Archived Newsroom • Press Release |
|
UN Broadband Commission for Digital Development names eight new
Commissioners
Leaders from government and industry will bring
fresh impetus to global campaign for ‘broadband for all’
Geneva, 2 April, 2012 – The
Broadband Commission for Digital
Development has named eight new Commissioners drawn from technology leaders
and development champions from around the world.
The new Commissioners are:
- Dr Hessa Al-Jaber, Secretary-General,
ictQATAR
- Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al-Thani, Chairman,
Qtel
- Dr Saad Bin Dhafer Al Qahtani, Group CEO for Strategic
Operations, Saudi Telecom Corporation
- Mr Vanu Bose, CEO, Vanu Inc
- Mr Innocenti Botti, President, Invitalia
- H.E. Jasna Matić, State Secretary for Digital Agenda, Serbia
- Dr Armen Orujyan, Founder & Chairman, Athgo Corporation
- Mr Jean-Louis Schiltz, legal counsel, Schiltz & Schiltz &
former Minister for Communications, Luxembourg
The new Commissioners join a select group of over
50 global
leaders who are putting broadband at the very centre of their organizational
vision.
“The Broadband Commission is delighted to welcome these global leaders, who
will use their talents and their considerable expertise to add fresh impetus to
our mission to spread the word about the importance of broadband,” said Dr
Hamadoun Touré, ITU Secretary-General and Co-Vice Chair of the Commission.
Commission members comprise a high-powered international community,
including prominent CEOs, top-level policy-makers and government
representatives, heads of international agencies, and senior figures from
academia and organizations with a development mandate. Leaders in their fields,
they each believe strongly in a future based on broadband, and are working to
drive the issue to the top of the political and development agenda worldwide.
The Commission was launched at ITU headquarters in Geneva in May 2010 in
response to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s call to step up UN efforts to
meet the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs). It is co-chaired by President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Mr
Carlos Slim Helú, President of the Carlos Slim Foundation, with ITU
Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun Touré and UNESCO Director-General, Ms Irina Bokova,
serving as joint vice chairs.
At its fourth meeting, held in Geneva last October, Commissioners agreed on a
set of four ‘ambitious but achievable’
targets that countries around the world should strive to meet in order to
ensure their populations fully participate in tomorrow’s emerging knowledge
societies.
They also launched a
‘Broadband Challenge’ that recognizes communication as ‘a human need and a
right’, and calls on governments and private industry to work together to
develop the innovative policy frameworks, business models and financing
arrangements needed to facilitate growth in access to broadband worldwide.
For more information please contact:
Sarah Parkes
Chief, Media Relations and Public Information, ITU
|
|
About ITU...