Roberto Bissio

Executive Director of the Instituto del Tercer Mundo

Area of Expertise: Global Ethics Frameworks and Human Rights

Roberto Bissio, is executive director of the Instituto del Tercer Mundo (Third World Institute), an NGO in special consultative status with ECOSOC, based in Montevideo, Uruguay. He coordinates the international secretariat of Social Watch, a global network of citizen organizations from over 80 countries that reports every year on how governments and international organizations implement their commitments on poverty eradication and gender equity (including MDGs). He oversees the yearly edition of the Social Watch report and the computation of the Basic Capabilities and Gender Equity indexes aimed at providing quantitative tools for civil society monitoring of the MDGs and gender goals. As Social Watch representative he has participated in many major international conferences during the last two decades, including meetings with sherpas and heads of State related to the G8 and G20. During 2005 he was co-chair of the “lobby and policy” working group of GCAP. In 2010 he was a civil society spokeperson during the MDG summit roundtable with heads of State on “global partherships”.

Bissio is a member of Third World Network's international committee and of the civil society advisory group to the UNDP administrator. He was a member of the boards of the Womens Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) and of the Montreal International Forum (FIM). Bissio is fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese and is able to work in French and German. As a journalist he writes regularly on issues of development and human rights.

Lee Andrew Bygrave

Professor at the Department of Private Law at the University of Oslo, Director of the Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law, Associate (former Co-Director) of the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre at the University of New South Wales in Australia

Area of Expertise: International Law/Jurisprudence

Dr. Lee A. Bygrave is professor of law and director of the Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law, attached to the Department of Private Law, University of Oslo. He is also a research associate (and formerly co-director) of the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, and a member of the European Network of Excellence in Internet Science.

For the past three decades, Lee has been heavily involved in both research and policy development in legal regulation of information and communications technology (ICT). He has functioned as expert advisor on various aspects of ICT regulatory policy for the European Commission, Nordic Council of Ministers, Computer Science and Technology Board of the US National Academies, UK House of Lords Committee on the Constitution, Norwegian Government and, most recently, ICANN. Lee is the principal editor and author of Internet Governance: Infrastructure and Institutions (Oxford University Press, 2009). He has also published particularly extensively within the field of privacy/data protection law where his two principal books on the subject, Data Protection Law: Approaching Its Rationale, Logic and Limits (Kluwer Law International, 2002) and Data Privacy Law: An International Perspective (Oxford University Press, 2014), are widely acknowledged as standard international texts. His most recent book – Internet Governance by Contract (Oxford University Press, 2015) – critically examines the contractual frameworks for the development and use of internet infrastructure, including the regimes of ICANN and Facebook.

William Currie

Consultant in ICT Policy and Regulation

Area of Expertise: Governmental Engagement and Relations and Multistakeholder Governance

William Currie is currently a Freelance Consultant in ICT Policy and Regulation, residing in Johannesburg, South Africa. Currie was the Communications and Information Policy Programme Manager of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) from 2004-2010, and worked on global communications policy issues related to internet governance and ICTD. From 1999 – 2002, Currie was a Councillor at the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) and the South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (SATRA).

In the mid-1990s, he was special adviser to Dr. Pallo Jordan, Minister of Posts Telecommunications and Broadcasting. In this capacity, he coordinated the telecommunications policy process that led to the White Paper on Telecommunications Policy. Prior to that, as General Secretary of the Film and Allied Workers Organisation (FAWO), Currie was involved in the development of broadcasting policy during the transition to democracy in South Africa.

He studied Political Philosophy at the University of Stellenbosch and holds an MA in Film and Television Studies for Education from the University of London Institute of Education.

Valerie D'Costa

Program Manager at infoDev

Area of Expertise: Governmental Engagement and Relations and Multistakeholder Governance

Valerie D’Costa is infoDev’s Program Manager. Ms. D’Costa has led infoDev’s evolution from its original founding focus on information and communications technology for development (ICT4D) to its current role as a “learning lab” and convener for donors, client countries, and public and private sector actors around the innovation, technology and entrepreneurship agendas. The vision Ms. D’Costa promotes for infoDev’s role today is to derive and test new approaches to support the growth of innovative, technology enabled new ventures; provide cutting-edge knowledge, networks and tools to developing countries to navigate these dynamic market and technology evolutions; collate lessons from success and ‘failure’ in the field; and promote the adoption and scaling of interesting and innovative approaches that work for the World Bank, donors and other development partners.

Before joining infoDev, Ms. D’Costa served as the Director of the International Division at the Info-Communication Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), where she formulated the Singapore Government’s policies on international ICT issues and oversaw Singapore’s bilateral relations with other countries. She received a Public Administration Medal from the Singapore Government for her work in building Singapore’s international ICT trade and diplomatic ties. Ms. D’Costa had a distinguished career in private legal practice before joining her country’s nation-building efforts in government service at IDA. Ms. D’Costa holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the National University of Singapore and a Master of Laws degree from University College, University of London.

For more information on infoDev and Ms. D’Costa’s work please visit www.infodev.org

Ira Magaziner

Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of the Clinton Health Access Initiative

Area of Expertise: Governmental Engagement and Relations and Multistakeholder Governance

Ira Magaziner is the vice chairman and chief executive officer of the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI). From 1993 through 1998, Ira served as senior advisor to President Clinton for Policy Development at the White House where he supervised the development and implementation of the administration’s policy for commercialization of the Internet and worked with the First Lady on the development of the President’s Health Reform Initiative. Prior to his White House service, Ira founded and led Telesis, an international business strategy consulting firm with offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Ira graduated from Brown University as valedictorian of the class of 1969, and attended Balliol College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar.

Nell Minow

Shareholder Advocate

Area of Expertise: Board Governance and Corporate Management 

Nell Minow has worked in the field of corporate governance and shareholder advocacy for almost 30 years, most recently as co-founder and board member of GMI Ratings (formerly The Corporate Library), which was sold to MSCI in 2014.  GMI Ratings is the leading independent research firm evaluating governance risk.  Products include data and analysis of corporate boards and research, study and critical thinking about corporate governance.  The board effectiveness and accounting risk ratings allow investors, insurers, and analysts to evaluate governance as an element of investment risk. Previously she was a principal in the governance investment firm LENS (where Business Week online called her “the queen of good corporate governance”) and general counsel and president of Institutional Shareholder Services. 

She is co-author with Robert A.G. Monks of three books, including five editions of the leading textbook on corporate governance, and she taught MBA students at George Mason University for five years.  In 2008, she received the highest award in the field from the International Corporate Governance Network and in 2013 she received a lifetime achievement award from Corporate Secretary Magazine.

Her service on non-profit boards includes the advisory council and board of WETA, Washington DC’s public television and radio stations, and as a board member of Reading Is Fundamental, a national literacy organization and the Center on Media and Public Affairs/STATS, the leading organization monitoring the media’s political coverage and assisting journalism organizations with statistical reporting.  She is currently an advisor to the Hennock Institute (research and policy analysis relating to the future of public radio) and TrueSpark, which provides films and teacher resources to help schools teach students about leadership, integrity, and responsibility. 

Minow wrote the Risky Business column for BNet (owned by CBS) and currently writes for The Huffington Post, Beliefnet, and other outlets on business and culture.  She reviews movies every week online and on radio stations across the country as “The Movie Mom.” She is also the founder and editor in chief of Miniver Press, which has published more than two dozen books, primarily non-fiction works of history, culture, and corporate governance. Ms. Minow is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the University of Chicago Law School.  

Jan Scholte

Professor, University of Gothenburg and University of Warwick

Area of Expertise: Global Accountability and Transparency

Jan Aart Scholte is Faculty Professor in Peace and Development in the School of Global Studies at the University of Gothenburg and Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. His work covers globalization, global governance, civil society in global politics, global democracy, and methodologies of global studies. Previous appointments were at the University of Sussex and the Institute of Social Studies, together with visiting positions at Cornell University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Linköping University, the London School of Economics, Mbarara University of Science and Technology, and Moscow State University. He obtained his DPhil from the University of Sussex in 1990 and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Gothenburg in 2010.

Scholte's current research focuses on questions of governing a more global world, with particular emphasis on democracy in this context. Since 2008 he has coordinated a major international project on 'Building Global Democracy', with a core grant from the Ford Foundation, together with co-conveners in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, North America and the Pacific. The project is addressing subjects such as conceptualizing global democracy, learning for global democracy, greater inclusion in global politics, structural redistribution for global democracy, and transcultural constructions of global legitimacy. 

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