Diversity

Moderator

Yoshinori Imai is an executive commentator/program-host at NHK and between 2003 and June 2005 in particular he headed the news analysis and commentary section. After having studied economics and journalism at Keio University in Tokyo, he started his career as TV journalist for NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), Japan’s sole public broadcaster in 1968. He has been a news correspondent in Washington between 1978 and 1981, covering the US foreign policy and US-Japan relations as well as U.S. domestic affairs. He was also given foreign assignment in New York as business correspondent between 1989 and 1990, and then in London as bureau chief and head of news operation in Europe, Middle East and Africa between 1995 and 1998. Meanwhile at home, he worked as anchorperson of the nation-wide news program, from 1986 to 1988 for the first time, and from 1993 to 1995 for the second time. After he came back to Tokyo from London in 1998, he has been hosting many business and current affairs programs, and moderated discussions on NHK TV. In May 2000, Imai was appointed to be the director-general of the International Planning and Broadcasting Department of NHK. The department is responsible for NHK’s television and radio broadcasting operations overseas as well as relations and cooperation with foreign broadcasters and organizations.

Panelists

Alex Corenthin is the Manager of NIC Senegal and President of ISOC Senegal.

Patrik Fältström is currently a Senior Consulting Engineer with Cisco Systems in the Strategic Alliances team. He was also a technical specialist in the Internet Strategies and Coordination group at Tele2, systems manager at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, researcher at Bunyip Information Systems in Montreal and a programmer in the Swedish Royal Navy. He has been working with UNIX since 1985, and involved in Internet-related standardization since 1989. Fältström is active in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), was one of two area directors of the applications area for five years. He was also a member of the IAB between 2003 and 2006. He is a member of the Swedish Government IT Policy and Strategy Group, and ISOC Board of Trustees. Fältström holds a M.Sc. degree in mathematics from the University of Stockholm.

Divina Frau-Meigs has followed the WSIS process from the very beginning. As part of the preliminary consultation with Unesco, she drafted the report for the online consultation of civil society and has been active ever since in the WSIS process. She has written extensively about ICTs, media and Internet governance and regulation in leading journals (Médiamorphoses, Tocqueville, European Journal of Communication, Š) and has published a variety of chapters in books related to WSIS (Unesco-documentation française, Boell Foundation Book, UN-ICT taskforce book). She is an expert for e-learning and for information society programmes for the European Union (Information Society division), the council of Europe (Human rights division) and Unesco (information division). As vice-president of IAMCR, a worldwide NGO with consultative status within the UN, she has been an observer and an expert for the Convention on Cultural Diversity and such UN programmes as as IPDC (media for development) and IFAP (information for all). She has also co-founded a new NGO, MENTOR, to deal with international media education and e-learning issues.

Qiheng Hu is one of the initiators in the research on Pattern Recognition in China, a well-known organizer for scientific works and also one of the initiators introducing the Internet into China. As a Vice President of CAS, she has paid great attention to encouraging technology transfer and to promote the connection between science and technology with the economic development. She is a member of the State Advisory Committee on Information, and has been active in ICSU activities on the Ethics for Science during 1996 - 2002, while she has been a member of SCRES of ICSU. She has been elected President of China Computer Federation, 1985-1994, and President of China Association for Automation, 1984-1993. She was elected Member of CAE in 1994. She has been elected the Vice-President of China Association for Science and Technology since 1996. She has chaired the Steering Committee for CNNIC since 1997. In 2001 she was elected President of the Internet Society of China. She is also a member of ICANN IDN Committee, and a member of the Working Group for Ethics in Research Training, which is set up by COMEST, UNESCO. She was also a member of the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG).

T I M Nurul Kabir is the CEO of a software development company employing over 40 Software engineers and technicians. He has more than 19 years extensive working experience in large software project management, Business Consulting, and has core expertise in Business Process Reengineering (BPR) and Enterprise Management. Management Consultant & Project Manager for a project of USDA (US Department of Agriculture) Evaluation and Monitoring System (M & E) Project in Asia Region during 2001-2003. Mr. Kabir has provided Consultancy Services & Implemented Software project in Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Mr Kabir is also an Associate Professor in a leading Private University in Bangladesh (East West University) in Computer Science & Engineering Dept and has been the Board Member & Vice-President (2004-2005) of the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS).

Keisuke Kamimura is a senior research fellow of the Center for Global Communications. His major research interest is on the interaction of language policy and ICT, but he is also engaged in research on other aspects and impacts of ICT, such as the restructuring of the telecommunications industry, radio spectrum allocation policy, and the digital divide. Keisuke is also a senior visiting scientist of the Center of the International Cooperation for Computerization. He has a Master of Arts from Osaka University.

Elizabeth Longworth has longstanding experience working with international agencies such as OECD, WIPO, and UNESCO, with whom she has collaborated in areas such as transborder data flows, online dispute resolution, e-privacy, copyright and patenting, global networks and e-commerce. She is a trained mediator and facilitator and until recently was a member of the WIPO Panel of Neutrals. She has also been the Director of the ICT Sector at New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, New Zealand’s national economic development agency. From 1998 to 2000, she chaired the New Zealand telecommunications industry body on number administration and portability. Ms Longworth has attended and chaired numerous international meetings and symposia both in her personal capacity and as a representative of New Zealand. She was a member of the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO, has been closely associated with many activities of UNESCO's Communication and Information Sector and has chaired one of the expert meetings on the draft recommendation concerning the promotion and use of multilingualism and universal access to cyberspace.

Riyadh Najm, is the Assistant Deputy Minister of Culture and Information of Saudi Arabia and the President of the Technical Committee of World Broadcasting Union.

Adama Samassékou has been the President of WSIS Preparatory Committee for the Geneva Phase, the President of the African Academy of Languages and Former Minister of Education of Mali (1993-2000). Playing an active role in community life, Mr. Samassékou was the founding president, for Mali and Africa as a whole, of the Peoples' Movement for Human Rights Education. In the political sphere, he was the founding chairman of ADEMA-France. Having been Malian Minister of Education for seven years (1993-2000) and former spokesperson for the Government of Mali (1997-2000), Mr. Samassékou is currently president, with ministerial rank, of the African Academy of Languages. He has obtained a Master of Arts in philology and linguistics from Lomonossov State University in Moscow, a DEA postgraduate diploma in African linguistics from the Sorbonne and a DESS specialist postgraduate diploma in organizational science from the Université de Paris-IX (Dauphine). He was also subsequently head of the Linguistic Department of the Institute of Social Sciences of Mali, then director of the National Library of Mali and adviser to the Minister of Culture.