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Dr. Hamadoun Touré
Dr Hamadoun Touré, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) since January 2007, was re-elected for a second four-year term in October 2010. As Secretary-General, Dr Touré is committed to ITU’s mission of connecting the world, and to helping achieve the Millennium Development Goals through harnessing the unique potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). A long-standing champion of ICTs as a driver of social and economic development, Dr Touré previously served as Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) from 1998-2006.
In this role he placed considerable emphasis on implementing the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), launching projects based on partnerships with international organizations, governments, the private sector and civil society. Prior to joining ITU, Dr Touré started his professional career in native Mali in 1979. He built a solid career in the satellite industry, serving as managing engineer in Mali’s 1st International Earth Station.
He joined Intelsat’s Assistance and Development Programme in 1985. He was appointed Intelsat’s Group Director for Africa and the Middle East in 1994, earning a reputation as an energetic leader through his commitment to varous Regional connectivity projects such as RASCOM. In 1996 he joined ICO Global Communications as African Regional General Manager, spearheading the companies’ activities across the African region. A national of Mali, Dr Touré holds a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering from the Technical Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications of Leningrad, and a PhD from the University of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics of Moscow.
He is married with four children and two grandchildren, and is proficient in four official ITU languages: English, French, Russian and Spanish.
Jimmy Wales
Ranked by Forbes Magazine as a “Web Celeb”, Jimmy Donal Wales is a U.S. Internet entrepreneur, wiki pioneer, and technology visionary, who is best known as the Founder of Wikipedia, an international collaborative free content encyclopedia on the Internet, and the Wikimedia Foundation. He is co-founder of Wikia, a privately owned free web hosting service he set up in 2004.
The origins of Wikipedia began in March 2000, when Mr. Wales started Nupedia (“the free encyclopedia”), which was characterized by an extensive peer-review process designed to make its articles of a quality comparable to that of professional encyclopedias. With the addition of wikis (a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content), the project was dubbed “Wikipedia.” Mr. Wales laid down the founding principles and content, establishing an Internet-based community of contributors during that year. Wikipedia was initially intended to be a wiki-based site for collaboration on early encyclopedic content for submission to Nupedia, but Wikipedia's rapid growth quickly overshadowed Nupedia's development.
In a 2004 interview with Slashdot, Mr. Wales explained his motivations about Wikipedia, “Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing.”
The success of the project has helped popularize a trend in web development (called Web 2.0) that aims to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing among users. As Wikipedia expanded and its public profile grew, Mr. Wales took on the role of the project's spokesperson and promoter through speaking engagements and media appearances. His work with Wikipedia, which has become the world's largest encyclopedia, prompted TIME Magazine to name him one of its “100 Most Influential People,” in 2006 in the “Scientists & Thinkers” category.
In 2003, Mr. Wales founded the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. The Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest collaboratively edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, the 5th most popular website in the world.
In 2004, Wales co-founded, with Angela Beesley, the for-profit company Wikia, Inc. Wikia is a wiki farm – a collection of individual wikis on different subjects, all hosted on the same website. As part of his work at Wikia, Inc., Mr. Wales is developing a human-powered search engine, Search Wikia, which will be based on the same open, transparent, community-driven principles of Wikia and Wikipedia.
The World Economic Forum recognized Wales as one of the “Young Global Leaders” of 2007. This prestigious award acknowledges the top 250 young leaders across the world for their professional accomplishments, their commitment to society, and their potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world.
Mr. Wales is a Fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. He serves on the Board of Directors of Socialtext, a provider of wiki technology to businesses and the non-profit organization Creative Commons. Mr. Wales has received an honorary doctorate from Knox College of Illinois and was presented with a Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2006.
Mr. Wales received his bachelor's degree in finance from Auburn University and started with the Ph.D. finance program at the University of Alabama, where he left with a Master's. After that, he took courses offered in the Ph.D. finance program at Indiana University. He taught at both universities during his postgraduate studies, but did not write the doctoral dissertation required to earn a Ph.D.
From 1994 to 2000, Wales was the research director at Chicago Options Associates, a futures and options trading firm in Chicago.
Francis Gurry
Mr. Francis Gurry was appointed Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on October 1, 2008, and Secretary-General of its sister organization, the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), on October 30, 2008. Francis Gurry began his WIPO career in 1985.
He was instrumental in establishing the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center in 1994 and subsequently in developing the highly successful Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. He served on the WIPO senior management team from 1997, initially as Assistant Director General, then from 2003 as Deputy Director General. Before joining WIPO, Francis Gurry practiced as an attorney in Australia, and taught law at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He holds law degrees from the University of Melbourne and a Ph.D from the University of Cambridge, UK. He is an Honorary Professorial Fellow of the University of Melbourne, an Honorary Professor of Peking University and holds honorary doctorates from a number of universities.
He is the author of numerous publications and articles on intellectual property issues in international journals. An Australian national, Francis Gurry speaks fluent English and French.
Mitchell Baker
As the leader of the Mozilla Project, Mitchell Baker is responsible for organizing and motivating a massive, worldwide collective of employees and volunteers who are breathing new life into the Internet with the Mozilla Firefox Web browser and other Mozilla products. Mitchell was born and raised in Berkeley, California, receiving her BA in Asian Studies from UC Berkeley and her JD from the Boalt Hall School of Law. Mitchell has been the general manager of the Mozilla project since 1999. She served as CEO of Mozilla until January 2008, when the organization's rapid growth encouraged her to split her responsibilities and add a CEO. Mitchell remains deeply engaged in developing product offerings that promote the mission of empowering individuals. She also guides the overall scope and direction of Mozilla's mission.
As Chair of Mozilla, Mitchell continues her commitment to an open, innovative Web and the infinite possibilities it presents. TIME Magazine profiled Mitchell under “Scientists and Thinkers” in its 2005 TIME 100. She has also appeared on “The Charlie Rose Show” and “CNN Global Office” to discuss open source software and the Firefox phenomenon. In 2009, Mitchell was honored as winner of the Anita Borg Institute's 2009 Women of Vision Award. In 2010 she was the recipient of the Aenne Burda Award for Creative Leadership and was honored as the recipient of Frost & Sullivan’s 2010 Growth, Innovation and Leadership Award. She is also a part of the Henry Ford Museum's Innovator Program.
Vinton G. Cerf
Vinton G. Cerf has served as vice president and chief Internet evangelist for Google since October 2005. In this role, he is responsible for identifying new enabling technologies to support the development of advanced, Internet-based products and services from Google. He is also an active public face for Google in the Internet world.
Cerf is the former senior vice president of Technology Strategy for MCI. In this role, Cerf was responsible for helping to guide corporate strategy development from the technical perspective. Previously, Cerf served as MCI’s senior vice president of Architecture and Technology, leading a team of architects and engineers to design advanced networking frameworks including Internet-based solutions for delivering a combination of data, information, voice and video services for business and consumer use.
Widely known as one of the "Fathers of the Internet," Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet. In December 1997, President Clinton presented the U.S. National Medal of Technology to Cerf and his colleague, Robert E. Kahn, for founding and developing the Internet. Kahn and Cerf were named the recipients of the ACM Alan M. Turing award in 2004 for their work on the Internet protocols. The Turing award is sometimes called the “Nobel Prize of Computer Science.” In November 2005, President George Bush awarded Cerf and Kahn the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their work. The medal is the highest civilian award given by the United States to its citizens. In April 2008, Cerf and Kahn received the prestigious Japan Prize.
Prior to rejoining MCI in 1994, Cerf was vice president of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI). As vice president of MCI Digital Information Services from 1982-1986, he led the engineering of MCI Mail, the first commercial email service to be connected to the Internet.
During his tenure from 1976-1982 with the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Cerf played a key role leading the development of Internet and Internet-related packet data and security technologies.
Vint Cerf served as chairman of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from 2000-2007. Cerf also served as founding president of the Internet Society from 1992-1995 and in 1999 served a term as chairman of the Board. In addition, Cerf is honorary chairman of the IPv6 Forum, dedicated to raising awareness and speeding introduction of the new Internet protocol. Cerf served as a member of the U.S. Presidential Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) from 1997 to 2001 and serves on several national, state and industry committees focused on cyber-security. Cerf sits on the Board of Directors for the Endowment for Excellence in Education, the Americas Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), CosmosID, StopBadWare, the Gorilla Foundation and the Intaba Institute (for the Deaf). Cerf also sits on the Board of Associates of Gallaudet University. He serves on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Advisory Committee and serves as Chair of the Visitors Committee on Advanced Technology of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology. He also serves as 1st Vice President and Treasurer of the National Science & Technology Medals Foundation. Cerf is a Fellow of the IEEE, ACM, and American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the International Engineering Consortium, the Computer History Museum, the Annenberg Center for Communications at USC, the Swedish Royal Academy of Engineering, the American Philosophical Society, the Hasso Platner Institute and is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering. In 2011, he was made Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society.
Cerf is a recipient of numerous awards and commendations in connection with his work on the Internet. These include the Marconi Fellowship, Charles Stark Draper award of the National Academy of Engineering, the Prince of Asturias award for science and technology, the National Medal of Science from Tunisia, the St. Cyril and St. Methodius Order (Grand Cross) of Bulgaria, the Alexander Graham Bell Award presented by the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf, the NEC Computer and Communications Prize, the Silver Medal of the International Telecommunications Union, the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal, the IEEE Koji Kobayashi Award, the ACM Software and Systems Award, the ACM SIGCOMM Award, the Computer and Communications Industries Association Industry Legend Award, installation in the Inventors Hall of Fame, the Yuri Rubinsky Web Award, the Kilby Award , the Rotary Club International Paul P. Harris Medal, the Joseph Priestley Award from Dickinson College, the Yankee Group/Interop/Network World Lifetime Achievement Award, the George R. Stibitz Award, the Werner Wolter Award, the Andrew Saks Engineering Award, the IEEE Third Millennium Medal, the Computerworld/Smithsonian Leadership Award, the J.D. Edwards Leadership Award for Collaboration, World Institute on Disability Annual award and the Library of Congress Bicentennial Living Legend medal. Cerf was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in May 2006. He was made an Eminent Member of the IEEE Eta Kappa Nu (HKN) honor society in 2009. In 2010 he received a Lifetime Webby Award. In February 2011 he was named a Stanford Engineering School “Hero” for his work on the Internet and received a lifetime achievement award from the Oxford Internet Institute.
In December, 1994, People magazine identified Cerf as one of that year's "25 Most Intriguing People."
In addition to his work on behalf of Google and the Internet, Cerf has served as a technical advisor to production for "Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict" and made a special guest appearance on the program in May 1998. Cerf has appeared on television programs NextWave with Leonard Nimoy and often co-hosted World Business Review with Alexander Haig and Caspar Weinberger. Cerf also holds an appointment as distinguished visiting scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he is working on the design of an interplanetary Internet.
Cerf holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Stanford University and Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from UCLA. He also holds honorary Doctorate degrees from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich; Lulea University of Technology, Sweden; University of the Balearic Islands, Palma; Capitol College, Maryland; Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania; George Mason University, Virginia; Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona, Spain; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York; the University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands; Brooklyn Polytechnic; Marymount University; the University of Pisa; the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications; Tschingua University, Beijing, China; the University of Zaragoza, Spain; the Technical University of Cartagena, Spain; the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain; Bethany College, Kansas; the Moscow State University of International Relations and the Buenos Aires Institute of Technology.
His personal interests include fine wine, gourmet cooking and science fiction. Cerf and his wife, Sigrid, were married in 1966 and have two sons, David and Bennett.
Leonard Kleinrock
Lynn St. Amour
Lynn St.Amour is President/CEO of the Internet Society. She joined the Internet Society in 1998 as Executive Director of its Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) division, and has been responsible for the organisation's international expansion. She became the Internet Society's global Executive Director and COO in 1999 and held that position until her appointment as President and CEO in March of 2001. She divides her time between the Internet Society's offices in Reston, Virginia, and Geneva, Switzerland.
St.Amour has extensive experience in global IT and international business. Her background includes positions at the highest levels in international sales and marketing, strategic planning, partner management and manufacturing. She also has considerable experience in corporate restructuring and start-up management. St.Amour has spent most of her career working in the United Kingdom, France and Switzerland, with significant long-term assignments in other European countries.
Prior to joining the Internet Society, she was director of Business Development and Joint Venture Operations for AT&T's Europe, Middle East and Africa division. She led the negotiation and development of several telecommunications joint ventures with leading European companies. She was responsible for managing the AT&T Unisource Communications Services joint venture - an alliance between AT&T, and the Swiss, Swedish and Dutch PTT's - to ensure alignment of strategic goals and achievement of operating targets.
Before joining AT&T, she held a number of management positions for Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). As Director of Pricing for European Sales and Marketing, she was responsible for pricing policies and practices across Europe, Middle East and Africa, and was responsible for managing the transition from a wholly direct sales model to a combined direct and indirect model. She established the European Pricing Office, and built up regional channel management and pricing teams.
As a Corporate Strategic Alliance Director for Digital, she was responsible for a number of corporate-level strategic initiatives. In addition, she developed methodologies and processes to drive the analysis and development of partnership opportunities worldwide.
Earlier in her career she led Digital's corporate manufacturing restructuring efforts as the leader of the worldwide Capacity Management Team. These efforts reduced manufacturing/engineering headcount worldwide by 30%, the number of plants by 60%, and established management processes that remained the core of manufacturing for many years. Prior to that St.Amour was responsible for Digital's Sales and Product Forecasting for Europe's entire revenue stream - $3 billion in 1988. She also recruited and successfully managed a start-up group responsible for material planning and order fulfillment process for Digital's Personal Computer Business ($1 billion in 1984) and was project leader in a 2-year corporate-wide program which successfully reengineered and significantly streamlined manufacturing, order fulfillment and logistics processes.
A graduate of the University of Vermont, St. Amour began her career in information technology with the General Electric Corporation.
Lynn is based in Reston & Geneva, USA & Switzerland