Michiel Leenaars is the director of strategy at the NLnet Foundation, a public benefit organisation established in the 1980s when the first open internet connection to Europe was established. Michiel leads the NGI Zero programmes and was previously project lead for the Next Generation Internet 2025 report that helped establish the NGI initiative’s vision.

He is active in national and international bodies, such as The Commons Conservancy, SIDN Fund, Internet Standards Platform and Petities.nl foundation.

From 2014-2018 he was a member of the Dutch Education Council, which advises national authorities on education policy. He also worked for the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and Dutch National Computing Facilities Foundation (NCF) advising on e-infrastructure and e-science, and coordinating the national software engineering programme. Within the European policy body e-Infrastructure Reflection Group (e-IRG), he was lead editor of the first two of its e-Infrastructure Roadmaps.

From 2006-2010 he was a member of the strategic committee of the European domain name registry EURid, and from 2009-2018 was a board member and member of the board of supervisors of Accessibility.nl, the Dutch accessibility expertise centre and certification organisation. 

Dr Kristina Livitckaia is a postdoctoral researcher & R&D manager at the Information Technologies Institute/Centre for Research and Technologies Hellas (CERTH/ITI). Dr Livitckaia earned her PhD from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, an MSc in Computer Science (eHealth), Norway, MSc in Economics, and is certified as a Project Manager (Prince2). Kristina has experience working in academia, industry, and R&D facilities in several European countries for the past ten years, from project and product management to the execution of scientific work. Her research interests involve a multidisciplinary blend of emerging technologies (i.e. IoT, DLT, AI/ML) applied to emerging domains, including healthcare, safety, and social innovation.

Giovanni is currently Research Director at Ideas for Change. Giovanni has been Assistant Professor/Lecturer in Management Information Systems at the School of Business, National University of Ireland Maynooth (NUIM). Giovanni has achieved a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Engineering, both at the Polytechnic University of Milan. He earned a PhD in Information Systems at NUIM under the “Enterprise Partnership Scheme” in 2016, co-funded by Intel Corp. Since then, Giovanni has worked on digital transformation strategies and IT Governance across several city councils in Ireland and internationally as well as in multiple EU-projects. So far, he has published more than thirty peer reviewed academic papers.  His research domains cover the area of Smart Cities, Urban IT Governance, Data governance, Citizen Science, Design Science, Autonomous Vehicles, and Open Data.