Digital Peace Now Society Announces New Global Ambassador and Board Members
CYBERSPACE [Updated – 10/30/20] – With today’s announcement of its inaugural leadership team, the Digital Peace Now Society is cementing itself as a growing movement that represents people all across the world who demand to see a digital environment protected from cyberwarfare.
As we’ve seen over the past several years, the internet has been coopted and used by governments or nation-states to deploy cyberattacks. But cyberattacks aren’t victimless—the damage ripples across the physical and digital worlds. One attack could cripple digital infrastructure, rendering health networks helpless while we tackle a global pandemic. Another could upend financial systems at a time when so many of us depend on or make our living using online tools and technologies. This is what cyberwarfare is. It’s real, it’s harmful, and it’s happening right in front of us. And it’s what Digital Peace Now is working to change.
Under the guidance of new Ambassador Raj Burli and the group’s first Board of Directors—Jamal Edwards, Camille François, Duncan Hollis, Ephraim Percy Kenyanito, Samir Saran, Daniel Stauffacher and Uzra Zeya*—the non-profit is expecting to build on its mission: giving digital citizens the power to safeguard their shared online community.
Raj Burli will act as the official voice and public representative of the Digital Peace Now Society, helping people all around the world understand the current state of cyberwarfare and find ways to take action to demand global change.
“As Digital Peace Now’s new global ambassador, let me just say: I can’t wait to get to work,” said Raj Burli, who previously worked with the United Nations and Global Citizen. “Billions of us connect with each other and live our lives in the digital world—and more so now, in the past six months, than ever before. What we can’t allow is for this place of ours, the digital community, to continue to be misused by governments, nation-states, and others.”
Burli continued, “Our internet should not be a weapon. The interconnected nature of the digital world should not be defined by cyberwarfare and cyberattacks. But in both cases right now, it is. Digital citizens, all of us who connect online in some way, have the power to change what’s happening. I’m thrilled to be joining Digital Peace Now, a movement made up of those just like me—advocates, changemakers, young leaders, and anybody who cares about the digital world around us.”
GLOBAL AMBASSADOR
Raj Burli
Raj Burli’s passion lies in advocating for social justice and raising awareness about socio-political issues impacting young people. It’s this drive that led him to become a Board Director for UN Youth Australia, one of the largest entirely youth ran non-profits in the country that endeavors to educate students across the nation about different issues that impact young people. After completing his undergraduate degrees in Aviation and International Business, he interned for Global Citizen, a non-profit working to eradicate global poverty. It was here that he discovered his passion for digital peace and its importance for our future. In search of an intersection for his interests, he returned home to Melbourne, Australia, where he is currently undertaking a Master of Science with a focus on sustainability and digital security within aviation.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
The Digital Peace Now’s Board of Directors will provide counsel and guidance when it comes to setting the Society’s strategy, oversee its operations and governance, and to ensure the interests of the different constituent communities are well represented. Digital Peace Now Society is looking forward for the group to do just that, as well as help us identify additional Board members in the coming weeks and months.
This illustrious group of individuals brings vast experience from the international relations, cybersecurity, non-profit, and peacebuilding fields and will allow us to lift the work of the society to the next level. More information on the board members is below:
Jamal Edwards
Jamal Edwards is a Technology Policy Adviser for the United Nations with the Office of the Special Adviser on the Preparations for the Commemoration of the 75th Anniversary and the High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation. He is also a member of the Microsoft’s Digital Diplomacy Team which works to advance security, trust and human rights in cyberspace by engaging with government, industry, and civil society stakeholders around the globe, advocating for respect for human rights and improvements in cybersecurity policy and practice in order to produce a more safe and secure online world.
Prior to joining Microsoft, Jamal worked with the United Nations, MTV, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He received his bachelor’s degree from Duke University and attended graduate school at Stanford University. He served on the Board of Trustees at both institutions.
Camille François
Camille François is the Chief Innovation Officer at Graphika—a cybersecurity company focused on information integrity issues—overseeing its data analysis, investigation and R&D teams.
Camille was previously the Principal Researcher at Jigsaw, a division of Google that builds technology to address global security challenges. There, she led several programs focused on protecting vulnerable users from online threats. She has advised governments and parliamentary committees on both sides of the Atlantic, on cybersecurity and digital rights, investigated Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election on behalf of the US Senate Select Intelligence Committee, and served as a special advisor to the Chief Technology Officer of France.
In 2019, Camille was recognized by the MIT Tech Review in its annual “35 Innovators Under 35” award, and named one of TIME Magazine’s “100 Next” global leaders for her work on information operations. Camille is a Mozilla fellow and an affiliate of the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society, where she conducts research on cyberpeace and the impacts of cyber conflict on civil society.
Duncan Hollis
Duncan B. Hollis is Laura H. Carnell Professor of Law at Temple Law School. His scholarship engages with issues of international law, interpretation, and cybersecurity, with a particular emphasis on treaties, norms, and other forms of international regulation. Duncan is currently a non-resident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an elected member of the American Law Institute, where he served as an Adviser on its project to draft a Fourth Restatement on the Foreign Relations Law of the United States.
In 2016, he was elected by the General Assembly of the Organization of the American States to a four-year term on the OAS’s Inter-American Juridical Committee. There, he has served as the Rapporteur on binding and non-binding agreements as well as the Rapporteur on improving the transparency of State views on international law’s application to cyberspace. Duncan has also served as a Senior Fellow at Melbourne Law School, a Visiting Professor at LUISS Università Guido Carli, and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House.
Ephraim Percy Kenyanito
Ephraim is a trained lawyer and public policy analyst with over eight years in the International Trade, Technology, Media and Telecommunications Law industry. Between 2014 and 2018 he served as the youngest advisor on Internet Governance to two UN Secretary Generals Ban Ki–moon and António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres. Additionally, since 2013 he has served as an Independent Expert to two ICANN Implementation Advisory Groups. Since 2012, Ephraim has also executed international development projects with a diverse range of leading international institutions across 46 African Union member countries.
Presently, Ephraim does research on the nexus of the Domain Name System and Business and Human Rights (BHR) with international institution, ARTICLE 19. He is also a member of the GFCE Advisory Board, Digital Peace Now, European Commission GIPO advisory group among other board positions. He is also a full member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) and Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU).
Ephraim is currently pursuing Postgraduate qualifications in Technology, Media and Telecommunications Law at Queen Mary University of London and holds an LLB (with Honours) where his thesis examined the Relationship Between Domain Names and Geographical Indications with a special focus on .wine and .vin applications.
Samir Saran
Samir Saran is the President of Observer Research Foundation (ORF), one of Asia’s most influential think tanks. He curates the Raisina Dialogue, India’s annual flagship platform on geopolitics and geo-economics, and chairs CyFy, India’s annual conference on cyber security and internet governance. He spearheads the Foundation’s efforts to foster new international partnerships and globalize its platforms.
Samir has also benefited from a rich and diverse experience in the Indian private sector. At India’s largest conglomerate, Reliance Industries, he served in various capacities across their fiber and petrochemicals, power, telecom, retail and media verticals. He was also a member of the Government – Industry panel on Intellectual Property and Broadcasting regulation. Samir has been actively engaged with regulators and policy makers since the early 1990s, closely studying India’s ambitious economic reform journey.
Samir writes frequently on issues of global governance, climate change, energy policy, global development architecture, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, internet governance, and India’s foreign policy. He has authored four books, several academic papers, and is featured regularly in Indian and international print and broadcast media.
Daniel Stauffacher
Dr. Daniel Stauffacher, a former Ambassador of Switzerland, is a founder and President of the ICT4Peace Foundation, which since 2003 explores and champions the use of ICT for peaceful purposes and supports diplomatic and multi-stakeholder processes for a peaceful and open cyberspace.
After managing a Swiss publishing company, he joined the UNDP in Laos and China in 1982 and in 1990 the Swiss Federal Office for Foreign Economic Affairs (Bawi). In 1995 he was posted to the Swiss Mission to the European Union in Brussels. From 1999 to 2005 was the Special Representative and Ambassador of the Swiss Federal Government for the hosting of the World Summit on Social Development plus 5 in 2000 in Geneva and the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva 2003 and in Tunis 2005.
He was a member of Kofi Annan’s UN ICT Task Force, a Co-Chair of the UN Global Alliance for ICT for Development (GAID). A Founder and President of the Geneva Security Forum and a founding Trustee of Sir Tim Berners Lee’s World Wide Web Foundation. He is an advisor to a number of Governments and International Organizations on Crisis Information Management and on International Cybersecurity Policy and Diplomacy. He co-launched with the UN the Tech Against Terrorism Project and created the Zurich Hub for Ethics and Technology (ZHET).
Uzra Zeya*
Uzra Zeya is CEO and President of Alliance for Peacebuilding, a leading global network of 120+ organizations working to end violent conflict and sustain peace. Uzra joined AfP in 2019, after a distinguished diplomatic career over two decades on five continents. As Chargé d’Affaires at U.S. Embassy Paris, she achieved unprecedented U.S.-French cooperation on climate change, counterterrorism, and Russia, and was awarded the Légion d’honneur, France’s highest civilian honor. As Acting Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, she expanded public-private partnerships for LGBT equality and against gender-based violence, and led U.S. human rights dialogues with China. She also served at U.S. embassies in India, Syria, Egypt, and Oman, and speaks Arabic, French, and Spanish. She is a Board of Advisors Member for the Georgetown Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a Strategist for the Obama Foundation Scholars Program.
*EDITOR’S NOTE: Uzra Zeya has stepped down from the Digital Peace Now Board to serve the Biden Administration as the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights.
Helena Puig Larrauri
Helena is Director of Build Up, a non-profit that works to identify and apply innovative practices to prevent conflict and tackle polarization, which she co-founded in 2014. She is a governance and peacebuilding professional with over a decade of experience advising and supporting UN agencies, multi-lateral organisations and NGOs working in conflict contexts and polarized environments. She specializes in the integration of digital technology and innovation processes to peace processes, and has written extensively on this subject matter. She is also an Ashoka Fellow.
Helena has been invited to speak about civic technology and innovation in venues including SXSW Interactive, Geneva Peace Talks, Geneva Peace Platform, The Hague Institute of Global Justice, IPI Vienna Seminar, MIT’s Centre for Civic Media and more. She previously served on the Boards of Elva Community Engagement, International Alert, ImpactHub Barcelona and the Stand-by Task Force, and currently serves on the Board of Public Sentiment. She holds a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University and a Masters in Public Policy (Economics) from Princeton University.
Sherry Wong
Şerife (Sherry) Wong is an artist and founder of Icarus Salon, an art think tank researching the ethics of emerging technology. Last year, she was a resident at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center thematic month on AI, a jury member at Ars Electronica for the European Commission’s STARTS prize, and partnered with the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford to create Fluxus Landscape, a map of 500 actors in AI ethics and governance.
Previously, she was both an Artist in Residence and Impact Program Manager at Autodesk’s Pier 9, worked at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and was part of the early days of the internet at Artnet Magazine. As an artist, she has exhibited internationally at venues such as Art Basel Miami, Shanghai Art Fair, FIAC Paris, ARCO Madrid, and Art Cologne. Şerife advocates for justice in AI and pushes for more active roles for artists in policymaking.
About Digital Peace Now
Digital Peace Now Society is a global movement of over 130,000 digital citizens from over 170 countries who celebrate the internet and look to it for connection, opportunity, and inspiration. We will not allow the internet to become a battlefield. We demand that governments stop engaging in cyberwarfare and that world leaders take action to prevent a future where state sponsored cyberattacks disrupt our daily life and the stability of the modern world.