Burcu Kilic – Principal Researcher, Open Knowledge Foundation
Burcu Kilic is a CIGI senior fellow and a scholar, strategist and expert in trade and technology policy. She also teaches technology policy and international affairs as a professorial lecturer at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. She held fellowships at the Carr-Ryan Center at the Harvard Kennedy School (2024–2025) and the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford University (2021–2022), focusing on technology, trade and rights.

Christian Laesser – Designer, SkyCommons Observatory
Freelance data visualization and UX designer based in Austria, with more than 15 years of experience building interactive tools for international organizations, research institutions, and NGOs, including the WHO, the World Bank Group, and the German Federal Foreign Office. His work spans interactive dashboards, scrollytelling, and data journalism formats, pairing advocacy for the end user with a commitment to data integrity.

Hilman Palaon – Research Fellow, Lowy Institute’s Indo-Pacific Development Centre
Hilman's research focuses on the digital economy in the Indo-Pacific, including financial inclusion, economic empowerment and technology innovation. His recent policy brief on Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites explores the potential and challenges of using this technology to close the digital connectivity divide.

Kathleen Brett – Program Analyst for Space Security and Stability, Secure World Foundation
At SWF, Kathleen supports grant-based initiatives, focused on strengthening strategic stability at the nexus of nuclear and space security. She presented on behalf of SWF at the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in Vienna, Austria, and collaborated with the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research on the development of their Space Security Portal. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in History and Political Science from James Madison University and a Master of Public and International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.

Renata Ávila – CEO, Open Knowledge Foundation
International human rights and technology lawyer and openness advocate. Renata is helping individuals and organisations access and use data to take action on the most pressing social problems, as well as preserving and enhancing human rights through open standards, policy and advocacy. In her previous practice, focused in strategic litigation for access to information and access to justice, she represented high profile human rights advocates, including Nobel Peace Prize Rigoberta Menchu Tum. A former fellow and affiliate of the Stanford Institute of Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence, she is currently associated with the Center for Internet and Society at CNRS, France. She participates on the boards of several organisations, including Open Future, the Center for the Advancement of Infrastructural Imagination and the Just Net Coalition. She co-founded the <A+> Alliance for Inclusive Algorithms and the Progressive International.

Steve Song – Senior Director of Infrastructure Mapping and Development, Internet Society
Over the years, Steve has played several roles in developing affordable Internet. His current focus is on developing deeper insights into the physical infrastructure underpinning the Internet to more easily and effectively unlock meaningful access for all. He works on collaborative approaches to Open Data standards for describing Internet infrastructure and has been actively maintaining public maps of Africa's undersea and terrestrial fiber optic infrastructure since 2009.

Wesley Woo – PhD candidate, Virginia Tech
Wesley studies the digital divide in rural, Indigenous communities. His work spans low-latency nextG cellular networks for rural regions, hardware-accurate models of low earth orbit satellite access networks, and improving digital inclusion and access for Indigenous older adults. Before Virginia Tech, Wesley graduated from MIT with a B.S. and M.Eng. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. His master’s thesis covered the design of community-owned air quality data infrastructure in Nairobi, Kenya.