Youth Ambassador Program > IGF Youth Ambassadors 2019

IGF Youth Ambassadors 2019

Abigail Antenor
(Philippines)

Abigail A. Antenor is a graduate of BS Electronics and Communications Engineering from the University of the Philippines – Diliman. She is an IC Design Engineer in Analog Devices, Inc. She recently joined the Internet Society Asia-Pacific Region as she expresses her desire to help her fellow Filipinos and other nationalities as well to see the importance of access to the Internet. She had her Cisco Certified Network Associate certification last August 2016 where she gained knowledge on TCP/IP OSI Model, IP Planning and Design Networks of IPv4 and IPv6, Cisco Routing Protocols (RIP, OSPF, EIGRP), and Cisco Switching Protocols. From then on, she conveys her enthusiasm in learning the Internet’s technical standards and infrastructure.

As she embarks on this journey, she depicts her profound interest in digital inclusion, digital literacy, localizing content, and economic basket of Internet governance. She goes by with this saying: caring is how we make a difference.

Some links of her profile: LinkedIn / Facebook

Ahmed Medien
(Tunisia)

Ahmed Medien is a member of the Internet Society’s Chapter in Tunis. He is currently the Special Project Lead in support of electoral integrity and media monitoring during the Tunisian 2019 general elections at Meedan.com. Ahmed was also a 2019 fellow to the Middle East and Adjoining Countries School of Internet Governance (MEAC-SIG). He is a long-time member of the advocacy network group Global Voices Online and an advocate of digital freedoms, Internet literacy and access to localised content.

Ahmed worked previously as Senior Data Officer at Deloitte Consulting and as a founding entrepreneur at two leading e-commerce companies in the Middle East and Africa, Melltoo and Jumia.

He is a master’s graduate in Data Science from the University of Strathclyde (Scotland) and a previous awardee of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s prestigious Chevening Scholarship.

Ama Chinonso Ota
(Nigeria)

Ama Chinonso Ota is an ambassador of Digital Grassroots, a civil society organisation co-founded by 2017 Youth@IGF fellows to promote digital literacy amongst youths through online training on digital literacy courses for youths between 14 and 29 years old. She joined Digital Grassroots and Internet Society, Nigeria Chapter in 2018 and co-trained Digital Grassroots cohort four ambassadors in 2019.

Chinonso is passionate about educating and building capacity for open and accessible Internet towards achieving an improved digital economy. She believes in collaboration for a positive change and has this belief captured in one of her favourite quotes “None of us is as smart as all of us.”

She looks forward to collaborating with fellow 2019 Internet Society IGF Youth Ambassadors in Internet governance.

Chinonso holds a BSc in Environmental Biology and Zoology from University of Nigeria. She loves writing and has won both national and international awards in essay writing. Amongst many other hats she wears in essay writing, she is a past winner of Standards Organisation of Nigeria and African Organisation for Standardization (ARSO) youths essay competition. She is fluent in English and Igbo Language and has basic knowledge of French.

Ayça Atabey
(Turkey)

Ayça Atabey is a graduate of Robert College, holds a bachelor degree from Durham University, an LLM degree from Bilgi University Information and Technology Law Programme. She is currently working as a full-time specialist research assistant at the Institute of Technology and Law and is a PhD candidate at Edinburgh University in Scotland.

Her research mainly focuses on the challenges regarding personal data collection on mobile operating systems, content management and online child protection, debates concerning the principle of Net Neutrality, safeguarding vulnerable people’s rights and freedoms in the context of the impact behavioral technologies has particularly on vulnerable members of the society as well as issues surrounding data economy, business models in the age of surveillance capitalism. She has particular interest in emerging technologies (cloud computing, AI and machine learning, big data and IoT) and in their intersection with fundamental rights.

Ayça is based in Istanbul, Turkey.

Rachad Sanoussi
(Benin)

Rachad Sanoussi is a laboratory technician at Phoran (Photonics and digital broadcasting) where he devotes himself to teaching and leading the practical work of students in telecommunications engineering. He also builds and supports the school’s network infrastructure using various copper and wireless technologies.

He graduated from the University of Abomey-Calavi with an engineering degree in computer science and telecommunications. He holds a MikroTik Certified Network Associate (MTCNA) qualification. His areas of interest include cognitive networks, TVWS, IoT, cybersecurity, optical and wireless technologies.

As a member of ISOC Benin Chapter, Rachad is actively involved with organizations such as Wikimedia, ISOC, RBER (WACREN), Blolab, TIJ/UNODC Borderless Youth Forum on Justice, Collaboration, and Sustainable Development, and others.

Eileen Cejas
(Argentina)

Eileen Cejas is a sole practitioner Criminal Lawyer from the City of Buenos Aires. She is also member of ISOC Argentina and Youth Observatory. Currently she is taking two post degree updating courses on Gender and Law; and Cybercrime and Digital Evidence at the University of Buenos Aires.Eileen was fellow of ARGENSIG 2018 (the Argentine version of the South School in Internet Governance) and Internet Freedom Festival grantee of Diversity Fund 2019, where she hosted a session on Feminist Internet. In the past she attended other events such as ICANN 53 Buenos Aires, LACIGF 2018 and IGF Argentina 2018. She had also belonged to an UBACYT Project from 2014-2017 where she was part of the research team on the cameras surveillance monitoring system in Argentina and particularly in the city of Buenos Aires, focusing on the importance that citizens would be aware of their personal data captured by the cameras. Eileen is currently the Communications Director for Digital Grassroots, a NGO registered in Lagos, Nigeria that provides online training courses on digital literacy for young people among 14 and 29 years old, having two courses: Digital Grassroots Ambassadors Program and the Digital Grassroots Community Leaders. She is also participant of the Creating Networks Project Competition with her project “WeAre” that has as goal create more inclusion of women and LGBTIQ+ persons in Internet Governance through a series of webinars, as she truly believes in the motto “Internet is for everyone” with a feminist perspective. [Some part of the material used at the webinars is available at the website.] As Eileen has a strong influence in law but also on gender, digital advocacy on digital rights is the engine that boost her life: having spaces in Internet Governance where everyone can express themselves freely in order to create a better offline spaces too in the societies. She believes young people are key actors in this change too as we can bring a fresh perspective to Internet issues.

She is also participant of the Creating Networks Project Competition with her project “WeAre” that has as goal create more inclusion of women and LGBTIQ+ persons in Internet Governance through a series of webinars, as she truly believes in the motto “Internet is for everyone” with a feminist perspective. [Some part of the material used at the webinars is available at the website.]

As Eileen has a strong influence in law but also on gender, digital advocacy on digital rights is the engine that boost her life: having spaces in Internet Governance where everyone can express themselves freely in order to create a better offline spaces too in the societies. She believes young people are key actors in this change too as we can bring a fresh perspective to Internet issues.

El-Hoïma Kedassa BARTHÉLUS
(Haiti)

Kedassa BARTHÉLUS is a young Haitian woman of 24 years old. She has a specialization in Environment and Natural Resources, from the Faculty of Agronomy of the State University of Haiti.

This young woman is strongly engaged in community’s leadership and social governance. She is currently the Young Minister of Agriculture, Natural resources at the Haitian Youth Government, which simulates the highest executive functions of the Haitian state through volunteering, advocating inclusion and citizen engagement.

Kedassa is actively involved in the development and empowerment of young people. She volunteers in activities that contribute positively to her community and the world. Kedassa is currently Campus Director of OYA Opportunities in Haiti, which is an online platform that offers opportunities to young people around the world. She also works for institutions that involve in social service and the educative sector through an organization of young leaders called ACTIVEH, (Action Towards Initiatives and volunteering for Education in Haiti). In addition, she is a dedicated volunteer of World Merit Haiti, which is an international organization also represented in Haiti.

Kedassa is an energetic young woman with a motivation that inspires other people in her community, to become powerful and conscious leaders.

Elliott Mann
(Australia)

Elliott Mann is a fourth year Law and Computer Science student at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia, specialising in Commercial and Intellectual Property Law, and Cybersecurity. Elliott has also undertaken International and Indonesian law studies at Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He has competed in Australian national mooting competitions and was recognised as one of the top five Victorian Law Students in 2019. In addition to his native language, English, Elliott is also fluent in Bahasa Indonesia.

In the field of Internet Governance, Elliott has been continuously involved since his attendance at ICANN64 in Kobe, Japan where he attended as a NextGen fellow and presented on developments in Indonesian Data Protection laws. In 2019, Elliott attended the ICANN and KISA sponsored Asia-Pacific Internet Governance Academy where he was recognised as of of the five ‘Outstanding Achievers’ within the program. Elliott has also had a part in organising the “”Youth in IG for Internet ethics & digital inclusion”” workshop to be held at the Internet Governance Forum 2019 in Berlin, Germany. He will also be speaking at this workshop.

Since 2017, Elliott has been a paralegal for CIE Legal, where he specialises in the development of legal technology and automation of legal business processes, both for internal use and as bespoke solutions for clients.

Elnur Karimov
(Azerbaijan)

Elnur Karimov is a young lawyer from Baku, Azerbaijan who is very passionate about the impact of the Internet on our lives, especially from the legal perspective. He joined the Internet Society since 2019 as the Youth Ambassador and took the opportunity to delve into the recent issues of Internet governance, in terms of data privacy, and intellectual property rights.

He worked within local projects in Azerbaijan, aimed at the promotion of Internet literacy among the youth, and he contributed to several research activities of the civic organizations, also on the application of Article 8 of European Convention on Human Rights (right to privacy) to the data privacy issues in Azerbaijan. He participated in the Mentorship Programme of the International Bar Association. He attended the pre-sessions of the Universal Periodic Review of the United Nations on Azerbaijan in 2018 and contributed to the advocacy of main issues in Azerbaijan which also included data protection. He is currently more focused on the status quo of intellectual property rights with the introduction of big data and analytical modelling.

Elnur holds a bachelor’s degree in Law from the Academy of Public Administration (Baku, Azerbaijan), master’s degree in Private Law from Marmara University (Istanbul, Turkey), and he is currently doing his PhD degree in Private Law at Istanbul University (Istanbul, Turkey). He is quite interested in intellectual property rights, and he is the author of several articles on patent and trademark protection. He is fluent in Azerbaijani, Turkish, and English, and has a fair understanding of the Russian language, and basic knowledge in the German language.

Giovanna Michelato
(Brazil)

Giovanna Michelato is a lawyer and is currently a Master of Laws candidate at Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná. She has been dedicating herself to around Internet Governance, and her research interest includes privacy and data protection and intellectual property.

She is a member of the Youth SIG (better known as the Youth Observatory) since 2017, where she developed some projects along with their colleagues.

Giovanna was a fellow in the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) programs Youth@IGF 2017 and 2018. Also, in 2018, she was invited to be was an Ambassador of the Safer Internet Day.

Héwing Gérald Dorvelus
(Haiti)

Héwing Gérald Dorvelus is a business manager and computer scientist. He is a member of the ISOC Haiti chapter and is currently working as a communications and logistics manager at Youth IGF Haiti. He is actively involved in issues related to education and social inclusion, which has allowed him to represent his university at The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE 2018) and become a member of EdTech. Besides, he has been a Fellow at LACNIC 30-LACNOG 2018 and ambassador for Progress and Accelerated Change trough Technology (PACT 2018).

Hewing is passionate about technology, digital literacy, and digital inclusion. He firmly believes that together we can achieve great things through Internet governance, hence his favorite quote: “To go fast go alone, to go far go together”. In his free time, Hewing enjoys reading, listening to music or having conversations with people.

Innocent Adriko
(Uganda)

Innocent Adriko is a member of the Internet Society Uganda Chapter which he joined this year due to his passion for Internet Governance and promoting youth inclusion in Internet Governance.

Most recently, Innocent participated as a NextGen at the ICANN65 Policy Forum and the Africa Internet Summit. He coordinated students from various Ugandan universities to participate in the summit.

Innocent is a student of Information Technology at the Uganda Institute of Information and Communications Technology. He is most passionate about International Relations and Diplomacy with great focus on global matters of concern such as Internet Governance, Peace and Security and Climate action.

Jarret Fisher
(United States of America)

Jarret Fisher is a 2019 Internet Society IGF Youth Ambassador from Chicago. She became passionate about Internet governance in 2018 while interning for a United States Senator in Washington D.C. at the height of the battle for net neutrality in the U.S.

Jarret earned a Bachelor’s degree and MBA from DePaul University in Chicago, where she competed on the women’s tennis team. During graduate school, Jarret worked as a Research Assistant in DePaul’s Department of Management & Entrepreneurship.

John Madayese
(Nigeria)

John Madayese is an experienced Management Consultant at KPMG, Nigeria. He has experiences in a number of projects related to policy development, strategy formulation and business development in both the private and public sectors. He is interested in Business Consulting and Technology, with particular focus on Strategy, Data & Internet Governance, Digital Inclusion, Business Development and Digital Transformation. Apart from these, he is passionate about youth development and increasing youths digital literacy rate in Africa.

He is the founder of a Pan-African Community called P&O Africa, a non-profit platform that assists African youths in gaining development in career and personal lives through opportunities creation and career/personal development symposia. He led a team to organize 2 major Pan-African virtual symposia on Internet Governance, Internet of Things & the Future of African Youths with about 1,000 youth participants from about 10 African countries through the activities of P&O Africa in 2018 and 2019.

He participated in re:publica Accra 2018, a digital transformation festival organized by Re:publica in Accra, Ghana. He is an ambassador of Digital Grassroots, a youth-led initiative to promote digital citizenship globally, a member of Internet Society (ISOC), Nigerian Chapter and ISOC Youth Ambassador for IGF 2019, Berlin, Germany.

He graduated in 2016 with a Bachelor’s Degree from the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria, where he won 3 national research awards as an undergraduate. He is currently based in Lagos, Nigeria.

Korry Luke
(United States of America)

Korry is a second-year graduate student at Keio University’s Graduate School of Media and Governance in Fujisawa, Japan, after completing his undergraduate studies in the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies. He is heavily involved in the management and operation of his laboratory’s internal research network at Keio University and is always looking for ways to improve the security, stability, and reliability of their network infrastructure and systems.

Although his background is primarily in information technology, he is interested in the human impacts of technology and is keenly interested in the ways that technology can create new risks and challenges for society, especially as the Internet is now widely considered to be critical infrastructure. Being from Hawaii but now living in Japan, he is also aware and appreciative of the impacts the Internet has as a communications and collaboration tool.

He first became involved in Internet governance as a fellow to the Asia Pacific Internet Governance Academy (APIGA) in 2018 and attended ICANN64 in Kobe, Japan, as a NextGen participant in March 2019. He is a member of ISOC Japan and the WIDE Project, and he is involved with the Youth4IG initiative in the Asia-Pacific region.

Leon Lovensky
(Haiti)

Lovensky joined the Internet Society in 2019 and integrated the chapter Haiti and IoT SIG, because of his passion for connected objects. it has integrated a little more Internet Society, participating in various courses including that on the establishment of community internet network, then integrates the Community Network GIS and YOUTH SIG. Lovensky also participated in the Grassroot ambassador program.

Lovensky recently founded, with a group of fellow engineers from his university, the ClefCompletude project, aimed at supporting secondary education and initiating ICT skills. He is currently working on the NETOOLS project, a project to improve the communication of technical concepts to non-techies.

Student in last year, in Electromechanical Engineering and Physics, at the State University of Haiti, Lovensky, improves concurrently as programmer android junor, with codepath University, and in administration of network and system, with the ESIH and LACNIC, through the program, AYITIC Goes Global. Lovensky is preparing to pass his CCNA this month.

Lovensky is single and currently lives in Haiti.

Louis Liaw
(Malaysia)

Louis Liaw Vern Xien is a private lawyer at RamRais & Partners, a legal firm in Kuala Lumpur. His legal practice portfolio includes both civil dispute resolution and criminal defence. However, Louis is particularly passionate about human rights litigation and strategic litigation, as he believes that activism can be done through the Courts and court litigation can be strategically undertaken to lead to positive changes in laws. Louis was involved in several litigation relating to digital rights, amongst them include the prosecution of a well known graphic designer for creating a clown face of Malaysia’s former prime minister.

Louis is currently focused on promoting digital rights in Malaysia, which awareness towards it remains low and legislation remains few. Louis wishes to change that; not only through bringing strategic litigation cases but also through engaging lawmakers and educating the public.

Louis currently is an elected member of the Kuala Lumpur Bar Committee and chairs the Publication Committee. Louis is also the Chairperson of the Mackrell International Asia Pacific Region Young Lawyers Network. Louis was selected for the Young Leaders Summit of RightsCon 2019, and attended the said conference. Louis writes frequently and has had his writings published on various online news agencies. In his free time, he gives public lectures and conducts workshop relating to digital rights, human rights, and the federal constitution of Malaysia.

Maria Fernanda González Davila
(Guatemala)

Fernanda González is a software developer and an undergraduate Computer Science student at Universidad Francisco Marroquín (UFM).

With a particular interest in cybersecurity and distributed systems, her team won the first blockchain hackathon to be held in Central America with Qi’, a protocol that seeks to integrate rural students to the global economy by giving visibility and cross validation to their life achievements. They are currently working on a social entrepreneurship to help rural areas connect to static Internet through IPFS nodes and help researchers and communities gather data on water quality.

She is fluent in English, Spanish, French, Java, Python and C++.

Mohammad Atif Aleem
(India)

Mohammad Atif Aleem is a Chemical Engineering Graduate from the Aligarh Muslim University in India, who is currently engaged as an analyst in Information and communications technology at a multinational firm, along with managing his social startup initiatives. He has relevant experience in research, consultancy, information technology, business analysis, marketing, corporate social responsibility and cyber security. He has been associated with the Internet Society, Delhi Chapter in India and has also been involved in activities to advocate for the causes of Internet and propagate digitization in the underrepresented section of the society. He founded a startup called FoodSnup.com to tackle the challenges of food value chain and empower women farmers through Agri-tech.

Having also co founded an online platform for medical diagnostic tests through a Mobile App in India, he firmly believes that innovative ideas, clubbed with smart Internet technologies and management approaches, can lead to sustainable development.

Atif has worked recently in a fellowship program to co create wearable technology in partnership with a global clothing retail company and is enthusiastic about human centered solutions leveraging Internet as an important tool. He has attained relevant certifications in the field of Internet Governance from ICANN learning platform and Internet Society and hopes to advocate better for Internet through the platform of IGF.

Nicolas Fiumarelli Santana
(Uruguay)

Nicolas Fiumarelli is a Computer Analyst under-graduated from the University of the Republic of Uruguay, currently studying Computer Sciences at the same institution. He works as a Software and Networks Engineer at the Internet Address Registry for Latin America and the Caribbean (LACNIC) since 2012. Nicolas has participated in the development of systems such as RPKI and RDAP, which seek to improve the security and stability of networks and Internet routing. Today, Nicolas continues to actively participate in the deployment of IPv6 and RPKI in the region, He specialized himself on Routing and Security having 3 co-authored drafts in IETF on IPv6 security and Routing security.

Nicolas is co-founder of Youth IGF Uruguay, a non-profit organization that started its activities in Uruguay in 2016, whose goal is to build capacities and promote training to young people on issues related to Internet governance. He also participated in the South School of Internet Governance (2017), LACIGF (2014-2018), IETF 88, 90, 95, and has been selected as a Fellow to ICANN 61 last year.

He is convinced of how important it is to bring the voice of young people to these global events, especially in order to achieve greater involvement of all stakeholders, Nicolas believes in fundamental link between the IETF, IGF, and the ideals of young people. In particular, He is an activist of several topics, including emerging issues such as quantum communications and IoT, in particular He considers himself as an evangelist of IPv6 deployment and security/privacy awareness.”

Nidhi Singh
(India)

Nidhi Singh is a lawyer and an academic researcher who works as a Project Officer at the Centre for Communication Governance (CCG) at National Law University, Delhi. She’s a part of the Civil Liberties team which focuses upon aspects of privacy, data protection and surveillance. She graduated from the National University of Advanced Legal Studies, Kochi with a B.A.LLB and has an LLM in Public International Law from University College London.

Nidhi is a member of the ISOC Delhi Chapter. Her main topics of interest lie at the intersection of law and technology, with a specific focus on aspects of data governance, privacy and emerging technology.

Paola Gálvez
(Peru)

Paola Gálvez practices at the fascinating intersection of law and technology as a Public Policy and Legal attorney at Niubox with hopes of becoming an Internet leader to shape a better regulatory framework for the digital ecosystem and give something back to her community.

She began her career in the legal division of Microsoft where she realized the importance of bridging the gap between law and technology. Paola learned on her own the basics of IA, cloud computing, machine learning, blockchain and a bit of coding (she is kind of geek!). Paola is a 2019 South School on Internet Governance fellow, enthusiastic user of social media and she has a passion for improving diversity in the legal profession as well as in the tech industry. In that sense, she is a member of the Peruvian Vance Center Women in the Legal Profession Program (WIP Perú) and member of the Peruvian chapter of ISOC.

She has enjoyed speaking at several conferences such as APEC Forum Women and the Economy, Latinity, among others; she loves dancing salsa, her superpower is being empathetic and a positive thinker. Paola’s philosophy is always perform, transform and learn.

IGF Youth Ambassadors 2019

Abigail Antenor (Philippines)

Ahmed Medien (Tunisia)

Ama Chinonso Ota (Nigeria)

Ayça Atabey (Turkey)

Rachad Sanoussi (Benin)

Eileen Cejas (Argentina)

El-Hoïma Kedassa BARTHÉLUS (Haiti)

Elliott Mann (Australia)

Elnur Karimov (Azerbaijan)

Giovanna Michelato (Brazil)

Héwing Gérald Dorvelus(Haiti)

Innocent Adriko (Uganda)

Jarret Fisher (United States of America)

John Madayese (Nigeria)

Korry Luke (United States of America)

Leon Lovensky (Haiti)

Louis Liaw (Malaysia)

Maria Fernanda González Davila (Guatemala)

Mohammad Atif Aleem(India)

Nicolas Fiumarelli Santana(Uruguay)

Nidhi Singh (India)

Paola Gálvez (Peru)

2019 Program Partners and Sponsors