Youth and ICTs: Delivering Innovative Solutions for Sustainable Development
A conversation with H.E. Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera, President of Costa Rica
8 June 2015 - 10:30 to 12:00 (ITU Headquarters Geneva – Popov Room)
PARTICIPANTS
H.E. Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera ................................................................................................................ 1
Mr Houlin Zhao ......................................................................................................................................... 2
Ms Victoria Alonsoperez .......................................................................................................................... 2
Ms Alisee de Tonnac ................................................................................................................................. 3
Ms Fatoumata Kebe ................................................................................................................................. 3
Ms Catherine Mahugu.............................................................................................................................. 3
Ms Regina M. Sipos .................................................................................................................................. 4
Ms Piret Urb.............................................................................................................................................. 5
H.E. Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera
President, Republic of Costa Rica
Son of Freddy Solís, a small industrialist in the shoemaking business,
and Vivienne Rivera, an educator with the Faculty of Education of the
University of Costa Rica. During his childhood, he lived in Barrio
Roosevelt, in San Pedro de Montes de Oca. His primary schooling took
place in the Escuela Nueva Laboratorio, after which he obtained his
secondary education at the Colegio Metodista. He went on to study
history at the University of Costa Rica, and subsequently, thanks to a
fellowship, obtained a Master's degree in Latin American Studies at
the University of Tulane, United States.
For 30 years, he has been a professor, researcher and academic
administrator with both the University of Costa Rica and National
University, as well as a guest professor at the Universities of Michigan and Florida (United States).
He was an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1986 to 1990, and was very closely involved in
the formulation and negotiation of the peace plan for Central America.
He also worked for the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), the Ibero-American
Secretariat and the Foreign Service Foundation for Peace and Democracy, founded by Madrigal Nieto.
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EMERGE Consultative Meeting. 28 May 2015.
Background of participants
From 1994 to 1998, he was Costa Rica’s Ambassador for Central American affairs and Director for
Foreign Policy.Drawing on his experience in the field of international relations, he has published over ten
books and dozens of articles for specialized periodicals and reviews.
Today, Luis Guillermo is the First Servant of the Republic of Costa Rica, for the period 2014-2018. Thanks
to a historic election campaign in which he secured over 1 300 000 votes, he has become the most
highly voted President in the country’s history. With his message of social inclusion, social change and
justice, he heads the Government of the Republic with the utmost dedication as he leads Costa Rica
along the path of development.
Luis Guillermo Solís is the father of six sons and daughters and the life partner of Mercedes Peñas
Domingo.
Mr Houlin Zhao
Secretary General, International Telecommunication Union
Houlin Zhao is ITU’s Secretary General since January 2015. From 2007 to
2014, he served as ITU's Deputy Secretary-General, where he effectively
assisted the ITU Secretary-General to manage the implementation of the
ITU Strategic Plan and the operations of the ITU Secretariat. Prior to this
role Mr Zhao served as elected Director of ITU’s Telecommunication
Standardization Bureau from 1999 to 2007.
Before joining ITU, Mr Zhao served as an engineer in the Designing
Institute of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications of China, taking
an active role in his country's expert meetings on telecommunication
standards and national plans. He contributed important articles to a
number of prestigious Chinese technical publications, and in 1985 was
awarded a prize for his achievements in science and technology within the Ministry of Posts and
Telecommunications. Mr Zhao graduated from Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and
holds an MSc in Telematics from the University of Essex in the UK.
Ms Victoria Alonsoperez
Co-founder, IEETECH
Victoria is an Electronics and Telecommunication Engineer and an
entrepreneur. She co-founded IEETech, a social enterprise that developed
Chipsafer, a platform that can track and detect anomalies in cattle
behavior remotely and autonomously. With Chipsafer, farmers can know
where their animals are, and can access performance statistics in order to
increase efficiency.
In 2012 Chipsafer was the winner of the International Telecommunication
Union Young Innovators Competition and in 2013 Victoria won the Best
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EMERGE Consultative Meeting. 28 May 2015.
Background of participants
Young Inventor Award from the World Intellectual Property Organization. Last year IEETech was
selected as the Most Innovative Startup from Latin America and the Caribbean by the Inter-American
Development Bank, and Victoria was selected as Innovator of the Year by the MIT Technology Review
Spanish Edition.
Victoria is an alumna from International Space University and Singularity University. She is Chair of
Space Generation Advisory Council, a global NGO in support of the United Nations Programme on Space
Applications, and co-managing editor of a small satellite programs book that is part of the US Air Force
Academy’s Space Technology Series. She is also co-founder of CloudStat, a robotics startup that
develops unmanned aerial vehicles for multiple applications.
Ms Alisee de Tonnac
CEO, Seedstars World
Alisée graduated from HEC Lausanne and obtained her Master in
International Management at Bocconi University with highest honors.
She lived eight years in Singapore and two years in Silicon Valley. She
worked as product manager for luxury brands at L’Oreal Group and
was part of the Italian team at Voyage Prive, a leading European
startup. She was a member of the Harvard Model Congress Europe
where she won the Award of Excellence. After traveling for a year
around the world to set up the first edition of Seedstars World, Alisee
is now managing the company and taking it to the next level!
Ms Fatoumata Kebe
CONNECTED ECO
Fatoumata KEBE is an aerospace engineer and is currently finishing a
PhD in Astronomy on Space Debris. In 2009, a trip to Mali gave her the
inspiration for the project CONNECTED ECO, a social mobile farming
solution which hopes to address the looming global water and food
crisis.
Ms Catherine Mahugu
Co-founder, Soko
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EMERGE Consultative Meeting. 28 May 2015.
Background of participants
Catherine Mahugu is the Founder of Soko (www.shopsoko.com), an online
destination platform for shoppers to discover stunning handcrafted
accessories from all over the world and purchase them directly from their
designers and artisans. Catherine has been involved in various ICT for
Development projects including Stanford University and Nokia Africa
Research Center Design Projects focused on building mobile applications
targeting informal communities. At Soko, she leads innovation to foster
new scalable and appropriate solutions. Catherine is an International
Telecom Union (ITU)Young Innovators fellow, the United Nations
specialized agency for information and communication technologies – ICTs
as well as infoDev’s mobile startup camp fellow, a global program in the World bank group.
Catherine has been recognized as :
 One of Forbes' Most Promising Young Entrepreneurs In Africa 2015.
 Kenya’s top 5 Female Entrepreneurs under 40.
 Top 5 upcoming tech women in Kenya to watch.
 World bank’s top 11 inspirational women.
 A Leader of Tomorrow at the St.Gallen’s 44th Symposium in Switzerland 2014.
 She was recently featured in Forbes Africa Magazine - June issue 2015 as one of the top 30 under
30 (2015)
 She has also been featured by CNN, World bank and other mainstream media.
Ms Regina M. Sipos
ITU Young Innovators Competition
Regina M. Sipos has designed, and manages the ITU Telecom World
Young Innovators Competition, a co-creation and crowdsourcing platform
for 18-30 year old social technopreneurs from all over the world, which
became a dedicated community of almost 11,000 young people from
more than 180 ITU member states. In addition to the platform, she
established an incubation and acceleration program for the winners of
the Competition, involving an ever growing group of dedicated mentors,
curricula on business knowledge and pitching, networking opportunities,
visibility and as of this year, the possibility of incubation in local
innovation hubs.
Regina is frequently invited to speak at different start-up events and serves as a selection committee
member for several innovation competitions. She is passionate about open innovation, fresh ideas
coming from the most surprising people and places. She is a builder, connector and amplifier, social and
tech innovation geek.
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EMERGE Consultative Meeting. 28 May 2015.
Background of participants
Ms Piret Urb
Estonian Mission to the UN in Geneva
Piret Urb has been an Estonian diplomat for over 12 years, with a focus on human
rights issues during last 5. For a 1 year during Estonia’s chairmanship she was a
coordinator of the Freedom Online Coalition (FOC), which is a cross-regional group
of 26 states advancing internet freedom. She was part of the FOC high level Tallinn
Conference’s main organizing team, being responsible for substantial issues and
the outcome of the event “Tallinn Agenda for Freedom Online”, in 2014.
Piret was part of Estonia’s successful campaign for candidacy to the UN Human Rights Council and was
posted to the Permanent Mission of Estonia to the UN in Geneva for 3 years. She has worked as a human
rights expert and carried out Estonia’s policy in the UN Human Rights Council, with priority for the
promotion and protection of women’s rights, and the right to freedom of opinion and expression offline
and online. Piret has been a panelist at previous Internet Governance Forums and was a member of the
Estonian delegation to International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference in
Busan in 2014. Earlier, Piret has served as Deputy Head of Mission at the Estonian Embassy in Greece,
where they also represented Estonia in Cyprus and Armenia. During her diplomatic career at the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, she has also worked at the European Union Department, Political Department
and the Consular Department.
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