Agenda

In 2018-2020 Skuodis was Vice-Minister of the Economy and Innovation of the Republic of Lithuania responsible for investment, export promotion, business environment and EU affairs. Prior to that, he served as Director of the International Relations Department of the Bank of Lithuania. 

Skuodis has a PhD in Social Science from Vilnius University, an MPA in Public and Economic Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science and an MA in European Studies from Vilnius University.

Mr Umej Bhatia is Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva on 5 August 2019. He is concurrently accredited as Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office at Vienna, Permanent Representative to the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization and Resident Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
Mr Bhatia graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with Double First Class Honours from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom in 1995 under a Singapore Broadcasting Corporation scholarship. He obtained a Master of Arts in Regional Studies (Middle East) from Harvard University, USA, in 2005 under a Ministry of Foreign Affairs scholarship.
In 1995, Mr Bhatia worked for the then Television Corporation of Singapore where he produced and presented the current affairs programme “Talking Point”.
Mr Bhatia joined the Foreign Service in 1996 and has served in various capacities on issues covering Southeast Asia, Middle East and the United Nations in the Ministry's headquarters. He served overseas as First Secretary in Singapore’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York, from 1999 to 2003, an Alternate Representative for Singapore on the United Nations Security Council from 2001-2002. In 2006, he was appointed Chargé d’Affaires with the rank of Counsellor and subsequently Chargé d’Affaires with the rank of Minister-Counsellor in the Singapore Embassy in Doha where he served until 2011. He was Singapore’s Consul-General in Dubai from September 2011 to December 2012. He was appointed as Singapore’s first resident Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates from January 2013 to December 2016. Subsequently, Mr Bhatia served as Director-General, Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia from January 2017 to May 2019.
Mr Bhatia was awarded the Public Administration Medal (Bronze) by the Singapore Government in 2008 and the Long Service Medal in 2019. In 2016, Mr Bhatia was conferred the Order of Independence (First Class) by the President of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
From 2009 to 2012, Mr Bhatia served on the board of Singapore’s Infocomms Development Authority (International). Mr Bhatia is a member of the Advisory Board of the University of Geneva’s Masters of Advanced Studies Programme in European and International Governance (MEIG), a member of the Advisory Council of InterPeace in Geneva and a member of the Foundation Council of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.
Mr Bhatia serves as the Co-Chair of the Group of Friends of Research for the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime in Vienna. Since 2019, he has served as a focal point at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva under three successive Presidencies to address challenges faced by delegations from small and developing countries and on the implementation of the measures on the use of modern technology. Mr Bhatia has also served as founding Co-Chair of the Friends of “COVAX”, the global pooled vaccine facility under the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator.
Mr Bhatia is also a historian and his most recent book was published in 2019, entitled “Our Name is Mutiny: The Global Revolt Against the Raj and the Hidden History of the Singapore Mutiny 1907-1915”.

Marsha Caddle is a Barbadian economist and public policy strategist who now serves as Barbados' Minister of Industry, Innovation, Science and Technology.

A former Minister for Economic Affairs and Investment in Barbados from 2018-2022, she helped lead Barbados’ 2018 economic recovery programme, which saw the country’s depleted foreign reserves increase eightfold by the end of the term, and its debt and arrears fall by a third following an international and domestic debt restructuring. She was ministerial negotiator on climate finance for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in 2021, introducing in the Glasgow Climate Pact the use of redistributed Special Drawing Rights for scaled up finance in climate vulnerable nations. She also led the first reform of physical planning and land use policy in over 50 years.

Her areas of work are climate & development finance and sustainable development; data and national statistics; poverty, inequality and human development; public investment, growth and competitiveness; and physical planning. She has led the Governance practice at the Caribbean Development Bank, managed the Poverty Reduction programme with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Economic Security and Rights programme of the then United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) Caribbean Offices.

She is a pioneer economist in applying gender and macroeconomic policy frameworks to public finance in the Caribbean, and is a member of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) and the International Working Group on Gender, Macroeconomics and International Economics (GEM-IWG). Her work experience in economic policy and human development spans over 20 countries. She has written and spoken extensively on matters of equality and economic and climate justice.

In 2022, she founded The Bold Centre, a think-and-do tank that helps address global issues of just transition for developing populations, such as climate and technology.

Hon. Marsha Caddle M.P. is an elected Member of Parliament in the Barbados House of Assembly.

Minister of State for the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, National Development Plan Delivery, Public Procurement and eGovernment with special responsibility for Communications and Circular Economy.

Minister Smyth was appointed to this role in July 2020. He been a T.D. for the Dún Laoghaire constituency since the 2020 general election. In 2014, he was elected as a Green Party Councillor to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and served as Cathaoirleach of the Council between 2018 and 2019.

Minister Smyth holds a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science from Trinity College Dublin. He has worked as an IT/business consultant with substantial experience in telecoms, healthcare, utilities, ISP, software and insurance/banking industries, and has worked as a technical Project Manager in Saint Vincent’s Hospital.

HE Mohamed bin Thamer Al Kaabi was appointed as Minister of Transportation and Telecommunications in June 2022. He is responsible for regulating, developing and promoting the Transportation and Telecommunications sector in the Kingdom of Bahrain, as well as the postal services. 

Prior to his appointment as Minister of Transportation and Telecommunications, Mohamed served as the Undersecretary of Civil Aviation Affairs from 2016 until 2022 and held several senior executive positions at Bahrain Airport Company.

Mohamed has over 40 years experience in the aviation industry and holds a Masters degree in Business Administration from the University of Glamorgan, UK. 

He is currently a board member of the following organisations: 

•       Chairman of National Space Science Agency (NSSA) 

•       Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company (Mumtalakat) 

Computer Engineer by training, Cabral has been serving Cape Verde for almost two decades, particularly in the areas of Electronic Governance and Development of Innovation Ecosystem and Technological Entrepreneurship.
As team leader at the Software Factory of the Operational Core for the Information Society of Cape Verde (NOSi), Cabral contributes directly to the development and upgrade of structuring solutions for Electronic Governance, namely the Integrated Management and Dissemination Platform for Electoral Results and the Integrated Planning and Resource Management Platform for the Government (IGRP Framework), solutions that earned Cape Verde the 1st Prize for Innovation in the African Public Sector (3rd edition of AAPSIA), in the category "Innovation in Government Systems and Processes".
In the last 5 years, it has played a central role in the development of the Technological Innovation Ecosystem, leading the Cabo Verde Digital program, a Government initiative created to promote the emergence of Startups through talent development, community building, and mark creation.
Similarly, in 2022, as the Acting Director-General of Telecommunications and Digital Economy, he/she was part of the team that developed the "Digital Strategy of Cape Verde," the foundation upon which the vision "Cape Verde, a technological platform country" is built.

Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard is Denmark’s Tech Ambassador with responsibility for representing the Danish Government to the global tech industry and leading Danish efforts in global technology governance. TechPlomacy is a pioneering initiative elevating technology and digitalization to a crosscutting foreign and security policy priority of the Danish government. Anne Marie and her team have a global mandate and a physical presence in Silicon Valley, and Copenhagen, transcending borders and regions in rethinking the traditional understanding of a diplomatic representation. 

Prior to her appointment, Anne Marie worked at World Economic Forum in Geneva (2017-2020) where she led the World Economic Forum's work on the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Global Public Goods. Her focus was on mobilizing technology companies, governments and civil society to collaboratively tackle the barriers that prevent emerging technology from scaling responsibly to help solve society’s biggest challenges. Before joining the World Economic Forum, Anne Marie co-founded an innovation house for student entrepreneurship; co-founded Democratic Capital; worked as political advisor in the Danish Parliament; and served on the Board of Directors of Copenhagen Business School and The Danish Consumer Council.   

Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard holds a M.Sc. in International Development from The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in International Business & Politics from Copenhagen Business School and is a 2017 Global Leadership Fellow with the World Economic Forum.

 Education and Training:

Malapoa College, Vanuatu
University of Papua New Guinea Kingston University London, UK

CAREER HISTORY

From       To       Organisation Position
Permanent Mission of the Republic of Vanuatu in Switzerland
- Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Permanent Representative to the UNOG and other International Organizations

Vanuatu Government
- Director, Department of External Trade

Vanuatu Government
- Secretary, Vanuatu Public Service Commission

Customs & Trade Consultant
Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat - Trade Facilitation Officer, Fiji

Vanuatu Government
-Acting Director General, Vanuatu Ministry of Finance and Economic Management

Vanuatu Government
- Managing Director General for Vanuatu Public Financial Institutional Reforms

Vanuatu Government

- Director of Vanuatu Customs and Inland Revenue

Mr. Dick Christophe NG SUI WA was appointed Chairperson of the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (ICT Authority) in February 2020. He has been a practising Barrister since 1991, is partner in the legal firm De Castelnau-Sui Wa and has extensive experience as a legal adviser and advocate.

He holds an LLB Honours from the University of London, United Kingdom; was called to the Bar at the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, United Kingdom after succeeding in the Bar Professional Qualification of the Council of Legal Education. He also obtained a Diploma from the United Nations Research Institute, Geneva and a Certificate in Good Governance from the Commonwealth Association for Corporate Governance. In 2021, he completed his Master of Business Administration in Innovation and Leadership, University of Mauritius with Merit, as part of a programme delivered in collaboration with Ducere Global Business School, Australia. 

Mr. Ng Sui Wa has occupied high-level positions in several state institutions. He is currently a Board Member of the Independent Broadcasting Authority. From May 2018 to October 2019, Mr Ng Sui Wa served as Commissioner of the newly constituted Independent Police Complaints Commission as appointed by the President of the Republic of Mauritius. Mr Ng Sui Wa has also served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Trust Fund for Specialised Medical Care, the specialised health unit of the Cardiac Surgery and Neurosurgery Hospital where he  was tasked with reforming the centre. At another juncture in his illustrious career, Mr Ng Sui Wa served as Chairman of the Mauritius Film Development Corporation (MFDC) by the Cabinet of Ministers and was given the responsibilities of developing the MFDC’s economic activities. Mr Ng Sui Wa was also Chairman of the Institute for Corporate Governance (Mauritius) in 2003-2004. 

Mr. Ng Sui Wa has been providing the leadership to enable the ICT Authority to meet the complex challenges of regulation in an age of ICT convergence and rapid technological advancements. Under his Chairmanship, he has ensured that ICT regulation plays its role as a nexus for sector transformation. His vision is to promote Mauritius as a strategic leader for ICT regulation in Africa. In a short span of time, the Authority has enhanced its international cooperation and signed agreements with its counterparts including regulators in India, France, Congo Brazzaville and Comoros.

Mr. Ng Sui Wa has been actively participating in a number of  international forums including the Commonwealth Telecommunication Organisation where he steered Mauritius to Executive Committee membership. The ICTA Chairperson has also represented the Authority as one of the the high level speakers on the panel at the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) Forum 2023. He was a panel member and speaker at the International Institute of Communication’s International Regulator’s Forum. Mr. Ng Sui Wa was also the Head of Delegation for Mauritius at the World Radiocommunication Conference 2023 in Dubai.

Bridging the Digital divide has been high on the agenda of the Authority under the Chairmanship of Mr Ng Sui Wa.  Universal Service Fund projects implemented include the provision of 234 Free WiFi Zones across Mauritius as well as the setting up of a satellite link between Mauritius and Agalega, an island which is a dependency of the Republic of Mauritius. Since 2020, donations of ICT equipment have been made to non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The NGOs include those whose areas of work focus on the empowerment and rehabilitation into society of the former inmates and those specializing in the support to families of children with special needs. The ICT equipment (laptops, computers) donations form part of a policy of sustainable partnership between the Authority and civil society organisations.  This partnership is a tangible contribution towards the goal of leaving no one behind (LNOB), the overarching promise in the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Aline Minko Mi Etoua est une femme distinguée aux multiples réalisations académiques et distinctions professionnelles. Son parcours éducatif a commencé à l'Université Omar Bongo de Libreville, au Gabon, où elle a obtenu sa licence en droit. Sans se laisser décourager par les frontières géographiques, elle poursuit ses études en France, obtenant une maîtrise en droit public de l'Université de Champagne Ardenne à Reims, suivie d'un diplôme en administration publique de la prestigieuse Ecole Nationale d'Administration de Paris.

De la maîtrise des subtilités du travail parlementaire à la défense des droits de l'homme, Aline Minko Mi Etoua n'a cessé d'élargir son expertise. Son dévouement au leadership, en particulier dans le domaine de l'autonomisation des femmes, a été reconnu par un certificat de l'ENA de Paris.

À titre professionnel, Aline Minko Mi Etoua est membre représentante du groupe État au Conseil économique, social et environnemental et occupe actuellement le poste estimé de Première secrétaire du Bureau. Son influence dépasse les frontières nationales, comme en témoigne sa participation à différentes sessions du Conseil économique et social des Nations Unies à New York depuis janvier 2019.

Elle parle couramment le français, maîtrise l'anglais et maîtrise modérément l'espagnol.