Global Scholars

Mr. Robert Guerra is a civil society expert specializing in issues of Internet governance, human rights, digital security and Internet freedom. Mr. Guerra is the founder of Privaterra, a Canadian-based company that works with private industry and nongovernmental organizations to assist them with issues of data privacy and information security. Mr. Guerra has participated as a member of the official Canadian delegation at two UN World Summits on the Information Society (WSIS). He is a member of the Technical Advisory Board of the International Criminal Court; the Security and Stability Advisory Committee of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN); and ICANN’s Multi-stakeholder Ethos Award Panel. He is also the former Program Manager, Disability Inclusive Development (DID) Policy Collaboratory at the AU Institute on Disability and Public Policy (IDPP).

Dr. Francesca Musiani (PhD, socio-economics of innovation, MINES ParisTech, 2012), is associate research professor at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) since 2014. She is Deputy Director of the Center for Internet and Society of CNRS, which she co-founded in 2019. She is also an associate researcher at the Center for the sociology of innovation (i3/MINES ParisTech) and a Global Fellow at the Internet Governance Lab, American University in Washington, DC. Since 2006, Francesca’s research work focuses on Internet governance, in an interdisciplinary perspective merging information and communication sciences, science and technology studies (STS) and international law. Her most recent research has explored the development and use of encryption technologies in secure messaging (H2020 European project NEXTLEAP, 2016-2018), “digital resistances” to censorship and surveillance in the Russian Internet (ANR project ResisTIC, 2018-2021), and the governance of Web archives (ANR project Web90, 2014-2017 and CNRS Attentats-Recherche project ASAP, 2016). Francesca’s theoretical work explores STS approaches to Internet governance, with particular attention paid to socio-technical controversies and to governance “by architecture” and “by infrastructure”. Her research has been awarded the French Privacy and Data Protection Commission’s Prix Informatique et Libertés 2013, the OpenEdition Books Select distinction in 2019, and the runner-up CNIL-Inria Prize for Privacy Protection in 2019. Her personal page is hereand she tweets at @franmusiani.

Dr. Mark Raymond is the Wick Cary Assistant Professor of International Security in the Department of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Toronto. His research and teaching interests include International Relations theory, international law and organization, and international security. His current book project examines the role of procedural rules in shaping the politics of global rule-making. He is the co-editor, with Gordon Smith, of Organized Chaos: Reimagining the Internet (Waterloo, Canada: CIGI, 2014). His work has also appeared in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs and the Canadian Foreign Policy Journal. Mark held the position of Research Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, a non-partisan think tank located in Waterloo, Ontario. At CIGI, he contributed to the development and execution of research and programming on Internet governance, including the Global Commission on Internet Governance. In this capacity, he testified before the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development, participated in the 2013 Internet Governance Forum, and spoke at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London (Chatham House).

Mr. Emir Sfaxi is a Fulbright fellow and a public policy consultant focusing on digital development, open government and data analysis. He holds a M.S. in Computer Science from the National Institute of Applied Sciences and Technologies in Tunisia and is finishing his M.S. in Development Management at American University’s School of International Service. He is currently an Independent Reporting Mechanism researcher working primarily on the Middle East and North Africa region on open government-related issues. Mr. Sfaxi has dedicated his career to public policy, ICT, and governance. Before coming to the U.S., he worked as a consultant at Ernst and Young managing a $100 million fund dedicated to entrepreneurship and job creation. Additionally, he oversaw the "Ta3mal" project, a combined effort between Microsoft, Silatech, and the Tunisian government to reduce unemployment by connecting employers and applicants through IT. In 2016, he participated in a United Nations Youth Advisory Panel and served in an advisory role at the Tunisian Ministry of Youth and Sports, where he was instrumental in the implementation of several programs designed to combat the radicalization of young Tunisians.