The United Nations’ leading platform on Artificial Intelligence

Doreen Bogdan-Martin took office as Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on 1 January 2023. Ms Bogdan-Martin was elected as ITU’s first-ever female Secretary-General by Member States at the Union’s Plenipotentiary Conference in Bucharest, Romania.

Ms Bogdan-Martin was previously the Director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau. She took office on 1 January 2019, becoming the first woman in ITU history to hold one of the organization’s top elected management positions.

Ms Bogdan-Martin is a strategic leader with more than 30 years’ high-level experience in international and inter-governmental relations and a long history of success advising governments around the world on policy and regulatory issues.
From 2008-2018, she led ITU’s Strategic Planning & Membership Department. She was instrumental in establishing the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, on which she has served as Executive Director for more than a decade, and was an architect of the annual Global Symposium for Regulators, the pre-eminent global event for digital policymakers, as well as director of ITU’s first global youth summit, #BYND. She pioneered and oversees ITU’s ongoing contribution to the EQUALS Global Partnership for Gender Equality in the Digital Age, 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 has spearheaded ITU’s new Youth Strategy to more actively engage with the young people who are driving the next wave of digital transformation.
During her tenure as Director of BDT, she has led the implementation of a Results-Based Management system, improved internal accountability frameworks, and initiated a comprehensive review of reporting mechanisms across BDT’s global network of field and area offices, with a view to creating a more dynamic, responsive and fit-for-purpose organization.
Ms Bogdan-Martin holds a Master’s degree in International Communications Policy from American University in Washington, DC, post-graduate certification in Strategies for Leadership from the Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland, and is certified in Accountability and Ethics by the United Nations Leaders Programme.
She is an affiliate of the Harvard University Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society, a Generation Unlimited Champion, and a Champion of the EDISON

Dr. Jian Wang is an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Director of Zhejiang Lab, and Founder of Alibaba Cloud. The Cloud ranks third as a public cloud provider globally and first in Asia. He was also the chief architect of Apsara, its computing foundation, and took the lead in proposing the industrial model of using computing as a public service. In 2016, Dr. Wang pioneered and led the nonprofit City Brain initiative to develop a new digital infrastructure for sustainable “smart” cities as his personal effort and was the architect of Hangzhou City Brain. He founded the Yunqi Academy of Engineering, a private nonprofit research institute with a focus on scientific research for City Brain, and the Yunqi Science and Technology Innovation Foundation, a philanthropic private foundation that operates the free 2050 museum, which envisions the future through technology innovation and organizes the 2050 event every year in April, promoting the vision of science and technology bringing people together.

Lisa Monaco is the President of Microsoft Global Affairs, where she leads the company’s global policy work and engagement with governments and international organizations around the world. In this role, she is responsible for advancing Microsoft’s global policy and trust agenda—championing responsible leadership on technology policy including national security and cybersecurity, digital sovereignty, and AI governance—while strengthening strategic partnerships with governments and international institutions. 

Lisa joined Microsoft in 2025 after serving as the 39th Deputy Attorney General of the United States (2021–2025), the Department of Justice’s second-ranking official and Chief Operating Officer. She oversaw its law enforcement, litigation, policy and national security work and was responsible for the day-to-day operations of a 115,000 employee Cabinet department.
In her more than 25-year career in government Lisa has held several senior national security positions, including White House Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor (2013–2017), where she advised the President and coordinated the U.S. government’s response to a wide range of security threats—including terrorist attacks, cyber incidents, and pandemics. She also served as Assistant Attorney General for National Security, the first woman to hold the position, and as Chief of Staff of the FBI. She began her career as a federal prosecutor and was a member of the Justice Department’s Enron Task Force. 
Lisa is a recognized leader in national security, cybersecurity, law enforcement, and public policy. A former partner in a global law firm, she has served on numerous private sector boards and commissions and taught national security law. She is a Distinguished Scholar at the NYU School of Law, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a recipient of the National Intelligence Public Service Medal and the CIA Director’s Award. 
She holds a B.A. in American History and Literature from Harvard University and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

As a creative artist, tech entrepreneur, the Founder & CEO of FYI.AI, a Goodwill Ambassador, AI Skills Coalition for the United Nations International Telecommunications Union, and Professor of Practice in the GAME School at Arizona State University, will.i.am has been recognized by a CLIO Award, an Emmy Award, nine Grammy Awards, the James C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award, a TIME 100 Impact Award, the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award, and an Honorary Fellowship by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET – UK).

He is simultaneously a creative innovation advisor, futurist, multi-platinum Grammy-winning music artist, producer, entertainer and a tech entrepreneur as part of his cross-disciplinary career.  He invests in and develops businesses in a range of sectors including the FYI Web 3.0 creativity & productivity tool, automotive, consumer-tech, fashion, food & beverage, software (AI, Natural Language Understanding, Voice Computing) and telecom.

His early work as Futurist and market opportunity spotter was with Beats Electronics. As a founding equity stakeholder in the company, will.i.am was instrumental in helping to transform Beats By Dre™ into a global consumer electronics brand.  Beats Electronics was purchased by Apple in 2014 for US$3 billion.

will.i.am teams with the world’s leading companies helping them to embrace future technologies, what’s next in cultural trends and to develop new business initiatives.  A sampling of multinational organizations he has collaborated with include Apple, Arizona State University, Coca-Cola, Deutsche Telekom, Formula 1, Honeywell, Intel, LG, Marvel Comics, Mercedes-AMG, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Pepsi, Salesforce, SiriusXM and UPROXX Studios.

In philanthropy will.i.am established his i.am Angel Foundation in 2009 to transform lives through education, inspiration and opportunity incorporating STEAM (science, tech, engineering, arts and mathematics) education resources and robotics clubs in schools.  i.am Angel Foundation programs also include after-school tutoring and scholarship aid for university-bound students in underserved areas. With a 99% graduation rate, participating students are often the first in their families to attend a four-year college or university.

Through a private-public partnership with Los Angeles Unified schools, the foundation has helped establish hundreds of after-school robotics clubs in high schools across the city.  In collaboration with Arizona State University, his FYI.AI platform has been adapted to EDU.FYI to offer university-level courses, tutoring tools and student life resources. As a Professor of Practice at the GAME School at ASU, he is teaching a course, “The Agentic Self”, January – May 2026.  Course students are using EDU.FYI and GPU technology provided by NVIDIA to build and maintain their personal AI agents.

As an education advocate, will.i.am serves on the boards of advisors and directors of College Track, FIRST Global (student robotics), Smithsonian Science Education Center Advisory Committee, and the Iovine-Young Academy at University of Southern California.  In recognition of his work in Artificial Intelligence and education, will.i.am was appointed Goodwill Ambassador, AI Skills Coalition, United Nations International Telecommunications Union in 2025.

Ray Kurzweil is a world-class inventor, thinker, and futurist with a 36-year track record of accurate predictions. A leader in artificial intelligence for 63 years, he was the principal inventor of the first CCD flat-bed scanner, the first omni-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition software.

Ray has won a Grammy, the National Medal of Technology, a place in the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and 21 honorary Doctorates. His latest book, The Singularity Is Nearer, debuted at #4 on the New York Times Best Seller list.

He served as a Director of Engineering and later Principal Researcher and AI Visionary at Google for 13 years where he developed an AI model that conversed in natural language with 100,000 books, a landmark precursor to today’s large language models.

Puyr Tembé is one of the most important Indigenous leaders in Brazil. A woman from the Tembé people, she was born in the São Pedro village, located in the Alto Rio Guamá Indigenous Land, in the state of Pará. Since a young age, she has been active in defending Indigenous territories and rights, deeply inspired by the leadership of women in her family.She is the first Secretary of Indigenous Peoples of the State of Pará (SEPI), a government department created in 2023, where she leads efforts in dialogue with Indigenous territories, the fight against environmental crimes, and the promotion of Indigenous participation in public policy.Puyr is a co-founder of ANMIGA (National Articulation of Indigenous Women Warriors of Ancestry), has served as president of the Federation of Indigenous Peoples of the State of Pará (FEPIPA), and was part of UMIAB (Union of Indigenous Women of the Brazilian Amazon). She has also coordinated Indigenous School Education in the state and plays an active role both nationally and internationally.Her journey is marked by the fight for environmental justice, women’s leadership, land demarcation, and the appreciation of ancestral knowledge. She is a mother, grandmother, and a protagonist of the international documentary We Are Guardians.

John Legend is an EGOT-winning, critically acclaimed, multi-platinum singer, songwriter, producer, and entrepreneur, widely recognized as one of the most influential contemporary R&B artists, who has garnered 13 GRAMMY Awards, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, and four Emmy Awards, among others. Legend is one of only twenty-two people in the prestigious EGOT club.

Legend has released ten celebrated albums over the course of his career, including Get Lifted (2004), Once Again (2006), Evolver (2008), Wake Up! (with The Roots, 2010), Love in the Future (2013), Darkness and Light (2016), A Legendary Christmas (2018), Bigger Love (2020), LEGEND (2022), LEGEND (Solo Piano Version) (2023) and most recently, My Favorite Dream (2024). He continues to receive industry recognition, including a 2025 GRAMMY Award for Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella for “Bridge Over Troubled Water” with Jacob Collier and Tori Kelly, and a 2026 GRAMMY nomination for Best Gospel Performance/Song for “Church.” In 2024, Legend celebrated the 20th anniversary of his GRAMMY-winning debut album Get Lifted with a deluxe reissue featuring new remixes and collaborations with artists such as Tems, Black Thought, Simi, Killer Mike, and Lil Wayne. He also launched the “Get Lifted 20th Anniversary World Tour,” bringing the landmark album to audiences across North America and Europe.

Legend joined THE VOICE as a coach for Season 16 (2019) and recently completed Season 29 (2026), his 11th season on the show. Beyond music, Legend co-founded Get Lifted Film Co., a production company that has developed projects across multiple forms of media. Following their success in film, TV and theater, Get Lifted partnered with Zando to form Get Lifted Books, building upon Get Lifted Film Co.’s mission of spotlighting stories from dynamic creatives. Get Lifted Film Co. are among the producers of Imitation of Life and this show represents Legend’s first time composing a full musical.

Expanding his entrepreneurial footprint, Legend launched his self-care brand, Loved01, in 2023, to bring consumers luxurious skincare formulas at affordable prices, and in 2024, he and his wife, Chrissy Teigen, introduced Kismet, a dog lifestyle brand offering premium food and accessories for modern dog families. As an advocate for social justice, Legend founded FREEAMERICA in 2014 to advocate for criminal justice reform and address mass incarceration. He launched HUMANLEVEL in 2021, an initiative to uplift communities disproportionately impacted by institutionalized racism. He also serves on the boards of Harlem Village Academies, Global Citizen and Management Leadership for Tomorrow, as well as advisory boards for The Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and Teach for All.

Joëlle Barral is a Senior Director of Research & Engineering at Google DeepMind (GDM). Based in Paris, she has a diverse portfolio of foundational research efforts, which includes theoretical and empirical aspects of frontier models as well as early-stage research in artificial intelligence and the life sciences. She is also in charge of GDM’s efforts in healthcare. She leads a team of researchers and engineers spread across Europe and North America.Joëlle Barral was previously software lead at Verily, Google’s sister life sciences company, and the head of Verily Surgical. She joined Verily in 2014 and was part of the team who started Verb Surgical, Verily’s joint venture with Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon, pioneering a vision for the future of robotic surgery that leverages machine learning and digital tools to enhance the surgeon’s judgment, improve decision making, and positively impact clinical outcomes.Before joining Verily, she was with HeartVista, a spin-off from Stanford University, where she developed an MR software package for the comprehensive evaluation of ischemic and valvular heart diseases. Joëlle Barral has authored numerous patents on topics ranging from maternal health, digital pathology, surgical robotics, and medical imaging.She holds a B.S. degree in Math and Physics from Ecole Polytechnique, France, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering, in the field of high-resolution Magnetic Resonance Imaging, from Stanford University, where she was also a Simon Stertzer Biodesign Innovation Fellow. She is the 2019 recipient of the Pierre Faurre Prize.

Yoshua Bengio is recognized as one of the world’s leading experts in artificial intelligence and a pioneer in deep learning. Since 1993, he has been a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Operational Research at the Université de Montréal. He is the founder and scientific director of Mila, the Quebec Institute of Artificial Intelligence, the world’s largest university-based research group in deep learning. He is a member of the NeurIPS board and co-founder and general chair for the ICLR conference, as well as program director of the CIFAR program on Learning in Machines and Brains and is Fellow of the same institution. In 2018, Yoshua Bengio ranked as the computer scientist with the most new citations, worldwide, thanks to his many publications. In 2019, he received the ACM A.M. Turing Award, “the Nobel Prize of Computing”, jointly with Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun for conceptual and engineering breakthroughs that have made deep neural networks a critical component of computing. In 2020 he was nominated Fellow of the Royal Society of London.

Dr. Lan Xue is a Distinguished Professor and Dean at Schwarzman College Tsinghua University. His teaching and research interests include global Policy, crisis management, and science, technology and innovation policy. From 2000 to 2018, he served as Associate Dean, Executive Associate Dean and Dean of the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University.  He also holds adjunct positions at Carnegie Mellon University and the Brookings Institution. Dr. Xue advises the State Council, chairs China’s National Expert Committee on Next Generation AI Policy, and is a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese Association of Science and Technology. Internationally, he serves on the UN Sustainable Development Solution Network board, UN Committee of Experts on Public Administration, and UN Internet Policy Forum Leadership Panel.

Dr. Xue is a recipient of Distinguished Young Scholar Award from National Natural Science Foundation of China, Cheung Kong Chair Distinguished Professor of the Ministry of Education, the Fudan Distinguished Contribution Award for Management Science, the Distinguished Contribution Award from Chinese Association for Science of Science and S&T Policy, and the Second National Award for Excellence in Innovation in China. He holds a PhD in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University.

Prof Vukosi Marivate is a Professor of Computer Science and holds the ABSA UP Chair of Data Science at the University of Pretoria. He specialises in developing Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods to extract insights from data, with a particular focus on the intersection of ML/AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP). His research is dedicated to improving the methods, tools and availability of data for local or low-resource languages. As the leader of the Data Science for Social Impact research group in the Computer Science department, Vukosi is interested in using data science to solve social challenges. He has worked on projects related to science, energy, public safety, and utilities, among others. Prof Marivate is a co-founder of Lelapa AI, an African startup focused on AI for Africans by Africans. Vukosi is a co-founder of the Masakhane Research Foundation, which aims to develop NLP technologies for African languages. Vukosi is also a co-founder of the Deep Learning Indaba, the leading grassroots Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence conference on the African continent that aims to empower and support African researchers and practitioners in the field.