Agenda

Since January 2020, Sylvia Poll is the Head of the Digital Society Division in the Telecommunication Development Bureau of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). This Division focuses on digital inclusion, ICT applications and digital innovation ecosystems. Before that, she was for five years the Head of the ITU Project Support Division. 

Sylvia Poll was the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Permanent Mission of Costa Rica to the United Nations Office in Geneva and other International Organizations in Switzerland from 2010 to 2014, where she was the main focal point for Costa Rica, on sport for development and peace, as well as ITU, WIPO, WHO and IOM. Prior to this position, she was the Latin America Regional Manager of Executive Programs at the INCAE Business School and a manager at a Costa Rican communications company.

Ms. Poll was also an accomplished elite swimmer. She represented Costa Rica in two Olympic Games, Seoul, Korea 1988 and Barcelona, Spain, 1992. She won a silver medal, the first Olympic medal ever at that time, for Costa Rica and Central America, in addition to winning over 600 medals at national, regional and world swimming competitions. She was chosen the Best Athlete in Latin America two years in a row, in 1988 and 1989. Since 2010 she is a Member of the international organization “Peace and Sport”, as one of their “Champions of Peace”, a special Sport Ambassador, to help build sustainable peace through sport. She has also written on sport in different media outlets and worked as an expert swimming commentator during the broadcasting of the recent Rio Olympic Games 2016.  Ms. Poll holds a Master in Business Administration and an Executive Master in International Negotiations and Policy Making.

More than 30 years of experience on Media, includes LinearTV, Radio, Digital, and Multimedia.  Journalist.  Two times winner for Simon Bolivar Journalism award. Two times nominee India Catalina Award and finalist on AIPS Media award in 2022.

6 FIFA World Cups as Journalist, Producer and Host Broadcaster.  8 Winter and Sumer Olympic Games as also Producer, Talent and Hostbroadcaster.  Also produce Copas America, Asian Games, Panamerican Games, Central American Games, European Games.

Today manage the Sports Content acquisitions and TV and Digital Distribution for America Movil Channels include ClaroSports on a 200% Growth in two years.  Also with the Tokyo 2020 on Digitial distribution the number on views more the seven exponential zeros.

I graduated in Communication (IULM Milan) and Journalism (IULM Milan) and achieved a PhD in Comparative Literature (IULM Milan and Cardiff University). I’ve been working for 22 years in sports communication, mainly as social media manager, content manager, press officer and journalist. I began as football journalist, but about ten years ago I started producing and managing content and campaign for social media and websites. In my career I worked in different communications roles and different level of responsibilities for important entities such as the Italian National Team of Football (FIGC) - for which I’m the social media manager - Gran Galà del Calcio (AIC), Golden Foot Award, CONI, several media etc. I also have a passion for art, and my experimental music works with robots and co-design led me to cooperate for art and innovation with the School of Design of Politecnico (Milan), and being invited to hold a TEDx talk. 

During the past 25 years Alberto Lati has been based as a TV Correspondent in Japan, Spain, Greece, Germany, China, South Africa, Great Britain and Brazil. First commissioned by Televisa and now by Fox Sports, Claro Sports and National Geographic to cover the main sports events such as FIFA World Cups, Summer Olympics, Super Bowl and Champions League Finals. 

Besides of that he has traveled through more than a hundred countries in order to make stories, programs and interviews. 

He has interviewed Peace Nobel Prize Winners (His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lech Walesa, Rigoberta Menchú, FW de Klerk, Óscar Arias, Shimon Peres, Malala Yousafzai), writers (Nadine Gordimer, Carlos Fuentes, Ken Follett, John Katzenbach), artists (Zubin Mehta, Plácido Domingo, Santiago Calatrava, David Cronenberg, Fernando Meirelles, Thomas Heatherwick), actors (George Clooney, Mia Farrow, Vanessa Redgrave, Keira Knightley), musicians (Madonna, Peter Gabriel, Damon Albarn, John Paul Jones, Chris Cornell, Muse, Keane, Black Eyed Peas, Scorpions), political characters (Ban ki-Moon, Giorgos Papandreu, José María Aznar), and, most of all, sports legends (Pelé, Diego Maradona, Franz Beckenbauer, Michael Phelps, Mark Spitz, Roger Federer, Michael Schumacher, Nadia Comaneci, Alexander Popov, Yelena Isinbayeva, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lennox Lewis, Miguel Induráin, Lionel Messi, Novak Djokovic, Evander Hollyfield, Garry Kasparov). 

He was elected by the International Olympic Committee as London 2012 Torch Bearer. 

He is known for being capable of doing interviews in 13 languages (Spanish, English, German, Japanese, Greek, French, Italian, Mandarin, Portuguese, Hebrew, isiZulu, Russian, Arabic). He has published 5 books with Penguin Random House, including a fiction novel. 

Since 2015, when he was invited to work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), he has been active in his collaboration with this organism. In 2021 he was appointed as UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador.

"Colombian cliff diving star Orlando Duque is a champion many times over and a genuine legend of his sport.

Orlando Duque started out diving in swimming pools but quickly became tired of the regimented scene. Diving off cliffs seemed more of a challenge!

With an extraordinary natural talent, Orlando has won 13 world titles in total: nine Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series events, FINA High Diving World Champion (2013), FINA High Diving World Cup winner twice (2014 and 2015) and the first ever overall champion of Red Bull Cliff Diving.

The Duke has also been immortalised in the film 9 Dives, which includes the highest jump of his career to date: a 34m descent off a bridge in Italy.

On top of that, Orlando has made it into the Guinness Book of World Records on two occasions, one of them when he achieved a perfect 10 at the 2000 World Championships. When not leaping from the world’s gnarliest cliffs, Orlando lives in Hawaii.

He retired from the Red Bull Cliff Diving Word Series in 2019 after an emotional farewell performance at the season finale in Bilbao, Spain."

Nico Schulenkorf is Associate Professor of Sport Management at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. He is passionate about supporting disadvantaged communities through sport-related development initiatives. With a focus on social, cultural, educational and health-related outcomes, Nico has worked on sport-for-development projects in countries such as Sri Lanka, Israel and numerous Pacific Islands. He has assisted local and international NGOs, Government Agencies, Sport Associations and Ministries in developing capacities to implement, monitor and evaluate development projects. Nico has published over 100 scholarly articles and book chapters, and his latest co-authored books are Managing and Leveraging Events (Routledge, 2022) and Global Sport Management (Routledge, 2019). He is co-founder and past editor of the Journal of Sport for Development and serves on the editorial board of Sport Management Review, the Journal of Sport Management, and the European Journal for Sport and Society.

Joanne O’Riordan studied criminology in UCC and is only one of seven people in the world living with a rare physical disability known as Total Amelia. This means she was born without all four limbs and even though there is no medical explanation as to why this happened, Joanne or indeed her family has never allowed it to hold her back.

Joanne first gained attention for skipping school to confront then Taoiseach Enda Kenny about his proposed plan to reduce disability funding during his election. In April 2012, she spoke before the UN and challenged the body to create technology to help disabled people such as herself. She was named Young Person of the Year at the People of the Year awards in 2012. Joanne is an activist for people with disabilities, a motivational speaker and a sports columnist with The Irish Times. She appears in the 2013 documentary No Limbs No Limits.

She has used technology to enhance her abilities in both her education and through the wider social environment. She has conquered enormous challenges at home, in school and around her local community. Joanne adapted her life in such a way that it has given her both national and international acclaim. Joanne is now an example to all able bodied and disabled bodies to live very happy, independent, fulfilled lives.

Joanne has challenged the most advanced minds in the world to build her a robot that would become her hands and legs. The challenges she faces everyday get bigger and far greater to overcome. Joanne is an inspiration to others.