IGF-USA 2021 Session

IGF-USA 2021 Introductory Keynote

Wednesday, July 14

11:00 – 11:15 AM EDT

This session will examine the political forces and drivers that could cause fragmentation of the Web and the Cloud–both within the United States and worldwide. Speakers will share examples of how such fragmentation could be enforced (through firewalls, filters, real-name ID requirements, new laws for platforms, data localization requirements, and criminalization of certain technologies or business practices). To illustrate how this could happen, a series of scenarios have been developed that reflect how governments might respond to: (1) cyber attacks, (2) growing concerns about online privacy and surveillance, (3) worries about “foreign” content and apps, and (4) abuse of the Internet for criminal activities and terrorism. Panelists will also describe ways to address these concerns without partitioning the Internet or imposing a patchwork of different national regulations on the global Internet.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin

Director, Telecommunication Development Bureau, International Telecommunication Union

View Bio

Doreen Bogdan-Martin was elected Director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau in November 2018 and took office on 1 January 2019, and is the first woman in ITU history to hold one of the organization’s top elected management positions.

She is a strategic leader with more than 30 years’ high-level experience in international and inter-governmental relations, and a long history of success in policy and strategy development, analysis and execution. ​ She was an architect of the annual Global Symposium for Regulators, the pre-eminent global event for digital policy-makers, and leads ITU’s contribution to the EQUALS Global Partnership for Gender Equality in the Digital Age. For more than a decade she has served as Executive Director of the UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, and is leading ITU’s collaboration with UNICEF on the Giga project to connect all the world’s schools.

Ms Bogdan-Martin is a frequent speaker at top-level international policy events, and is spearheading ITU’s new Youth Strategy to more actively engage with the young people who are driving the next wave of digital transformation.

She holds a Master’s degree in International Communications Policy from the American University in Washington, DC and a post-graduate certificate in Strategies for Leadership from the Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland.

She is an affiliate of the Harvard University Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society, and is a Generation Unlimited Champion and a Champion of the EDISON Alliance led by the World Economic Forum. She serves on a number of advisory bodies, including the Geneva-Tsinghua Initiative, the SDG Lab Advisory Board, the UN Technology Innovation Labs, and the Alumni Expert Council of the Internet Governance Lab of the American University in Washington D.C. She is also a qualified amateur radio operator. Ms Bogdan-Martin is married with four children.