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Biographies

Leonidas Anthopoulos Professor, University of Thessaly, Greece Dr. Leonidas Anthopoulos is a Professor in e-business and strategy at the University of Thessaly, Greece. During his current mission and at his previous job positions (as an Expert Counselor at the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as a Special Advisor of the Mayor of Trikala, Greece and as an ICT project manager at the Information Society S.A. (Greece)) he planned and supervised several critical projects, worth mentioning the smart city of Trikala. He is the Director of the “Intelligent Production Systems and Smart Cities” Research Institute and the Director of the Postgraduate Program in Agile Management at the University of Thessaly, Greece. He is a member of numerous committees, worth mentioning working for the ITU (Rapporteur of Q13 of the SG5), he is the head of the Smart and Sustainable cities’ working group for the Greek Standards, the Associate Editor of the IET Smart Cities journal etc. In the above missions he has focused among others on the role of ICT in city resilience in terms of systemic efficiency and social coherence, and corresponding works have been developed for the smart city of Trikala and the International Telecommunications Union. He is the author and editor of several book collections, which can be found in Cities, Sustainable Cities and Society, Technological Forecasting and Social Change and Government Information Quarterly (ElSevier), ACM Computing Surveys monograph for Springer etc. His research interests concern, among others, smart city, e-Government, Enterprise Architecture, Strategic Management, etc.
Okan Geray Strategic Planning Advisor, Digital Dubai Dr. Okan Geray has more than 25 years of experience in consulting and advisory roles across various industries. He has consulted for a number of organizations in Netherlands, France, Italy, Germany, South Africa, Turkey and Dubai. He worked at A.T. Kearney global management consulting firm for 6 years and was a member of the Global Telecommunications and Higher Technology core team before he joined Dubai Government in 2002. He has worked as the Strategic Planning Advisor in Dubai eGovernment, Dubai Smart Government, Smart Dubai Office and recently Dubai Digital Authority. His responsibilities include Strategic Planning, Strategic Performance Management and Policy Making among others. Dr. Geray was the Co-Chair of the Enhancing Innovation and Participation Working Group, part of the United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) joint global initiative by ITU and UNECE. This working group addressed Smart Governance, Smart Economy and Smart People aspects in smart cities. He is leading four deliverables globally for U4SSC: namely “Guidelines on Strategies for Circular Cities”, “City Science Application Framework”, “Guiding principles for Artificial Intelligence in cities”, and “Digital Transformation for People-Oriented Cities”. Dr. Geray is the Co-Rapporteur of ITU Study Group 20, Question 7 on “Evaluation and assessment of Smart Sustainable Cities and Communities”. He is a member of the IEC-ISO-ITU Joint Smart Cities Task Force (J-SCTF). He was also the Co-Chair of the “Data Economy Impact, Commercialization and Monetization” Working Group, part of the ITU Focus Group on Data Processing and Management. Dr. Geray holds a double major B. Sc. degree in Industrial and Computer Engineering from Bosphorus University in Istanbul Turkey, an M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. degree in Systems and Control Engineering from the University of Massachusetts in the US. He has published several journals and conference papers and was an adjunct lecturer in management for 15 years.
Bilel Jamoussi Chief of Study Groups, TSB, ITU Tunisian born, Dr. Bilel Jamoussi is Chief of the Study Groups Department of ITU Standardization Bureau in Geneva Switzerland. Since 2010, he has been leading the bureau’s standards making activities into a new era characterized by rapid convergence and the need for increased collaboration with vertical sectors and partnership between developed and developing countries. Prior to 2010, Jamoussi worked for a Telecommunication equipment and solutions provider for 15 years in Canada and then in the United States where he held several leadership positions and was granted 22 US patents in diverse areas including packet, optical, wireless, and quality of service. He holds a BSc, MSc and PhD degrees in Computer Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University, USA. He is fluent in Arabic, French, and English and speaks some Spanish and German.
Milou Jansen Coordinator, Cities Coalition for Digital Rights Milou Jansen is Lead Digital Rights & Ethics at the City of Amsterdam and also coordinates the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights in this capacity. Her practical local and international experience in the field, combined with an academic background in the Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society, allows her to broadly reflect on the socio-ethical aspects of emerging technologies, specifically in an urban and governmental context.
Barbara Kolm Director, Austrian Economics Center & Vice President, Austrian National Bank Dr. Barbara Kolm, Vice President of the Austrian Central Bank, Director of the Austrian Economics Center (#1 Independent Think Tank in Austria and #21 in the world), Professor of Austrian Economics at the University of Donja Gorica, Montenegro, and serves on several supervisory boards Vienna Insurance Group, Supervisory Board of Wiener Städtische Versicherungsverein; Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien. She was appointed Vice-Chair of the UN ITU Focus Group on Environmental Efficiency for Artificial Intelligence and other Emerging Technologies (AI4EE) and Chair of the Thematic Group on the United for Smart Sustainable City Index. She has given numerous talks on the most pressing economic issues of our time, such as the geopolitical challenges posed by a rising China and the need for serious economic reforms to the bloated welfare states in Europe. She has successfully managed private enterprises and non-profit organizations, and has been engaged in other entrepreneurial activities, for instance building the Austrian Economics Center from scratch to being the leading think tank in Austria within 12 years. Additionally, she is the founder and organizer of the Free Market Road Show, a forum for discussions and the exchange of ideas, in co-operation with over 100 leading think tanks and universities.
Mythili Menon Project Officer, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Mythili Menon works as Project Officer at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in the domain of standardization for new and emerging technologies. She serves as the Advisor of the ITU/WMO/UNEP Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Natural Disaster Management (FG-AI4NDM). Mythili possesses a strong background in environmental science, standardization and the policy frameworks underlying sustainable development issues. Between 2015-2017, she worked for the ITU-T Study Group 20 on 'Internet of Things and Smart Cities and Communities' and ITU-T Study Group 5 on ‘Environment, Climate Change and Circular Economy’. Previously, she worked as the Standardization Lead at Mandat International for various EU Horizon 2020 projects. Mythili holds a Masters in 'Standardization, Social Regulation and Sustainable Development' from the University of Geneva. She completed her Bachelors in 'Environmental Science and Chemistry' from University College Utrecht in the Netherlands. The areas relating to the sustainable development goals, artificial intelligence, blockchain, intelligent transport systems, disaster management, data management, smart cities, and IoT are of enduring interest to her and she has co-authored several publications on these subjects.
Sophia Papathanasopoulou Head of Broadband Unit, General Secretariat of Telecommunications and Post, Ministry of Digital Governance, Greece Mrs. Sophia Papathanasopoulou holds a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). She has a multi-year experience in the private sector, being a Senior Engineer for the development of telecommunication products at Intracom SA, the biggest telecommunications industry in Greece. In 2009 she joined the public sector and was enrolled in the General Secretariat of Telecommunications and Post of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, at the post of a Policy Officer at the Directorate for Standardization and Certification of Telecommunications. Her present position at the Ministry of Digital Governance is Head of Broadband Unit and her duties include Standardization in Telecommunications and ICTs (she’s Head of National Delegation at ETSI and ITU) and the creation of institutional framework through Ministerial Decrees and Regulations for the development of broadband, sharing of infrastructures and ICT products.
Athanasios Staveris-Polykalas Secretary General of Telecommunications and Post, Ministry of Digital Governance, Greece Dr. Athanasios Staveris-Polykalas, completed his Bachelor Degree in Physics from University Of Athens and Masters in Applied Physics and Mathematics from NTUA. He completed his PhD in High Energy Physics. He worked as a researcher in the international experiment of CDF at Fermilab USA, under European Scholarship (RTN) and in co-operation with Instituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare Sezione di Pisa. Furthermore he has over 10 years professional experience in large scale ICT projects in private sector. He specializes in data analysis, use of AI and ML algorithms and Natural Language Processing. From July 2019 since November 2020 he worked as Technology Advisor to the Minister of Digital Governance Hellenic Republic. Since November 2020, he holds the position of Secretary General of Telecoms and Posts, under the Ministry of Digital Governance – Hellenic Republic. He is responsible for Space strategy implementation of Greece, Cyber Security, use of new technologies in telecommunications (AI/IoT) and the design of sustainable and resilient telecommunication infrastructures aligned with Secure Connectivity initiative, etc.
Pontus Westerberg Programme Management Officer, UN-Habitat Pontus Westerberg is a programme manager at UN-Habitat, the UN agency for sustainable cities, where he leads initiatives on digital technologies, people-centered smart cities and open innovation. He has advised governments on digital inclusion, civic technologies, smart cities and urban innovation in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. He represents UN-Habitat in the steering group of the Cities for Digital Rights Coalition, the UN Working Group on Artificial Intelligence and is an adviser to the Block by Block Foundation. Before joining the UN in 2012, he worked in the NGO sector for 10 years.