Mr. Michael Dzoga is an economist who graduated from International Affairs at the Warsaw School of Economics. Since 1999 he worked as Advisor to President Poland, leading country-wide digital transition programs in education. He has created and managed the Internet in Schools, the most extensive education digitalization program led by Poland's President. In 2004 Michael became an advisor to the CEO of Polish Telecom responsible for government affairs. He has created and led the most prominent corporate foundation in Poland – Polish Telecom Foundation, known today as the Orange Foundation. Connecting all K12 schools to broadband Internet, digital innovation grants for the country's rural districts have become the most recognized digitalization programs in Poland. In 2010 Michael joined the Corporate Affairs team at Intel Corporation. Today, as Global Partnerships and Initiatives Director for the EMEA Region, he leads a team responsible for government and international organizations' relationship management. Over the years, he shaped regional strategy for global STEM advancement programs, startup accelerators, and digital readiness initiatives, including the most recent Intel's endeavor to accelerate global Artificial Intelligence skills advancement.
Dr. Florensa Haxhi, Senior policy maker who covers the areas of economic development, national strategic programming and regional cooperation. She currently holds the position of the Director General of the Development Programs and Cooperation Unit, at the Prime Minister’s Office, and is responsible of drafting a number of National Development Programs in different sectors of the economy which are translated into concrete executable national strategic projects with a direct impact to the country’s economic growth, one of them being the National Program of Innovation and Startups. She is also in charge of the coordination of the Regional Economic Area and its Action Plan, since its creation in 2017, with the focus of developing and transforming the Western Balkans region into an economic area where goods, services, people and knowledge move without borders.
Ms. Pranvera Kastrati, Senior Expert on Economic and Digital Connectivity in Regional Cooperation Council. She had a vast experience in public policy coordination and implementation in Albania. She held senior position in the Ministry of Economic Development, Tourism, Trade and Entrepreneurship and contributed to several reforms to improve business environment from 1996-2017. She joined Regional Cooperation Council in November 2017 and her core focus of expertise relates to the work pertaining to coordination, monitoring and reporting for the implementation of the Multiannual Action Plan for a Regional Economic Area (MAP REA), contributing also in towards the management and overall implementation of MAP REA in the areas of RCC responsibility. In the area of digital integration her core responsibilities relate to design, implementation, coordination and monitoring of RCC’s interventions in area of digital integration, as well as overseeing of the implementation of the operational and implementation plans for the Digital Agenda for Western Balkan.
Ms. Halima Letamo currently works as a Capacity & Skills Development Officer for the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). She works for the human capacity building division which is responsible for ITU’s training interventions and human capacity development support to the ITU membership. She holds a master of Business Administration degree and a Master of Education degree as well as 20 years work experience in human capacity development, spread across service in the Botswana Government, UNESCO, Botswana Training Regulator, Botswana Telecommunications Corporation and ITU. Her international service includes chairing the programme for development and training of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation and serving in the organisations governing board. She is a change management practitioner and holds other professional qualifications such as Project Management, Balanced Score Card, Targeted Selection, Human Rights Based Approach to Programming and Implementation of Quality Management Systems
Ms. Gulsanna Mamediieva is the Director General of Directorate for Eurointegration at Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine. She is In charge of eurointegration into Digital Single Market and online safety and protection. Gulsanna and her team have launched development and implementation of the Strategy of integration of Ukraine into European Digital Single Market. It consists of many components: electronic communications, trust and identification services, e-commerce, open data, digital skills, privacy, innovation, etc. Before working in the Ukrainian government, Gulsanna had been a lawyer in private IT sector. She holds a master’s degree in information technology law, University of Tartu, Estonia and currently pursuing PhD at Kyiv Institute of International Relations. Gulsanna speaks Ukrainian, Crimean Tatar, Russian, English. Learning French.
Izabela Milewska works as Global Digital Skills Leader at Amazon Web Services (AWS) Training and Certification. She leads AWS collaboration with government stakeholders in the area of digital skills strategy, reskilling, upskilling and education modernization. Izabela serves as a Chair of Digital Skills Working Group at DIGITALEUROPE since 2018. Her professional experience includes roles in education programs management, public sector marketing and EU funds consultancy. Before joining Amazon, she has worked at Microsoft, ministries in Poland (2004-2008): Ministry of Regional Development, Ministry of Economy, and Ministry of State Treasury. LinkedIn; Twitter: @IzaMilewska
Mr. Jaroslaw K. Ponder, Head of the Office for Europe
at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) (Geneva, Switzerland),
representing ITU in Europe and directing actions, projects, initiatives and
experts groups targeting 46 countries of the Europe Region. His portfolio includes
set of Regional Initiatives for Europe, designed by the European Member States
and focusing on the ICT Infrastructure, Digitization, Digital Inclusion,
Accessibility, Innovation and Cybersecurity. Along the professional career, Mr.
Ponder held official positions in the public sector and was a contributor to
the legislative projects having the impact on the public policy. Since 2014 Mr.
Ponder has been working for ITU holding diverse positions in the General
Secretariat, Telecommunication Development Bureau, and Regional Presence,
addressing complexity of information society development and digital
transformation at national, regional, international level, including United
Nations level. For several years he has managed ITU’s work on the United Nations
World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process, leading towards the
establishment of the annual WSIS Forum, WSIS Prizes, WSIS Stocktaking, others.
Ms. Nevena Praizovic, a Master of Laws in economic analysis of law, has broad work experience which lasts for more than ten years in Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunication. She is working on broad spectrum of subjects, including: e-commerce and consumer protection on the internet, digital skills development, gender equality in ICT and rural broadband. She participated in the preparation and writing of the following laws: Consumer protection Law, Trade Law and E-commerce Law. Also, she participated in preparation and writing of strategic and program documents within the scope of the Ministry: Strategy for Digital Skills Development in the Republic of Serbia for the period from 2020 to 2024., Action plan proposal for the implementation of the Digital Skills Development Strategy in the Republic of Serbia for the period from 2020 to 2024., in the period 2021 to 2022., Program for women's empowerment in ICT sector for the period 2019-2020., Program for the development of e-commerce in the Republic of Serbia with the Action Plan for the period 2019-2020. Nevena is regular lecturer at workshops and seminars in the field of e-commerce intended for businesses. She is hired by the Ministry of European Integration as professional editor. Nevena is continuously monitoring European Union regulations regarding consumer protection and electronic communications, also she participates in the implementation of those regulations in domestic legal system.
Ms. Manana Ratiani is a Deputy Director at the National Center for Teacher Professional Development. In 2004 she got a PhD for analyzing the Educational System in Georgia. From the very beginning of reforms in Georgian education system she started a job at National Curriculum and Development Center later at National Center for Teacher Professional Development and contributed to develop main regulatory documents – “National Curriculum”, “Teachers’ Professional Standard”, “Teachers’ Entry into Profession, Professional Development and Career Advancement Scheme”, “Unified Strategy of Education and Science 2017-2021”, “Education Sector Benchmarks of the Higher Education Programmes”. Ms. Ratiani is a Focal Point on Education for Sustainable Development and as a member of the Expert Group on ESD Competences of UNECE, she contributed to develop ESD competences document. She authored more than 50 books and articles. For 10 years she was a professor at Tbilisi State University at the Geography Department, now she is an Associate Professor at School of Business, Technology and Education, at Ilia State University. She has 8-year experience of teaching geography in public school, as well as at the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. Currently, she participates as a trainer, keynote speaker and facilitator in different national and international events.
Ms. Liesbeth Ruoff - van Welzen acquired expertise in various fields. After starting as a marketeer in education and IT firms, she made a career within IDC, a global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. Started as CEO of IDC Benelux, she became Group Vice President IDC EMEA. She played an important role in the development and growth of its international research portfolio. Later on she developed her own consultancy practice, looking at ROI of investments in technology. She developed her thinking in working with and based on the theory of Paul Strassmann. One of the most important results turning up every time a ROI was done, was related to the people component. Currently Liesbeth is : - Chairman of the Dutch Interest Group (IG) Digital Skills of the KNVI, the Royal organization for the information professional, - Member of the Dutch mirror committee of the European CEN TC 428, Digital competences and ICT Professionalism, and external expert in several workshops, - Board member of IP3, part of IFIP, the International Federation for Information Processing, established in 1960 under the auspices of UNESCO.
Ms. Susan Teltscher is Head of the Capacity & Digital Skills Development Division (CSD). She is responsible for ensuring the delivery of ICTrelated capacity building activities and projects, with the objective to enhance knowledge and capabilities in the field of ICT, in particular in developing countries. This includes the direction and coordination of the ITU Academy and of the ITU Centres of Excellence network, working in partnership with Government, industry and academic institutions. Before joining CSD she was Head of the ICT Data and Analytics Division where she was responsible for ITU’s work on the collection, harmonization, analysis and dissemination of ICT statistics worldwide, and for the production of analytical reports on global and regional trends in ICT, including the annual ITU Measuring the Information Society Report and the ICT Development Index. Before joining ITU in July 2008, she was Chief of the ICT Policy and Analysis Unit, ICT and E-Business Branch, of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Geneva. She received her Ph.D. in Economic Geography in 1992 from the University of Washington (Seattle, United States).
