Roberto Zambrana is from La Paz, Bolivia. He is an electronics and telecommunications engineer and has a Master´s degree in telecommunications. He also has taken several post-graduate courses on wireless and computer networks, has a higher education diploma and currently he is a PhD candidate in the network security field.
He has been working in telecommunications, information systems and Internet fields for more than twenty years. Since 2002 he has been involved in different activities related to ICT for development. Leading the ICT Program for the largest university in Bolivia, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, teaming with the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and with the Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (SPIDER). After that he was appointed as ICT Senior Advisor for the Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI), working directly with the Bolivian Education Ministry in their ICT Program. He also worked for the Telecommunications Vice Ministry, supervising several telecommunications programs related to community networks, Internet regulation and mobile telephony systems. After that, he worked for the Science and Technology Vice Ministry and for the Bolivian Information Society Development Agency, in charge of the design of the National Scientific and Academic Network. As part of his activities during that time, he was invited by Florencio Utreras to participate as a representative of Bolivia in the Red CLARA assembly.
Roberto has attended several events around the world, has been invited as a speaker in different topics related to his work. He was also part of the Bolivian delegation to attend the second phase of the World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunisia in 2005.
During the past 10 years he has been in charge of the ICT Sector in the local Government of La Paz city, part of his responsibilities are related to policy formulation and legislative drafts elaboration regarding telecommunications infrastructure and Internet service.
Besides his professional activities, Roberto is also a member of the Bolivian academic and research community. For the last fifteen years, he has taught in several universities for undergraduate and post-graduate programs related to telecommunications, computer and wireless networks, and network security and management. He is also a moderator for ISOC training courses, “Building Wireless Community Networks”, and “Shaping the Internet – History & Future”.
Regarding his activities as a technical community and civil society member, in January 2017, he was elected to serve as Chair of the Board of the ISOC Bolivian Chapter. During his term he organized the first and second Bolivian Internet Governance Forums, acquiring the role of coordinator of the Bolivian National Regional Initiative (NRI). In December 2019, he was appointed to serve as a member of IGF Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG).