Agenda

Viktors Makarovs is the first envoy on Digital Affairs to be appointed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia. Before assuming his current post in October 2021, he focused on international outreach to counter disinformation, resilience building and media support. Viktors Makarovs holds a degree in Political Science from the University of Copenhagen and acquired a background in the Latvian NGO think-tanking community before joining the Ministry in 2011.

Ambassador Bahtijors Hasans is the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Latvia to the UN Office in Geneva. During his career, Mr. Hasans has served in various capacities, among them as the Permanent Representative of Latvia to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and other international organizations in Vienna; Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Latvia to Slovenia and Kosovo and Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of Latvia in Finland. He has also held diffent positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia. Mr. Hasans is a graduate of the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Philology of the University of Latvia. 

Paulina Ibarra is an expert in gender policy, open government and human rights, with more than 20 years of professional experience in Latin America and the Caribbean. She has worked with the Open Government Partnership launched by the U.S. President Barack Obama in 2011, chaired the Steering Committee of the Community of Democracies, and was selected as a member of the Steering Committee on Advancing Human Rights at the Summit for Democracy. In 2023, she was appointed by the President of Chile to be part of the Commission Against Disinformation. Recognized for her work on combating gender political disinformation, Paulina Ibarra works on strengthening democracies by protecting information integrity, civic space and human rights. She leads the Women's Observatory Against Disinformation.

Septiaji “Zek” Eko Nugroho is an entrepreneur. He co-founded Masyarakat Anti Fitnah Indonesia (MAFINDO) in 2016, a civil society organization that deals with mis/disinformation, with 1000 volunteers from 45 cities around Indonesia. MAFINDO has also been working together with 24 reputed online media organizations to collaborate on fact-checking on Cekfakta.com. Septiaji is also a frequent speaker at seminars and mainstream media events, e.g. on TV and radio broadcasts. He graduated from Institute of Technology Bandung and obtained his master’s degree from Technical University of Munich.

Eileen Donahoe serves as Special Envoy and Coordinator for Digital Freedom in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy (CDP).

Previously, Dr. Donahoe served as the Executive Director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator at Stanford University, a multistakeholder collaboration hub focused on implications of digital technology for democracy and human rights. She served as the first US Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva during the Obama Administration. After leaving government, she was Director of Global Affairs at Human Rights Watch where she represented the organization worldwide on human rights foreign policy, with a special focus on internet governance and digital security.

Dr. Donahoe is a former member of the Board of Directors of the National Endowment for Democracy; the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and the Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College. She also served on Microsoft’s Human Rights and Technology Advisory Board; the Independent Advisory Council of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism; the Board of Advisors for the Carnegie Council Artificial Intelligence and Equality Initiative; and the Freedom Online Coalition Advisory Network. Previously, she was a technology litigator at Fenwick & West in Silicon Valley. She holds an A.B. from Dartmouth, an M.T.S. from Harvard, a J.D. from Stanford Law School, an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford, and a Ph.D. in Ethics and Social Theory from the GTU in the Cooperative Program with UC Berkeley. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

H.E. Dr. Mohamed Al Kuwaiti was appointed by the Cabinet as the Head of Cyber Security for the UAE Government since 2020. As the Head of Cyber Security, his mandate includes responsibilities as the Chairman of the UAE Cyber Security Council as well as Managing Director of the National Data Centre under the Supreme Council for National Security. He is also working as Assistant Professor (Adjunct) of Homeland Security Program at Rabdan Academy. In his current role Dr. Al Kuwaiti aims to create a fully governed approach to data privacy, sharing and processing as well as the unification and connectivity of government systems and digitization towards a smart government. His interests are consulting on detecting, monitoring and responding to cyber warfare, Network Forensics, Corporate Governance & Process, and national cyber policy. He is an honorable member of Society of Engineers –UAE, IEEE Society, Golden Key National Honor Society and Computer Society. He is a visiting lecturer on Cyber Security at few universities such as Khalifa University and National Defense College in Abu Dhabi.

Since January 2016, Peggy Hicks has served as director of the Thematic Engagement, Special 
Procedures and Right to Development Division at the UN's human rights office. From 2005 to 2015, 
she was global advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, where she was responsible for 
coordinating Human Rights Watch's advocacy team and providing direction to its advocacy 
worldwide. Ms. Hicks previously served as director of the Office of Returns and Communities in the 
UN mission in Kosovo and as Deputy High Representative for Human Rights in Bosnia and 
Herzegovina. She has also worked as the Director of Programs for the International Human Rights 
Law Group (now Global Rights), clinical professor of human rights and refugee law at the University 
of Minnesota Law School, and as an expert consultant for the UN High Commissioner for Human 
Rights. Ms. Hicks is a graduate of Columbia Law School and the University of Michigan.