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Speakers

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	Based in Ethiopia, Andrew Rugege is currently the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Regional Director for Africa and Representative to the African Union (AU) and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). Recognized as a thought-leader and key influencer among African countries, Andrew is responsible for collaboration with and technical assistance to ITU Members in Africa. He believes that by putting ITU’s resources and expertise at the disposal of its Members and building key partnerships between Public and Private Sectors, ICT and Innovation can become the backbone of Africa’s Digital Transformation and accelerator of UN SDGs and AU Agenda 2063. Andrew leads teams that provide Members States with advice and expertise in ICT Policy, Regulation, Infrastructure, Innovation and others. He is passionate about Youth and Women Empowerment, Innovation and sustainable development through ICTs. His broad experience in the Technology sector spans private and public sectors as well as Academia. In line with the above, Andrew is privileged to serve as a member of the Advisory Board of the Africa50 Innovation Challenge. Prior to ITU, Andrew served as COO at MTN and CEO at Artel Communications both in Rwanda. He previously served as Director of International Business Development at ABSinteractive, USA and Global IT Services Coordinator at United Bible Societies, UK. Andrew holds master’s degrees in Engineering Science, and Computer Science and Business Administration.
	Serge Valery ZONGO is Program Officer at the International Telecommunications Union (UN lead agency for Information and Communications Technologies) and Cybersecurity focal point for Africa region. He worked the last 15 years in information technology and management field at Intelsat, Teleglobe and Sonatel where he was in charge of planning and architecture of transport and IP networks. He currently facilitates the work of ITU in Africa region in the development strategies for Cybersecurity and programs and initiatives implementation’s for the benefit of the Member States of the ITU, including providing assistance in establishing capabilities (such as national CIRTs , Cybersecurity, and strengthening coordination and cooperation within the United Nations system.
	Francisco Fonseca is currently VP of National Cybersecurity at BitSight. From 2014 to 2019 he was responsible for BitSight in Portugal, Spain and Brazil. Co-founded the cybersecurity company AnubisNetworks in 2006 and has served as Chief Executive Officer from 2006 to 2019. AnubisNetworks was acquired by BitSight in 2014. Prior to AnubisNetworks, he founded Crashless, a managed services provider specializing in complex Microsoft-based services, which was acquired by Claranet in 2008. Before 2008 worked in the telecommunications industry (Vodafone), implementing and managing email platforms for corporate and ISP environments. Was Vice President of the National Association of Young Business People (ANJE). Taught at Moderna and Nova Universities. Francisco attended the “Advanced Program in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management” from Católica Lisbon and the Advanced Management Program from the Kellogg School of Management and Católica. He holds a degree in Management and Computer Science from Minho University.
	Jon France is the Head of Industry Security at the GSMA, where he leads the Fraud and Security function. A technology and security expert in a now 5G world, where reliance on digital tech has risen exponentially, Jon’s focus is on ensuring network resiliency and integrity in support of mobile operators, consumers and other stakeholders throughout the mobile industry. Jon has 20+ years’ experience in Enterprise IT & Security within media and telecoms. Jon has also delivered cloud enablement strategies; built online product portfolios; lead development teams; run global IT portfolios and headed up incident/ crisis management teams.
	Jean-Robert Hountomey is Director of AfricaCERT, as such he coordinates the activities of the Organization. As a vulnerability researcher, Jean-Robert brings an interesting perspective in the CSIRTs work when it comes to Risk Management, Internet Infrastructure Assets evaluation, vulnerability research and investigation, security events coordination and global coordination.
	Enrico Calandro (PhD) is Co-Director of the Cybersecurity Capacity Centre for Southern Africa at the University of Cape Town, and Senior Research Associate at Research ICT Africa. Enrico is also a Member of the Advisory Board of the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise. Over the last ten years, his professional career has been research driven. He has developed and applied research methods to explore cyber policy and regulation across the global South and beyond to facilitate informed policy making to harness opportunities of digitalisation while preventing and mitigating cyber risks and harm. Through a human-centric approach to cyber policy, his research has primarily focused on investigating the causes of digital inequalities in emerging economies, to identify evidence-based cyber capacity building responses to tackle developmental challenges.
	Kaleem Ahmed Usmani is heading the Computer Emergency Response Team of Mauritius (CERT-MU), a national CERT since May 2010. It operates under the umbrella of the National Computer Board, an autonomous body under the Ministry of Information Technology Communication and Innovation, Republic of Mauritius. His experience of 18 years in the ICT industry spans over cybersecurity , network engineering, system administration, IT management and project implementation. Currently, he is involved in implementing the national level cybersecurity projects for Mauritius and also involved in initiating regional cybersecurity projects for IOC, SADC and COMESA region. I is the Mauritian representative to UN Group of Governmental Experts (UNGGE) on Cyber for the period 2019-2021.
	Amreesh D. Phokeer is a Research Manager at the African Network Information Center – AFRINIC, where he spearheads the organisation’s research activities in the areas of Internet security and Internet measurements - with a focus on African networks. He is currently responsible of multiple initiatives namely: the AFRINIC Research Collaborations (ARC) and the Africa Internet Measurement (AIM) programmes. Between 2011 and 2014, he headed the software development team as Applications Unit Manager, where he championed the development of various security frameworks namely RPKI and DNSSEC. Prior to joining AFRINIC, Amreesh worked as a Guest Researcher at NIST, USA. Amreesh has a number of scientific publications in A-ranked conferences in the areas of network performance, security, and Internet policy. He has been a Programme Committee member of several academic and technical conferences. He was the General Chair of the 12th EAI International Conference on e‐Infrastructure and e‐Services for Developing Countries (AFRICOMM). Amreesh is a frequent speaker at Internet conferences in Africa. He has an M.Eng in Computer Science from Telecom Nancy, France and an M.Sc in Information Security from the University of London, UK. He is currently finishing his PhD in Computer Networks at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
	Sorene Assefa - Founder and Managing Director at Cyber Czar (Pty) Ltd., Sorene, founded Cyber Czar - “igniting a culture of cybersecurity in South Africa”, with the sole aim of protecting the most vulnerable against Cybercrime; and advocating for women’s equal opportunity in the Cybersecurity eco-system by inspiring girls to pursue studies and career in Cybersecurity. Sorene is passionate and resolute about inspiring and empowering young African women to play a critical role in the area of Cybersecurity. Moreover, she is immensely passionate about contributing to Africa’s present and future standing in Cybersecurity, Privacy, and Governance issues. As a Cybersecurity specialist, Sorene believes in a multi-stakeholder approach to address Cybersecurity challenges. Levering her experience, Sorene has forged a strong partnership with the National Cybersecurity Alliance (NCSA), which is the public-private partnership working with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), NGOs, and others. Cyber Czar is also a STOP. THINK. CONNECT™ partner, and National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCAM) Cyber Aware Champion, and Privacy Aware Champion. Sorene has far-reaching experience of working in a multi-stakeholder environment. During her tenure with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) HQs, in Geneva, Switzerland, she served as an Information Systems Officer and later as Technology Analyst for the Office of the Secretary-General and dealt with issues on emerging trends, Internet Governance, and the overall implementation of ITU's Cybersecurity mandate. One of her main responsibilities was to serve as a team leader and focal point for the ITU-International Multilateral Partnership against Cyber Threats (IMPACT) Alliance, which is believed to be the first truly global, multi-stakeholder and public-private alliance against Cyber threats. A substantial part of her work focused on assisting UN Agencies and the Member States - mainly developing countries - to build their Cybersecurity capabilities such as Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs). Sorene holds a postgraduate degree (MSc) in Computer Science from the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. She is also a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP®), PRINCE2® Practitioner, ITIL ®, COBIT® 5, ISO/IEC 27001 amongst other certifications within the area of Internet Governance and Cybersecurity.
	Diplômé d’ingénieur de conception de l’Ecole Supérieure d’Informatique de l’Université Polytechnique de Bobo-Dioulasso, Pousga Martin KIENDREBEOGO a intégré le Ministère de l’Economie et des Finances du Burkina Faso en 2007 où il a respectivement occupé les postes de développeur d’application et membre de l’équipe qui a mis en place le Circuit Intégré des Financements Extérieur, une application pour améliorer la gestion des finances publiques de 2007 à 2014 puis chargé de contrôle interne de 2014 à 2016 à la Direction générale des Services Informatiques du ministère en charge de l’économie et des finances. Il rejoint le groupe CORIS Bank International, en 2016 où il occupe le poste de responsable de la plateforme monétique du Groupe, avec à son actif la mise en place du Switch monétique du Groupe Coris par la migration des filiales du TOGO, du Mali, du Bénin et de la Cote d’ivoire. En Avril 2017, il réintègre l’administration publique et précisément l’agence nationale de sécurité des systèmes d’information (ANSSI) où il occupe depuis 2018 le poste de Directeur en charge de la Cybersécurité.