Stephane Boyera.

Stéphane is W3C Staff since 1995. Leading the W3C Device Independence Working Group from 2001 till 2005, he has been a key participant in the development and launch of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative, managing the Device Description Working Group till the end of 2005. At the same time, Stéphane also took part in the management of the Voice and Multimodal Activities. Since 2006 he has been leading W3C's work on the Mobile Web for Social Development, which is looking at how to extend the frontier of the Web to make it relevant, usable and useful for rural communities and under-privileged populations of Developing Countries. Since its launch in January 2008, Stéphane has been managing the EU FP7 project Digital World Forum focusing on the use of ICT to leverage economic development in Africa and Latin America.

Since mid-2008, Stephane is involved in the launch of the World Wide Web Foundation, in charge of defining the Web for Society program.

Ana Moreno

Ana Moreno is an Industrial Engineer, ETSII Madrid (1983-89), DEA in psychology and social organizations, UNED (2003-2005) and PhD dissertation on "network society and their new identities" UNED-ETSII (2005-2007 ). Founder of home network. Extensive experience as a trainer and speaker on issues of teleworking, e-Learning and Change Management. She also has several publications about distance learning, teleworking, digital divide ...  She is also Vice President of the organization Classroom Solidarity, Member of the Board of Directors of the Energy Without Borders Foundation, actively participating in projects to combat the  digital divide and ICT for Development .

Vikas Nath

Vikas Nath is Head of Media and Communications in South Centre Inter-Governmental Organization, he has extended experience in consultancy / projects experience (over 35 countries). He is a specialist in new forms of South - South Cooperation; Environmental Issues; Natural Resources Management and Rural Development; E-Governance and Public Sector Modernization; ICT for Agriculture, SMEs, and Livelihoods;  Web 2.0, Knowledge Management, Knowledge Networks & Volunteerism.

John Dryden.

He was, until November of 2008, Deputy Director for Science, Technology and Industry at the  Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. His responsibilities covered the domains of S&T policy, innovation and international S&T co-operation; knowledge-based economy, information and communications technologies including telecommunications, electronic commerce, Internet and other new technologies, notably biotechnology; in addition to issues related to industry, innovation and entrepreneurship and the impacts of technology, globalisation and structural change on the economy and society.

Before being appointed to his position in 2001 Mr Dryden held several other senior positions in the directorate, and prior to that worked in the Economics and Statistics Department of the OECD. He had worked in the Cabinet Office of the U.K. government before joining the OECD in 1980.   He is British and was educated at Oxford University and the University of Wales.

Eduardo Sánchez

He is an Industrial Engineer and a Development Cooperation Specialist. He has built most of his professional career on the Development Cooperation field in Spain and other countries. In Spain he has taken different responsibilities in Engineering without Borders and he has taken part in projects in Bosnia Herzegovina, Nicaragua and Namibia.

Nowadays he is Director at Engineering Studies and Campaigns - Association for the Development, secretary of the NGO Coordinator for the Spanish Development Association, and member of the Development Cooperation Board. In the Information and Communication Technologies field, he has taken part in the preparation of the Spanish contribution to the Information Society World Summit, referred to the policies for the incorporation of ICT to the Spanish development cooperation, the IV Conference on Technology for the Human Development, focused on ICT as a development tool.

Alexander Widmer

He has graduated with a Master in Political Science from the University of St. Gallen and is currently finalising an Executive Master in Public Administration from the University of Lugano, Switzerland.

Since 2000 he works for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). He has worked as JPO and Programme Officer in the Bretton Woods Institutions Division until 2002 and has been seconded to the World Bank Institute as Learning Analyst in the Community Empowerment and Social Inclusion Team from 2003 to 2005. Back at SDC, after working for the International Financial Instutions Division until Spring 2006, Alexander Widmer has served as Programme Officer in the Information and Communications Technologies for Development (ICT4D) Division for 1 year until he became Deputy Head of the Division. Since October 2008, after the closure of the ICT4D Division, he is responsible for the support of SDC's Operational Divisions in making optimal use of ICTs in the newly created Knowledge and Learning Processes Division of SDC

Caroline Figueres

She received her MSc. degree from the French National School for Water and Environmental Engineering (ENGEES) in 1985. From 1985 till 2002 she worked for several French and Dutch consulting companies she moved to The Netherlands in 1989).  She has broad project experiences as an advisor ranging from policy making, project formulation and preparation, master planning, monitoring and evaluation, project development and financing, feasibility studies, supervision of works, institutional strengthening as well as experience in short missions in the field
She has worked with WACO Consultancy France and NEDECO Engineering Consultants, Netherlands. In 2002 she joined UNESCO IHE Institute for Water Education as head of urban water and sanitation, carrying out workshops, training sessions in Africa and Asia.
She is now Managing Director for the International Institute for Communication and Development , working in areas such as governance, education, health, environment to name but a few.

Merryl Ford

She is the manager of the Emerging Innovations Group of the Meraka Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa. 

Merryl has more than 20 years of experience in the ICT domain, particularly in the developing world context.  Merryl has also worked for IBM, where she was a member of a team that provided e-business consulting services to industry and was instrumental in creating one of the first and currently largest ISPs in South Africa.  After returning to the CSIR to pursue her passion for innovation, she now focuses on how the digital knowledge economy can be harnessed to benefit all sectors of society.  Her interests include the use of mobile phones, technologies and services to support development. 

One of the flagship initiatives she is driving is “MobiLED” which aims to de-skill the process of service provision via mobile phones in the education, health and SMME sectors in Africa.   Another passion is that of supporting vulnerable youth and children in Africa via the use of innovative blended media solutions, using the “service discovery” paradigm used by mobile operators.  This initiative is known as “Singazenzela”, which is isiZulu for “We can do things ourselves” and looks at empowering and supporting children to help themselves in situations where there are no other support mechanisms.

Najat Rochdi

She holds a Doctorate in Mathematics and is an Engineer in Computer Sciences. Najat is currently the Deputy Director in charge of Policy, Communication and Operation at the UNDP Liaison Office in Geneva. From October 2003 to May 2008 she was the Regional Director of Information and Communication Technology for Development in Arab Region (ICTDAR), in UNDP. She initiated and implemented several regional initiatives in 18 countries of the Arab Region. Najat worked very closely and got funding from EU, European Commission, AECI in Spain, etc. ICTDAR objective was to assist Arab States in harnessing ICT to reduce poverty and improve public administration performance, governance and private sector participation in development process. From 1998 to 2003, she had several high level positions in her country. She was the Deputy Minister for the Small and Medium Enterprise’s. Prior to that, Najat was Advisor to the Secretary of State in charge of IT in the Prime Minister´s Office and General Director of Cooperation and IT Development. She was also the national Focal Point for the European Mediterranean program for the Information Society in the Region and a member of the Euro Mediterranean process Group. Najat started as a Professor at the University and at the College Royal in Rabat. She published in several research magazines and contributed as a co-author to two books, funded and published by the European Commission. Najat was a member of the high level panel of ICT experts set up by the former UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, to advize on ICT policy for economic and social development for the ECOSOC and General Assembly. She is also a member of several think tank groups and task forces in Europe, Africa and Middle East.

Anriette Esterhuysen

Anriette Esterhuysen is the Executive Director of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC). APC is an international network of more than forty civil society organizations dedicated to empowering and supporting groups and individuals working for peace, human rights, development and protection of the environment, through the strategic use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Prior to that she worked in development and human rights organisations involved in the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa. She is a founder of Women'sNet in South Africa and 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.

She chaired the ICT Policy and Governance Working Group and has directed an extensive, study by Dr David Souter, on developing country participation in the WSIS, which will be available in May 2006. She represents APC in the Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP), Partners for ICT in Africa (PICTA), the Catalysing Access to ICTs in Africa (CATIA) programme and the Building Communications Alliance (BCO) Alliance, which are all based on multi-stakeholder participation. She also led APC's participation in the WSIS process.

Anriette woud bring to the Strategic Council of the Global Alliance for ICTD a range of knowledge and experience. She has more than twenty years experience of work in the ICTD sector and a depth of knowledge regarding the history of the connection between ICTs and development.

Kentaro Toyama

Kentaro Toyama is assistant managing director of Microsoft Research India (MSR India), which opened in Bangalore in January, 2005; he played a critical role in establishing the lab and is responsible for helping guide its direction and growth. In addition to his responsibilities to MSR India overall, Kentaro leads the Technology for Emerging Markets research group as a principal researcher, and is a co-founder of the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD).

Before being named assistant managing director of MSR India, Kentaro spent seven years in MSR Redmond, Washington, U.S.A., and in Cambridge, U.K., working on computer vision, multimedia and geographic information systems. Kentaro earned his Ph.D. in computer science at Yale University and received a bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard University. During the autumn of 2002, he took personal leave from Microsoft to teach mathematics at Ashesi University in Ghana.

José Manuel Alonso

Jose Manuel Alonso, currently leads the international strategy for the e-Government World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) from CTIC. Previously, he was Manage for W3C Spain.He the Representative person from the CTIC Foundation in the W3C Advisory Committee.

He has extensive experience in project management, software integration, customer relationship management, and communication and ICT consultancy. He has a Computer Engineering Degree and has a Master in Business Application Integration from the University of Oviedo and in whose departments of Research and Innovation he worked as a researcher, developer, trainer and lecturer. 

In the past, his researches have dealt mainly with web standards, usability and learning objects, and more recently his researches are focused on improving electronic administration using the Web. He is the author of numerous papers and articles, and throughout his career he has participated as a speaker in many seminars, courses and conferences of international prestige.

Oleg Petrov

Oleg Petrov is a champion of ICT for development (ICT4D) with over 11 years experience in this area in a variety of leadership roles with emphasis on knowledge sharing and capacity building programs. Oleg initiated and currently coordinates e-Development Thematic Group, a global forum and community of practice for development professionals interested in ICT4D, hosted at the Global ICT Department of the World Bank. He has been with the Bank for 13 years working on ICT4D, private and financial sector development, and knowledge management. Since early 1998 he has been focusing on promoting the ICT for development and e-government agendas at the Bank and in the client countries by initiating and coordinating a number of programs and initiatives, especially in the knowledge sharing and capacity building area. This included over 100 conferences, seminars and workshops on ICT4D/e-government and about 20 online publications.

Oleg initiated the Global Development Gateway program (1999), initiated and coordinated about 20 Country Gateways in Europe and Asia (1999-2001) and a global portal on ICT4D (2002-2003). Oleg has contributed to several integrated e-development and e-government projects funded by the World Bank, including e-Sri Lanka and e-Ghana. He also worked with the European Union’s Public Sector Institutional Reform project in Russia as senior international expert on e-government contributing to client capacity building, single window program and new e-government strategy development. Oleg published articles and interviews in a number of industry magazines and delivered keynote addresses and other speeches at e-government conferences and workshops in India, Kazakhstan, Russia, UK, US et al. He was also involved in teaching e-government at Suffolk University.

Manuel Acevendo

Manuel Acevedo is an international consultant on ICT and Development (with government, civil society, multilateral agencies and business entities) since 2003. He carries out research on ICT4D and development networks, and lectures on these topics at Spanish universities. Recent engagements include working as senior advisor to the Argentinian National Programme for the Information Society Programme, strategic planning for UN Volunteers (UNV), co-production of a guide for ICT mainstreaming for the Spanish Secretariat for International Cooperation and evaluations for organizations that include UNDP, UNV, HIVOS and IICD. Manuel has the role of Academic Coordinator in Cooperation 2.0 2009.
From 1994 to 2003 he was with UNDP and UNV, setting up in 2000-2003 the first e-Volunteer Unit in a development agency, responsible for launching the programme UNITES and theUN Online Volunteering Service. He represented UNV during the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, and acted as co-chair of the Human Capacity Committee of the UN ICT Task Force during that period.
 

Juliana Rotich

Juliana Rotich is the Program Director of Ushahidi.com, an innovative non-profit web startup that is creating a tool and mashup for mapping crises. In addition to her role in Ushahidi, she is a blogger, digital activist and environment editor of Global Voices Online. With Global Voices, she helps to aggregate, curate and amplify online conversations, with particular focus on the environment, renewable energy, and digital expression in the developing world and Africa. She is also a contributing author on Afrigadget.com where she highlights African ingenuity in everything from children's toys to wind powered cell phone base stations. Juliana is particularly proud to be one of the TED Fellows and bloggers who covered the first ever African TEDGlobal conference in Arusha June 2007. Juliana is currently focused on Ushahidi's mission of crowdsourcing crisis information, and is part of the team that is building the next version of the Ushahidi Engine. She is also focused on using new media tools to create a network of environmental bloggers from around the world, elevating and encouraging more conversations and engagement on environmental matters. Juliana writes, attends conferences and leads environmental initiatives in the online and offline worlds, particularly regarding Africa.

Florencio Ceballos

He is a Sociologist, ICT, community development and public politics specialist. He has been involved in telecentre related initiatives, since 1998. In June 2005 he moved to Canada to take part in the telecentre.org  team as Senior Program Officer for Latin America, and lately as Acting Program Manager. Between 2001 and 2005, as Research Chief Executive at Ekhos I+C Consultants, he developed a significant experience of simultaneous project management. During the last 2,5 years at  IDRC, he got familiarized with institutional management procedures, and developed experience in global program management.

Paco Prieto

He has been Project Manager for the Principality of Asturias Telecenters Network. He also was the content manager for Canalwork employment and human resources portal. He has more than 12 years of experience in the management of European, National and Regional projects related to the Information Society, training and human resources managing, focused on ICT solutions and web environments. He was coordinator of the book, " Las redes de Telecentros de España." and co-author of the book " La red del empleo en España.".

Since 2004, he is Information Society Lead at Fundación CTIC (CTIC Foundation). In 2007, he launched  1@+you=1€, initiative, Development Cooperation project under the Information Society framework. With this project, CTIC Foundation includes among its areas of activity, the implementation of ICT in development cooperation. In 2008 was Manager in I International Meeting on ICT for Development Cooperation . Cooperatión 2.0

Jan Blom 

Jan Blom is heading a nomadic research team in India. The team is multidisciplinary, consisting of ethnographers, designers and technologists. The whole of India is used as the stage for the research.

The team concentrates on the following research questions: What factors hinder economic prosperity, well-being and self-actualization in emerging markets, ranging from individual to community to society? What are the key technological solutions to these challenges and what is their impact on the community?

Jan joined Nokia in 2003. Prior to his current role, he was User Researcher at Nokia Research Center, Finland. Subsequently, he was involved in setting up a satellite design studio for Nokia Design in Bangalore.

He has a doctorate degree from the University of York, UK, in psychological implications of personalised user interfaces.

Ignacio Marín

Ignacio is in Computer Engineer - School of Engineering of Gijón - Universidad de Oviedo. Currently developing the doctoral thesis entitled "Optimization of Interactive Multimedia Services using Server Configuration and Tuning".  He is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Computer Architecture and Technology Department of Informatics, University of Oviedo from 2002 to 2005. Head of Mobility and Independence Area Device R & D of CTIC Foundation since 2005. Member groups of Mobile Web Best Practices and Device Description, with participation in the definition of the mobileOK Basic Checker tool and co-editor of the W3C Recommendation "Device Description Repository Simple API", and also participated in several reference implementations of standards for the mobile web. Member of ACM (Association for Computer Machinery) and its stakeholders SIGWEB, and SIGMM SIGMOBILE. Participation in Spanish technology platforms enema, INES eMOV and contributions to their Strategic Research Agendas and active participation in various working groups. - Responsible for the participation of Fundación CTIC in various national and European projects in the field of Mobility and Independence Dispositivo. Co-author of several scientific and technical publications in the fields of industrial computing, multimedia and mobile computing.

Mª América Álvarez González

Senior Engineer from the University of Oviedo. From 1983 until 1992 he developed his career in various companies
private sector in the areas of construction, telecommunications, and electricity in Asturias
and Madrid starting with the work of programming, analysis and project leadership. Since 1992, he was Technical Director of a multinational IT services company in the sectors of industry, banking and administrative functions in the areas of outsourcing, implementation of ERP and CRM. He is currently Director General of Informacticas Technologies from  Principado de Asturias Government, a position he has held since 2003.

 Jorge Martín

has studied Physics, for several years devoted to making free software a graduate GNU / Linux systems, and studying a Masters in free software worked in free software projects at the Foundation for the Development of Science and Technology in Extremadura (Fundecyt).

Currently working on projects in the department of the National Reference Center for the Application of Information Technologies and Communication ICT-based open source (CENATIC). One of its tasks is the GONG project, the free tool for the management of NGOs

Miriam Ruiz

Miriam is Senior Engineer and is currently working forCTIC Foundation. Collaborates with the Debian Project and founder of its group of game development. Has previously worked on the development of embedded systems based on GNU / Linux. Miriam is also the editor of Barrapunto.

Andrés Martínez

Andrés is a professor in the Department of Signal Theory and Communications at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and CEO of the EHAS Foundation. He earned a degree in Telecommunication Engineering (1994) and Ph.D. (2003), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM). He did his doctoral thesis entitled "Impact of the use of appropriate communication technologies for rural health personnel from developing countries" in the Graduate Biomedical Engineering and Technology in Health, which obtained the PhD Extraordinary Award of the UPM in 2002/2003. As director of the EHAS Foundation (www.ehas.org) or as a teacher of Spanish university has participated in more than 9 projects (funded by EU, WB, PAHO, ORAS, IDB, CYTED ...) and 7 national (funded by the AECI, CICYT, FIS ...), all related to telemedicine in developing countries. He is author of 9 international articles in indexed journals and a book published by PAHO. Has been a featured speaker at over 20 national and 8 international conferences, with topics related to telecommunications and primary health care.

Najet Tenoutit

Najet started her career a few years ago at Oxfam’s headquarters in UK where she was Team coordinator in the Communication unit. While this position was really fulfilling, she decided to get back to France in order to graduate. She did it in 2003 and got a BA in Projects Management. In 2004, she got a Master’s degree in International Relations and Cooperation. In 2005, she decided to add another Master’s degree to her curriculum in the field of non-profit management. During 2006–2007, after a few months as Public relation officer at The European Centre of humanitarian health, she was recruited at the World digital solidarity Agency as Project Manager. She is now the deputy Director of this ongoing international organisation.

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