Adiel is one of West Africa’s internet pioneers having in the early 90’s, set up some of the first private and independent Internet Service Providers in the region, CAFENet. He is the current Chief Executive Officer of Africa’s Internet Numbers’ Resource Registry, AfriNIC Ltd. His over 15 years experience in the internet industry include working as a director in the IT service industry and as an Information System Manager. Within internet governance community, Adiel has served as member of the UN Secretary General Internet Governance Forum Advisors Group , in the African Technical Advisory Committee of the United Nation Economic Commission for Africa (ATAC/UNECA) and in the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie group of expert on Internet Governance.

Anriette Esterhuysen was the executive director of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) - the largest ICT-focused civil society network in the world - from 2000 to 2017. She continues to work with APC as a consultant and convenes the African School on Internet Governance (AfriSIG), a joint initiative of APC, the African Union Commission and Research ICT Africa.

Ms. Esterhuysen has served as Chair of the Multistakeholder Advisory Committee of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum. as well as on the African Technical Advisory Committee of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa's African Information Society Initiative (1996-1999), the United Nations ICT Task Force (2002-2005), the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Working Group on Financing Mechanisms (2003-2005), the Commission on Science and Technology for Development Working Group on Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Improvements (2011-2012) and on Enhanced Cooperation (2017-2018), the Global Commission on Internet Governance and the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) of the IGF (2012-2014).

She was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame as a Global Connecter in 2013 and received an EFF Pioneer Award in 2015. Ms. Esterhuysen serves as a Commissioner on the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace and as a member of the board of directors of the .ZA (South Africa) domain name authority, ZADNA.

Avri Doria is a research consultant with a number of contracts with both NGOs and the technical community. She served on the UN Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation I (WGEC) and the UN Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG). She served as a member the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Secretariat and was a member of the IGF Multistakeholder Advisory Group (IGF MAG). As a technologist she has been involved in the development of Internet protocols and architectures for over 30 years; is co-chair of a Research Group on Human Rights Protocol Considerations and a member of the Internet Research Steering Group (IRSG). She has been active in ICANN policy, was chair of the GNSO Council and is currently a member of the ICANN Board. Avri was awarded the ICANN Multistakeholder Ethos award in 2014.

Dr. Bitange Ndemo is the honorary chairperson of the Alliance for Affordable Internet. He is immediate former Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information and Communications, Kenya. He is regarded as the father of Broadband in Kenya, having championed the development of Fibre Optic cables and other supporting infrastructure to the Eastern Africa region.

Emilar Vushe works with the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), and has been since 2009, where she is responsible for coordinating policy projects in Africa.  Prior to joining APC, she worked as a researcher both in Zimbabwe and South Africa mainly focusing on public information rights and human rights. She is a graduate of the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Zimbabwe.

‘Gbenga Sesan is the Executive Director of Paradigm Initiative, a pan-African social enterprise working on digital inclusion and digital rights through its offices in Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Zambia and Zimbabwe. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford University. Originally trained as an Electronic & Electrical Engineer at Obafemi Awolowo University, he completed Executive Education programs at Lagos Business School, Oxford University, Harvard University, Stanford University, Santa Clara University and University of the Pacific. ‘Gbenga’s consulting experience includes assignments completed for numerous institutions, including Microsoft, Harvard University and United Nations agencies, among others, in over 30 countries. A Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year and former member of the United Nations Committee of eLeaders on Youth and ICT, he is a CyberStewards Fellow, Crans Montana Forum Fellow, Archbishop Desmond Tutu Leadership Fellow, Ashoka Fellow, Our Common Future Fellow and Cordes Fellow.

Jeanette is co-director of the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society’s (HIIG) and a Professor of Internet Politics at the Freie Universität in Berlin, Germany. She conducts research at the Social Science Center Berlin (WZB), which she co-founded to develop a social and cultural science perspective on the internet in 1994. She is also research associate at the Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation (CARR) of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Sher research areas cover governance, regulation of the Internet and the transformation of copyright.  Her contribution in global internet governance include her advisory committees, like the advisory role in the working commission ‘Digitalized Society’ of the Leopoldina, membership in the Enquete Commission on ‘Internet and Digital Society’ of the German Bundestag from 2010 to 2013.

Association for Progressive Communication (APC) coordinator of the internet rights and human rights. Joy joined APC in April 2011 and was previously a lawyer with her own practice and a Commissioner with the New Zealand Human Rights Commission from 2002 and 2010. Her expertise is in human rights issues in the Asia and Pacific regions, women’s rights, sexual orientation and gender identity, and human rights and the Internet.

Khaled is the Web Index Project Manager at the World Wide Web Foundation. He has over ten years experience managing multi-country projects in information and communication technologies (ICTs) with a focus on Internet policies and digital networks. Before joining the Web Foundation, Khaled was with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) where he collaborated with academia, governments, the private sector and civil society organisations in Africa and Asia to leverage a more inclusive Internet environment. Issues included broadband policy and regulations, intellectual property right reforms, online publishing, and business models.

Mawaki is a scholar as well as a consultant and an entrepreneur in the field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). He is particularly enthusiastic about assisting African countries build the fundamentals for a truly digital economy through inclusive and evidence-based ICT-enabling policies. He has nearly 20 years of experience on societal issues relating to ICTs, consulting for organizations including UNESCO, the International Development Research Center, the Open Society Foundations, the African Union’s NEPAD Agency, UN’s Economic Commission for Africa, Hivos, the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), etc. Mawaki earned a PhD in Information Science and Technology from Syracuse University (Syracuse, New York) with a research focus on Internet governance, policy and digital identity management. He is a founding member of the Board of Trustees at Sovrin Foundation which has been set up to govern a global public utility for decentralized identity provided via Sovrin Network, and is dedicated to building a trustworthy identity layer to the Internet protocols. Over the last dozen of years, Mawaki has been actively involved in internet governance spaces such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), particularly as a Policy Councillor in matters the Internet’s generic top-level domain names; the global civil society’s Internet Governance Caucus; and the UN-led process, Internet Governance Forum, both at global level and on various levels in Africa. Founder of DigiLexis Consulting, Dr. Chango intends to increasingly engage his thoughts and actions to help spur Internet-enabled entrepreneurial opportunities in Africa as well as governments to embrace the most adequate policies in that regard while improving their own operations in the digital age. Currently residing in Togo where he lectures at Kara University, Mawaki speaks English, French and Portuguese.

Nnenna works to develop cutting-edge collaborations in Africa. Her work has a particular focus on the Alliance for Affordable Internet project and the Web We Want campaign for human rights on and through the Web. She is an experienced development professional who has worked in the ICT field in Africa for over a decade. As well as leading a highly regarded consultancy platform, Nnenna has in recent years co-founded The Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa, and served as a board member of the Open Source Initiative. Her career has allowed her to work closely with many civil society organisations, the African Development Bank, the Digital Solidarity Fund and has seen her involved in many phases of the UN’s Africa Information Society Initiative. She has lived and worked in five African countries and is fluent in English, French and a number of African languages.

In her current position as the Regional Director of EndCode, she manages a team of advisors that consult developments in technology law and policy to advise clients including tech multinationals, tech start-ups, governmental and non-governmental organisations. She has an entrepreneurial nature on the one hand, excited by the challenge to develop and give life to new programmes, organisations and institutional capabilities; and a respect for governance and excellence on the other hand, with an eye for detail and responsible programme delivery within professional standards. She's an advocate for the potential of emerging technology to improve the lives of Africans and has made it her life’s work to contribute to game-changing initiatives. She's married to her best friend, whom he calls the Great Heart and they have two little boys, one loves reptiles and one loves Harry Potter.

Wolfgang Kleinwaechter is a Professor Emeritus from the University of Aarhus in Denmark where he was teaching a master course on Internet Policy and Regulation since 1998. He is also a Commissioner in the Global Commission on Stability in Cyberspace (GCSC).

He is involved in Internet Governance issues since the early 1990s. He was member of the UN Working Group on Internet Governance (2003-2005), appointed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Special Adviser to the chair of the Internet Governance Forum (2005-2010), Nitin Desai, and Special Ambassador of the Net Mundial Initiative (NMI).