Juan Alfonso Fernández González is a Senior Advisor in the Ministry of Communications of Cuba and an Assistant Professor in the University of Informatics Sciences (UCI). Previously he was Advisor for the National Directorate of Informatics of Cuba, Coordinator of the Cuban Commission for Electronic Commerce and Director of Informatization of Cuba’s Ministry of the Steel, Mechanic and Electronic Industry. Before that he was CIO of the Corporation of Information Technologies and Automation, Technical Director and Project Manager in the Robotic and Software Center, and a Senior Researcher and Professor in the Microelectronics Research Center of the Havana Polytechnic Institut.
He was a member of the Strategy Council of the United Nations’ Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID) and also a founding member of the United Nations ICT Task Force and of the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG). He participated actively in the negotiating process for the outcome documents of both phases of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). He has given lectures and published articles in Cuba and abroad in various topics that includes the management of big software projects, internet applications, electronic commerce and the economic sustainability of international telecommunication networks and internet. His current interests are the strategies and models for the use of ICTs for development, the organization of the software industry in developing countries and internet economy. He has a Physics Degree from Havana University and the degree of Senior Researcher of the National Academy of Sciences of Cuba. He has received various technical or scientific awards, and has a Patent in Image Processing. He is also a FIDE International Chess Master.