STUART CAMPO
UNOCHA Centre for Humanitarian Data
Stuart Campo (@stucampo) is a Researcher with the Signal Program on Human Security and Technology at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In this capacity, he supports translational research on humanitarian technologies, standards and ethics. Prior to joining Signal, Stuart served as the Senior Innovation Deployment Specialist with UNICEF’s Global Innovation Center. During his tenure at UNICEF, Stuart held extended assignments in Kenya, Madagascar, and South Sudan, and supported the design and activation of technological and social innovation initiatives in over 35 countries. Stuart studied Politics at Princeton University, and is currently based in Rotterdam.
GIULIO COPPI
Access Now
Giulio has over 15 years of international experience across the humanitarian, human rights, and academic sectors. He has worked with NRC, ICRC, OCHA, and OHCHR, among others, and has experience responding to crisis contexts in several countries. Currently he is Senior Humanitarian Officer at Access Now, where he is responsible for monitoring and advising on digital rights in the context of conflict and disaster; advancing protection from digital harm through international humanitarian law norms, customs, and principles; and promoting ethical approaches to the design and delivery of technological systems by private companies.
DAN MCQUILLIAN
Goldsmiths, University of London
After his Ph.D in Experimental Particle Physics, Dr. McQuillan founded Multikulti, a community-led multilingual website for asylum seekers & refugees. As Amnesty’s Director of E-communications, he led their delegation to the first UN Internet Governance Forum. He co-founded Social Innovation Camp which brought together ideas, people and digital tools to prototype solutions to social problems, and ran camps in different countries including Georgia, Armenia & Kyrgyzstan. He is active in citizen science and co-founded Science for Change Kosovo. Currently, he is a Lecturer in Creative & Social Computing at Goldsmiths, University of London. His recent publications include Algorithmic States of Exception.
MARA BALESTRINI
Inter-American Development Bank Lab
Mara is a Human Computer Interaction (HCI) researcher and practitioner with 15 years of experience in planning and executing digital transformation and innovation projects. She currently works at the Inter-American Development Bank Innovation Laboratory, IDB Lab, where she coordinates the implementation of the digital transformation program and advises on the use of disruptive technologies in operations. Prior to IDB LAB, Mara was a cabinet advisor to the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence of the Government of Spain and CEO of the innovation consultancy Ideas for Change. She is also a co-founder or SalusCoop, the first Spanish cooperative for citizens’ health data.
Mara holds a PhD in Computer Science from University College London (UCL) and a MSc in Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media from Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and a BA in Audiovisual Communications.
She is a member of the board of trustees of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) and research fellow at ESADE’s Center for Public Governance (EsadeGov). Her work has been awarded in ACM CHI, ACM CSCW, Ars Electronica, among others, and presented in international media such as the BBC, The Guardian, The Financial Times and El País.
PAOLA FAVA
JengaLab ETS
Co-founder and project manager at Gnucoop. Since 2015, she has been managing a worldwide project for UNHCR to develop an application that gathers and manages medical records, elaborates public health statistics and indicators for UNHCR refugee camps around the globe. She has 10 years of experience as innovation officer and ICT4D project manager for NGOs working in several countries, such as Malawi, Madagascar, Comoros Islands and Guatemala.
JOSH HARVEY
Catholic Relief Services
Through his consulting practice, Josh designs strategies and systems for governments, UN, and humanitarian and development actors. In addition to his consulting practice, he currently serves as chief advisor for the EC-funded Young Service Designers initiative and as Head Coach for IFRC Solferino Academy’s FutureFellows programme. Previously, Josh was the founding director of CARE’s Research + Design team, providing design, strategy, and futures and foresight as services across the organization’s global footprint. Prior to CARE, Josh led UNICEF’s Innovations Lab where he led design and development of products and programmes now employed in more than 40 countries around the world. He’s a frequent featured speaker on design and social innovation, and his work and commentary has featured in academic and popular publications on social innovation and social design.
HOWARD MILLER
International consultant
CÉDRIC LOMBION
Civic Literacy Initiative
Through his work over the past 10 years, Cedric has designed, managed and fundraised for global open data and data literacy projects, navigating both high-level strategic planning and on-the-ground work with civil society organisations, governments, journalists and citizens. In the process, his and his teams’ work have reached thousands of people and hundreds of organisations across sectors as varied as government transparency, the extractives industry, environmental justice, public health and investigative journalism. Speaking English, French and Spanish, he has managed a remote team spread over multiple continents, and delivered projects in these 3 languages. He is also a coordinator of the School of Data network since 2015.
SIMONE SALA
JengaLab ETS
Consultant in the communication and development sector of the Food and Agriculture organisation (FAO). From 2004 on, he focuses on the research and practice of applying ICT to sustainable development. He worked with universities (Columbia University, MIT IDI, UniMi, USI-Lugano), NGOs, FAO and Italian Development Cooperation in Africa, Asia, Caribbeans and Middle East. Currently, his team works on techniques aimed at facilitating the collaboration between smallholders and other actors in rural areas.
ANNA BON
Centre for International Cooperation, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Dr. Anna Bon is with the CIS Centre for International Cooperation, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081HV Amsterdam, the Netherlands Anna Bon is a researcher, project manager and lecturer at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, in Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D). Her research focuses on collaborative and co-creative design of innovative technologies to support local value chains and improve food security, to help address challenges for smallholder farmers and communities in Africa’s drylands. This includes digital voice-service design for local cereal seeds value networks in West Africa (Mali), supporting women cooperations in e- marketing of their tree products in Burkina Faso; ICT4D Community Service Learning and the Global South (with students from Malaysia, Ghana, and the Netherlands); Sustainability and Ethics in Digital Development; and AI for Sustainable Rural Development in Africa (with UDS, Ghana). She is the project coordinator of a new 10 MEUR EU-Commission supported project setting up international innovative master-level education programs for university students, teachers and industry on Digital Society, Social Innovation, and Global Citizenship. Anna is furthermore a contributor, focusing on issues related to the Global South, to two edited Digital Humanism volumes at Springer: (i) Perspectives on Digital Humanism (2022, Springer Open Access; now close to 400k downloads) and (ii) a student textbook Introduction to Digital Humanism, due to appear end of 2023 at Springer.
FRANCIUS SAA-DITTOH
University for Development Studies, Ghana
Francis Saa-Dittoh is a lecturer and researcher at the University for Development Studies (UDS) in Tamale, Ghana and guest lecturer and PhD researcher at VU Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His research in the interdisciplinary field of ICT for Development centers around the design and deployment of context-aware, community-centered information systems for people in low-resource environments. He is involved in the establishment of a new Computer Science department and in the design of a new software engineering curriculum at the University for Development Studies in Ghana. He is a member of the interdisciplinary research program W4RA – the Web alliance for Regreening in Africa https://w4ra.org . As an ICT professional he is founder and director of the Ghanaian tech firm Faith IT Consult and an ICT Associate of United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). Francis is also contributor to two edited Digital Humanism volumes at Springer: (i) Perspectives on Digital Humanism (2022, Springer Open Access; now close to 400k downloads) and (ii) a student textbook Introduction to Digital Humanism, due to appear end of 2023 at Springer. In 2023 Francis was at the Spotlight as a Champion of Change at the 10th HLF: Heidelberg Laureate Forum. https://scilogs.spektrum.de/hlf/hlff-spotlight-10th-hlf-4/
HANS AKKERMANS
University for Development Studies, Ghana
Professor Hans Akkermans is Professor Emeritus of Business Informatics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Adjunct Professor at the University for Development Studies (UDS), Tamale, Ghana. He is the Founding Director of the interdisciplinary Network Institute at Amsterdam (networkinstitute.org) that studies the interaction between digital technology and society, in which researchers from the faculties of social sciences, humanities, law, economics, and informatics participate. He has worked for many years in knowledge engineering & management, information systems and innovative e-business modelling, with for example applications and innovations in smart electricity distribution networks and the sustainable energy transition that have been internationally field-deployed and are now in industrial and commercial use. He is a key author of a textbook on Knowledge Engineering and Management, published in 2000 by The MIT Press. His current research interests focus on the interdisciplinary research, education and community service program W4RA (Web alliance for Regreening in Africa, w4ra.org). He is furthermore Steering Committee member of the Vienna Initiative on Digital Humanism (dighum.org), and a contributor to two edited DigHum volumes at Springer: (i) Perspectives on Digital Humanism (2022, Springer Open Access; now close to 400k downloads) and (ii) a student textbook Introduction to Digital Humanism, due to appear end of 2023 at Springer. He holds a cum laude MSc and a cum laude PhD in theoretical physics in the field of nuclear reactions from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands.
ELISA BIGNANTE
University of Turin
Elisa Bignante is associate professor of Political and economic geography at the Department of Culture, Politics and Society, University of Torino. She has 20 years’ experience in researching and teaching in the field of development geography and in the use of participatory research methods and peer research approaches with local communities in the Global South. After achieving a BSc in Economics and PhD in Local Development and Territorial Planning, she focused on Development geography working extensively in international aid projects in Africa and Latin America. Her particular interests include indigenous knowledges, social marginalities, health and wellbeing, international aid, natural resource management and the use of participatory visual methods to support local communities.
RUXANDRA PANDEA
Council of Europe
Ruxandra Pandea has been involved with human rights and human rights education for more than 15 years as activist, trainer and professor. She has been involved with youth and professional civil society organisations, and has worked with the Council of Europe, Youth Department in the period 2011-2017 focusing on human rights education, youth participation in the governance of the internet and training of human rights online defenders among others. She holds a Ph.D. in History.
ÁMBAR TENORIO-FORNÉS
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Ámbar Tenorio-Fornés is a free software developer and researcher. She/he holds a 5 years CS/Eng degree and a Master in Research in Computer Science. She/he is currently developing his PhD at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, funded by an institutional scholarship, and working for the awesome P2P Models project. She/he research aims to provide decentralized governance tools for Commons-Based Peer Production communities. In the past, she/he was a core part of the technical team of the P2Pvalue European research project. She/he has been visiting researcher at the University of Surrey, the University of Westminster and Kozminski University. She/he experience developing decentralized web tools includes Teem, SwellRT and Decentralized.science, using technologies such as Blockchain and IPFS.
RON SALAJ
ImpactSkills & University of Turin
Ron Salaj is a polymorphous worker and transdisciplinary activist working at the intersection of human rights, technology, semiotics of new media, and critical theory. Currently, he coordinates the Master programme on “ICT for Development and Social Good” delivered by the University of Turin and Ong 2.0/ImpactSkills. He also serves as an external expert for the Council of Europe’s Anti-Discrimination Department, supporting their work in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Human rights-based Narratives to combat hate speech online. In the past, Ron has co- founded a youth-led citizen science movement “Science for Change Kosovo” and UNICEF’s first-ever Innovations Lab in Kosovo. He authored numerous books, educational manuals and other publications.
Guest lecturers
DR. TOSAN J. MOGBEYITEREN
Black Swan Tech Ltd
Tosan is a medical doctor and public health specialist with over 13 years’ experience leading multi-disciplinary teams to solve development challenges in resource-poor settings in Nigeria. He has spent the better part of the past decade supervising the conceptualization, development and successful deployment of high-traction web applications and mobile platforms in partnership with government institutions and international partners, some of which have been used by millions. He has also done policy research work in Education and public health, including Routine Immunization and Antenatal care. He has led multiple interventions with country-level impact, new knowledge, in terms of both technologies and implementation science in low resource settings. He is the founder/CEO and currently the Global Program Director of WeMUNIZE at Black Swan Tech Ltd, a software startup that builds enterprise-level software solutions that international partners and governments deploy for positive impact, with particular focus on resource-poor settings.
ELISA CRISCIONE
Digital Coffee Future & Expressing Origin
Elisa is the Creator of Digital Coffee Future and the Founder and Lead Consultant of Expressing Origin, a consultancy whose mission is to support coffee stakeholders to digitalize their value chains and tech providers to improve their solutions. Before fully-dedicating to coffee, she deepened her understanding of the application of digital solutions in Ghana and worked in Colombia in the sustainable development arena where she first entered in contact with coffee. She holds an MSc in Food Policy from the City University of London and a BSc in Food & Agriculture from the University of Gastronomic Sciences. She speaks Italian, English and Spanish.
MAC GLOVINSKY
The Learning Passport
(the flagship learning and skilling collaboration of UNICEF and Microsoft)
Winner of TIME 100 best inventions 2021, Fast Co 2021 world changing ideas finalist, 2020 PMI most influential project (3rd overall). Mac is technology leader and executive. Seasoned innovator and cross functional manager with a deep history delivering enterprise products to global audiences. He is currently chief of the Learning Passport, delivering digital education and skilling experiences to anyone, anywhere, anytime.
ALEXANDRE POLVÓRA
European Innovation Council
Connector of people, information and things. Anticipation and co-creation of innovation futures.
Currently he serves as Policy Adviser at EIC Board, Strategy and Feedback to Policy Unit of EIC / European Innovation Council, EISMEA / European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency, established by the European Commission. He coordinates activities on Technology Foresight, Strategic Intelligence, Anticipatory Governance, Public Innovation, and Feedback to Policy.
Previously he worked as Policy Analyst / Researcher at the Foresight, Behavioural Insights and Design for Policy Unit, aka EU Policy Lab, of the Joint Research Centre, European Commission, in Brussels.
SAIRA KHAN
Signal Program, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative
Saira Khan is a researcher and geospatial analyst for two programs at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative: The Signal Program on Human Security and Technology (Signal Program) and the Humanitarian Geoanalytics Research and Education Program (HumGeo). She primarily uses GIS and satellite imagery as tools to analyze damage as a result of conflict and disaster, population displacement, and monitor environmental variability in numerous humanitarian crises across sub-Saharan Africa, Syria, and Bangladesh. She further works to develop and document methodologies that are used in trainings and workshops to advance the use of geospatial analysis by humanitarian professionals and university students. She has worked collaboratively with numerous organizations including the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), World Vision International (WVI) among others. She graduated with a Masters in Geographic Information Science from Clark University; she also holds a BA in Geography and International Development & Social Change from Clark University. During her studies she also worked with DisasterNet at HHI and at the National Weather Service as well as the Office for Coastal Management at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
MARCO ZENNARO
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics
He has organized workshops in more than 30 countries and has been Focal Point for the ITU Centre of Excellence in IoT, Big Data and Statistics. He has been a Staff Associate of the African Centre of Excellence in Internet of Things at University of Rwanda since its inception. In 2013 he has been nominated Sensemaking Senior Research Fellow of the MIT International Development Initiative and has served as a member of the UNESCO Chair in ICT4D since 2004.
ERMANNO PIETROSEMOLI
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics & Fundacion Escuela Latinoamericana de Redes (EsLaRed)
He holds the world’s record for the longest WiFi connection at 382 km and has been promoting low-cost data communications technologies for Internet access by teaching in many countries, as well as building wireless links in Argentina, Comoros, Ecuador, U.S., Spain, Italy, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mexico, Micronesia, Morocco, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Peru, Trinidad, Senegal, Seychelles, Venezuela, and Zambia.
He is one of the authors of the book Wireless Networks in the Developing World, which has been translated into Arabic, Burmese, Indonesian, French, Portuguese and Spanish.