Internet governance and their relationship with public policy, particularly development, environment, governance, rights and conflict. He was lead consultant for the UN Commission on Science and Technology’s five and ten year reviews of WSIS outcomes, and has worked extensively for UNESCO, UNCTAD, ITU and other UN agencies, for international development agencies including the African Development Bank, and for non-governmental organisations including APC and the Internet Society. He was Visiting Professor in Communications Management at Strathclyde University and, until September this year, Visiting Senior Fellow in Media and Communications at the London School of Economics. David lives in the United Kingdom.

Dr. Peter Major is chairman of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development (UN CSTD). He actively participated in various activities of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) and other international forums for more than 30 years. Mr. Major chaired the CSTD Working Group on the Improvements of the Internet Governance Forum. Subsequently he chaired the CSTD Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation. Mr. Major was a member of the IGF Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group and he was vice-chair of the Radiocommunication Advisory Group (RAG) of ITU Radiocommunication Bureau (ITU/BR). He is alternate representative of Hungary on the Governmental Advisory Group of ICANN (GAC). Mr. Major is faculty member of the European Summer School on Internet Governance (Meissen, Germany) and he is visiting professor at the Higher School of Economics, National Research University (Moscow, Russia). 

Dr Jimson Olufuye has more than 30 years experience in the national, regional and global Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) industry. He is the Chairman/Principal Consultant at Kontemporary® Konsulting Ltd, an ICT solution company based in Abuja, Nigeria. He is currently the Chair of the Advisory Council of AfICTA.

Anriette Esterhuysen was the executive director of Association for Progressive Communications (APC) until March 2017. Prior to joining APC, Anriette was executive director of SANGONeT, an internet service provider and training institution for civil society, labour and community organisations. She was active in the struggle against Apartheid from 1980 onwards. From 1987 to 1992 she did information and communication work in development and human rights organisations in South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Anriette, with many others, helped establish email and internet connectivity in Southern Africa. SANGONeT hosted a Fidonet hub that provided universities and non-governmental organisations in, among other places, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, with email links to global networks as part of a collaboration between APC and the United Nations Development Programme. Anriette has served on the African Technical Advisory Committee of the UN's Economic Commission for Africa's African Information Society Initiative and was a member of the United Nations ICT Task Force from 2002 to 2005, the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Working Group on Financing Mechanisms, and the Commission on Science and Technology for Development Working Group on Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Improvements. She was a member of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group of the Internet Governance Forum from 2012 to 2014.

Anriette was one of five finalists for IT Personality of the Year in South Africa in 2012, an award which recognises a person who has made an outstanding impact on the South African ICT industry. She was the only female and only civil society finalist. She was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame as a Global Connecter in 2013. Currently Anriette is a member of the Global Commission on Internet Governance and the Council of the NETmundial Initiative. She has published extensively on ICTs for development and social justice. She holds a BA in social sciences and postgraduate qualifications in history of music and information sciences from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.