Anne-Rachel Inné is an Internet and digital transformation veteran and established community giver. She just retired from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) where she was serving as Regional Director for Africa, liaison ambassador to the African Union and UNECA, working towards achieving the ITU’s commitment to connecting the region and to maintain direct contact with national authorities, regional telecommunication organizations and other key stakeholders.
Prior to joining ITU, she was the Senior Vice President of Government Affairs, at the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) and the primary link to Governments of US, Canada, and more than 25 Caribbean and North Atlantic economies that constitute ARIN’s region and the focal point for International IGOs, IOs and their work.
Immediately prior to working for ARIN, Anne-Rachel was the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)’s Vice President Government Engagement in Geneva, Switzerland, and worked for ICANN for 12 years in different policy and higher management positions.
She also worked as the Chief Operations Officer (COO) of the Africa Regional Registry, AFRINIC, taking care of the total registry operations, and governments’ engagement in the Registry’s public policies process.
Anne-Rachel worked at the IICD in The Hague, Netherlands (1998-2001) as several African, Caribbean and South American countries’ programme manager directing multi sector social development projects that were early adopters of ICT/Internet. She produced and publicized Learning by Doing: Lessons emerging from the ICT Stories Projects for the benefits of the projects and the wider community.
She was a member of the Bureau of the African Group at the World Summit for Information Society (WSIS), as a representative of the African private sector and a member of the Gender Coalition during WSIS with which she helped write Creating Your Own National Gender Programme – A Practical Guide.
Anne-Rachel was an entrepreneur and consultant in the ICT4D for several years in developing economies. She worked with private sector organisations, African Union, UNDP, UNECA, EU and African Countries. She was one of the experts who contributed to the writing of the first African Framework on ICTs/Digital: the African Information Society Initiative (AISI) and subsequent NICI plans, and an early adopter of all stakeholders involvement in digital transformation of sectors and society.
She was featured as ICT Expert in the ILO/IOM book for the AUC: African Women at the Service of the Union and a recipient of several awards for her demonstrated immense commitment and continued engagement with African communities.
She is the Chair or member of the Board of several NGOs that work in Digital Skills, Diplomacy in the digital age, African languages and ICTs and is the initiator/participant to several other initiatives around education and Internet/ICTs for Africa, by Africans. She is the Regional Lead at the Global Initiative for Digital Empowerment Global Initiative for Digital Empowerment (https://thegide.org).