 Arjuna Costa
Managing Partner, Flourish Ventures
Arjuna Costa is driven by a deep compassion for vulnerable populations across the globe, and partners with entrepreneurs using innovative technologies to enhance their customers’ financial well-being. He co-manages Flourish, with a primary focus on venture investing across emerging markets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Before Flourish, Arjuna was a partner at Omidyar Network, where he built a global portfolio of early-stage, inclusive fintech companies. Prior to that, Arjuna developed a deep understanding of the potential to radically alter traditional “brick-and-mortar” economics through mobile money solutions for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Before that, he invested equity and debt in consumer finance companies in emerging markets at The Rohatyn Group, a multi-billion dollar emerging markets investment firm. In 2003, Arjuna cofounded a $120-million private equity fund focused on the turnaround of distressed commercial banks in Africa. The fund grew out of advising governments on the restructuring and privatization of its banking sector. Arjuna began his career at Lehman Brothers, where he spent five years financing power plants and airports globally. Arjuna earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in computer science from Columbia University.
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 Bejoy Das Gupta
Vice Team Leader, Policy and Governance Working Group, Digital Currency Global Initiative and eCurrency
Dr. Das Gupta is the Washington DC-based Chief Economist of eCurrency, the Silicon Valley firm at the cutting edge of technology for powering a central bank digital currency (CBDC). He leads the engagement with central banks, regulators and multilateral institutions, articulating the need for CBDCs and design, implementation, and policy considerations. He is a Vice Team Leader of the Working Group on Policy and Governance of the ITU’s Digital Currency Global Initiative. Dr. Das Gupta was formerly the Chief Economist for Asia/Pacific at the IIF, where he managed the economic analysis of the Asian region and led its regional engagement/partnerships with senior officials and the private sector. He was a Founding Advisory Board Member of the Mandiri Institute. Dr. Das Gupta also serves as Adjunct Professor at the Washington DC Program of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, teaching highly-regarded graduate courses on economic and financial security as well as development, security and the frontier of finance. He is a graduate of the LSE and holds a masters and a doctorate from Oxford University.
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Bilel Jamoussi
Chief of Study Group Department, 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.
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