Telecom Lead India: The Broadband Commission for
Digital Development has named eight new commissioners drawn from
technology leaders and development champions from around the world.
The new Commissioners include: Hessa Al-Jaber, secretary
general, ictQATAR; Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al-Thani,
chairman, Qtel; Saad Bin Dhafer Al Qahtani, Group CEO for Strategic Operations,
Saudi Telecom; Vanu Bose, CEO, Vanu; Innocenti Botti, president, Invitalia;
Jasna Matić, State Secretary for Digital Agenda, Serbia; Armen Orujyan, founder
& chairman, Athgo Corporation and Jean-Louis Schiltz, legal counsel,
Schiltz & Schiltz & former Minister for Communications, Luxembourg.
The new Commissioners join a select group of over 50
global leaders who are putting broadband at the very centre of their
organizational vision.
The Broadband Commission is delighted to welcome these
global leaders, who will use their talents and their considerable expertise to
add fresh impetus to our mission to spread the word about the importance of
broadband,” said Hamadoun Toure, ITU Secretary-General and Co-Vice Chair of the
Commission.
Commission members comprise a high-powered
international community, including prominent CEOs, top-level policy-makers and
government representatives, heads of international agencies, and senior figures
from academia and organizations with a development mandate.
The Commission was launched at ITU headquarters in Geneva
in May 2010 in response to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s call to step up
UN efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
It is co-chaired by President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and
Carlos Slim Helu, president of the Carlos Slim Foundation, with ITU
Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure and UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova,
serving as joint vice chairs.
At its fourth meeting in October 2011, Commissioners
agreed on a set of four targets that countries around the world
should strive to meet in order to ensure their populations fully participate in
tomorrow’s emerging knowledge societies.
They also launched a Broadband Challenge that
recognizes communication as a human need and a right, and calls on governments
and private industry to work together to develop the innovative policy
frameworks, business models and financing arrangements needed to facilitate
growth in access to broadband worldwide.
