IGF 2023 Launch / Award Event #27 Education, Inclusion, Literacy: Musts for Positive AI Future

Opening speakers

Connie Ledoux Book, chair of the National Association of Independent College and Universities (a US organization representing nearly 1,000 private, non-profit colleges and universities) and president of Elon University. Book led a major research project, “Realizing the Global Promise of the Internet,” at IGF 2007 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and she has worked in support of Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center’s engagement in IGF. Book has a doctorate in journalism from the University of Georgia and is a published scholar who is expert in digital communications technologies.

Lee Rainie, longtime director of internet and technology research at Pew Research Center. Rainie has led research teams in producing more than 800 reports based on surveys and data-science analyses that examine people’s online activities and the internet’s role in their lives. He is the co-author of the 20-year series of “Future of the Internet” reports in which thousands of experts share their insights as to the opportunities and challenges emerging in the next decade of digital life. He has served several times as a keynote speaker and moderator at IGF-USA.

Divina Frau-Meigs, native of Morocco, UNESCO chair Savoir Devenir in sustainable digital development, member of MILID and ORBICOM network, and professor of media and information and communications technology sociology at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris. A longtime IGF participant, she has coordinated the French National Agency Project TRANSLIT (on media and digital literacies) and led implementation of the European project ECO, which produced massive open online courses to provide training in digital humanities and literacy. She also served on the High-Level Group on Fake News for the European Commission.

Alejandro Pisanty, Internet Hall of Fame member and professor of internet governance and the information society, has contributed to the growth and improvement of the Internet in Mexico and Latin America and across the world through his position on the faculty at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and in his leadership roles at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Internet Society, as well as other influential networking organizations. His advocacy, lobbying and understanding of the needs of developing countries have influenced policy and directed funding to enable millions to get online.

Additional speakers:

Siva Prasad Rambhatla, researcher, speaker, and former professor of anthropology and leader of the Centre for Digital Learning, Training and Resources at the University of Hyderabad, India. He has served with UNESCO’s Information Ethics Working Group (part of its "Information for All" program), he was a featured speaker at the 2021 international Emerging Technologies and Changing Dynamics of Information conference, and he spoke at the Artificial Intelligence for Information Accessibility (AI4IA) conference in 2022. He will also be speaking at second IGF-Kyoto event about generative AI & UNESCO’s “Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence.” 

Francisca Oladipo, vice-chancellor at Thomas Adewumi University, Nigeria, and a professor of computer science; she earlier served as director of research, innovation, consultancy and extensions. She is the executive coordinator of Virus Outbreak Data Network Africa and Asia (VODANA). In 2014, she served as a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology under its Empowering the Teachers Initiative. She was named a Grace Hopper faculty scholar in 2016, and she was named a fellow of the Nigerian Computer Society in 2020. 

Wei Wang, a member of the IGF Dynamic Coalition on Data and Artificial Intelligence Governance and teaching fellow at the Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) think tank in Brazil, is a PhD student at the University of Hong Kong School of Law, guest lecturer at University of Warsaw and administrative officer at Creative Commons Hong Kong. At FGV he is teaching Internet Regulation, Data Protection and Algorithmic Governance in China and researching digital sovereignty, data infrastructure, digital public services and platform governance in the Chinese automating state.

Eve Gaumond, a research associate at the University of Montreal’s Public Law Research Center and with Catherine Régis, the Canada-CIFAR Chair in AI and Human Rights, currently researching the impact of artificial intelligence on higher education. She has presented her research at major conferences, including the International Conference on AI and Law. She previously served as director of the Innovative Ideas Incubator Program of the International Observatory on the Societal Impacts of AI and Digital Technology. She is a member of the bar in Quebec. She doing research this fall at the Keio University Global Research Institute in Tokyo.

Renata de Oliveira Miranda Gomes, an IGF Youth delegate to IGF 2023, selected to represent Brazil. She recently completed her master’s degree in communication at the University of Brasilia. She is a co-author of a number of research reports, among them: “Journalism and Accountability in Brazil” 2019. “Access to Information Laws in Latin America,” 2021. “Platforms and Science Communication: Content Analysis of a Channel on YouTube and TikTok” 2022. She works as an analyst at Arko Advice, a leading political analysis, strategy and public affairs company based in Brasilia.