Dr. Nicol Turner-Lee is a Fellow at the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution. The Center is part of Brookings’ Governance Studies program. Her core research interests are digital technology access, equity, and emerging digital use cases, such as online activism. Prior to this role, Dr. Turner-Lee was Vice President and Chief Research and Policy Officer for the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC), a 30-year old minority media advocacy organization, where she was responsible for designing and implementing its research and policy agenda. In this role, she developed the policy and research agenda and worked with civil rights, government, corporations and other stakeholders to strategize and operationalize MMTC’s work. Dr. Turner-Lee was also Vice President and the first Director of the Media and Technology Institute for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, one of the nation’s leading research and public policy institutions whose work focuses on issues of concern to African Americans and other people of color. At the Joint Center, Dr. Turner-Lee created the first “National Minority Broadband Adoption Study” that was cited in the Federal Communications Commission’s congressionally mandated National Broadband Plan as well as a subsequent report detailing the information needs of communities. Dr. Turner-Lee is an appointee to the FCC’s Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment. She is also a Visiting Researcher at the Center for Gender Equity in STEM for Women and Girls at Arizona State University. Dr. Turner-Lee graduated with honors from Colgate University, has a doctorate in Sociology from Northwestern University and a Certificate in Nonprofit Management from the University of Illinois-Chicago.

Clayton Banks is the Co-Founder and CEO of Silicon Harlem. The mission of Silicon Harlem is to transform Harlem and other urban markets into Innovation and Technology Hubs. Under his leadership, Silicon Harlem has been able to partner with the Department of Education for New York City to establish an after school STEM based startup accelerator, collaborate with the NYC Mayor’s office to assess wireless broadband in upper Manhattan and coordinate a virtual startup incubator for tech based entrepreneurs. Banks has established and produces the only comprehensive technology conference in Harlem, the Silicon Harlem tech conference is focused on next generation internet and its impact on urban markets economic development.

Katie Myers grew up on the Eastern seaboard and moved to Knoxville, Tennessee in 2014, where she completed her bachelor’s degree at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. There, she undertook participatory research in rural development in Appalachia. Katie’s work is led by her values of redistributive economics and resource sovereignty for marginalized people, and she has lent support to immigrants’ rights, anti-racist, environmental justice, and youth organizing projects both in Appalachia and elsewhere. She has also spent time in southern Mexico and the borderlands of Arizona, working in solidarity with the indigenous peoples of Mexico and Central America. Katie is currently working with residents of Cocke County, Tennessee to envision possibilities for cooperatively-owned ISPs in the region.

Diana Oo serves as Senior Director of Global Public Policy at Comcast NBCUniversal’s Washington, D.C. office. She oversees the company’s policies related to intellectual property, Internet governance, and sustainability issues.

Previously, she served as Director of Government Affairs at Cablevision. In that role, she advised key executives on congressional issues affecting Cablevision and spearheaded the company’s federal legislative policy and strategy, including on retransmission consent, privacy, cybersecurity, and intellectual property.

Before joining Cablevision, Diana served as counsel on the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, where she advised the Chairman on a variety of copyright and communications issues, including net neutrality, digital music royalties, Internet gaming, the constitutionality of the Copyright Royalty Board, and reauthorization of the statutory satellite and cable carriage licenses.

Prior to joining the House Judiciary Committee, she worked as an associate at McGraw-Hill, focusing on copyright issues affecting the publishing industry, including orphan works legislation.

Diana began her career as a legislative aide to former Congressman Harold Ford Jr. (D-TN). She has also had the opportunity to serve as an intern at the Federal Communications Commission, the Recording Industry Association of America, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Diana received her J.D. degree from the Catholic University of America and a B.S. in Psychology and Economics from the University of Tennessee.

Matthew R. Rantanen is the Director of Technology for the Southern California Tribal Chairmen's Association (SCTCA) and Director of the Tribal Digital Village (TDVNet) Network/Initiative that was started in 2001 designing and deploying wireless networking to support the tribal communities of Southern California. Matthew, of Finnish, Cree Indian, and Norwegian decent, has been described as a "cyber warrior for community networking." He is an advocate for net-neutrality, broadband for everyone, and opening more spectrum for public consumption, always looking out for the unserved and underserved.Matthew has served as Chairman of the Board for (2) terms and is currently the treasurer on the board of directors for Native Public Media (NPM). He was named to the FCC Native Nations Broadband Task Force by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, and has completed his second assignment, having been renamed to the task force by FCC Chairman, Tom Wheeler.He also serves on the inaugural board of the American Indian Policy Institute (AIPI) at Arizona State University. Matthew is on the Tribal Advisory Group which advises the California First Responders Network (CalFRN), California Office of Emergency Services (CalOES) and the Broadband Council to the Governor.Matthew works with the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) and is currently the Co-Chair of the Technology and Telecom Subcommittee and Co-Chair of their Technology Task Force.Matthew continues to develop policy and work with these partners in collaboration to get broadband deployed to the unserved and underserved communities.

Donna Scheeder is the Past President of the International Federation of Library Associations. She speaks frequently on contributions made by libraries towards advancing the achievement of the UN 2030 agenda and the Sustainable development goals. She retired on March 2015 as the Deputy Chief Information Officer of the Congressional Research Service after a long career at the U.S. Library of Congress which included 5 years as Director of Law Library Services. She is a former Chair of the Section on Libraries and Research Services for Parliaments of IFLA and has provided training to parliamentary libraries in many countries of the world. Her networking skills have been sharpened over her 45 year career and record of volunteer public service.
Scheeder lives on Capitol Hill in Washington DC. She is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Hill Center and she also serves as Chair of the Eastern Market Community Advisory Committee.

Anne Schwieger works for the City of Boston Department of Innovation & Technology as Broadband and Digital Equity Advocate. In this role she supports the City of Boston in advancing access to affordable broadband connectivity, up-to-date digital tools, and the digital skills that Bostonians need to engage in educational, economic, and civic pursuits. Anne is a board member of the Boston Neighborhood Network and the National League of Cities Information Technology & Communications Federal Advocacy Committee. She holds a Master in City Planning from the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT and a BA in Biology and Society from Cornell University. Anne was named to the StateScoop Top Women in Technology 2018 list.

Susan Strachan is a Project Manager with the California State University (CSU), Chico Geographical Information Center (GIC), managing a portfolio of projects ranging from habitat restoration to broadband. She develops collaborative efforts with faculty and staff to address challenges in CSU, Chico’s rural service area, having funded and implemented projects that evaluated storm water treatment practices, restored degraded streams and wetlands, analyzed economic change associated with restoration of agricultural lands to habitat, and examined the role of broadband in rural economies. The GIC has a long history of research and agency collaboration on broadband, managing the California Broadband Map and implementing field testing for the Mobile Broadband Testing program at the California Public Utilities Commission. They facilitate the Upstate and Northeast California Connect Broadband Consortia and are implementing a planning project for eight rural communities to identify broadband strategies to serve businesses. A recent collaboration with the San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Internet Society implemented mobile broadband performance in farm fields, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation. Susan holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Virginia and M.A. in Geography: Environmental Planning and Resource Management from San Francisco State University.

Monique Tate is a devoted community activist and leader, instinctively following the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition (DDJC) objectives of initiating projects, weaving networks, building transformative education practices and community organizing to bring about digital justice in Detroit, MI. She is currently engaged in designing and implementing a community governed wireless internet infrastructure in the Greater North End in Detroit. Her passions are dedicated to uplifting community, inspiring youth and promoting education, especially digital literacy.