Digital-Environment System Coalition members and partners

Why become a member of DESC?

To enhance understanding, to engage collaboratively, to influence policy and to enjoy working on how the use digital technologies influences the physical environment – beyond just climate change:

Types of members and partners

The Digital-Environment System Coalition (DESC) has four categories of involvement (see Governance Structure):

Members: committed to taking an active role in the coalition
Associate Members: those interested in and supportive of the coalition’s work but at present not able to take a proactive role
Partners: those organisations that have signed a partnership agreement with the UNESCO Chair in ICT4D to help deliver the coalition
Observer Status: those organisations that wish to be kept aware of DESC’s work but are unable to commit any resources to it.

The DESC Secretariat is hosted by the UNESCO Chair in ICT4D at Royal Holloway, University of London. There is no fee to become a member or partner, although partners are expected to provide support in some form for the delivery of the coalition. If you are interested in becoming a member or partner, do get in touch through our contacts page.

Steering Group

Carlos Álvarez Pereira, Executive Board and Treasurer, Club of Rome, Spain
Isabella Wagner, Österreichischen Plattform für Forschungs- und Technologiepolitikevaluierung and ict4d.at.
Leandro Navarro, Professor, Department of Computer Architecture, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Catalunya)
Max Hamilton ex officio Convenor YouthDESC
Tim Unwin, Chairholder of the UNESCO Chair in ICT4D, and Emeritus Professor of Geography at Royal Holloway, Unversity of London

Partner Organisations

Partners are organisations that have signed a partnership agreement with the UNESCO Chair in ICT4D to help deliver the coalition, and are represented by individual members within DESC (listed below in alphabetical order).

China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, China’s leading biodiversity academic society (in English)

Fundação Tablet Comunitário, an innovative Mozambican Foundation committed to empowering communities with digital education, health and civic engagement using sustainable solar power

ICT4D.at, the Austrian Network for Information and Communication Technologies for Development

WWRF, Wireless World Research Forum – a forum where the wireless community can tackle key research challenges

Observer Status

The following organisations and entities have agreed to participate in DESC with Observer Status:

United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA)

Members

Members are individuals who have agreed to take an active role in the coalition’s work (listed below in alphabetical order of first names).

Álvaro Valverde, Project Manager, ict4d.at.
Amit Pariyar, Associate Professor, Kyoto Collegeof Graduate Studies for Informatics (KCGI), Japan
Andrew Benson Greene, Founder and CEO of the B-Gifted Foundation and iEARN, Sierra Leone, Fellow Jeanne Sauvé Foundation, and Master of Science in Law Candidate (specializing in Intellectual Property Law), at the University of Maryland
Anil K. Jaggi, CEO Conscious Ventures and Editor CompanyCSR, India
Carlos Álvarez Pereira, Vice President, The Club of Rome, Spain
Claudia Pagliari, Founder and Director of the MSc in Global eHealth and Co-founder/theme leader of the NHS Digital Academy, Deanery of Molecular, Genetic and Population Health Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Dawn Watling, Professor in the Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, Director of the Social Development Lab, and Co-Director of the interdisciplinary Hub for research into Intergenerational Vulnerability to Exploitation (HIVE) (UK). Her research explores how individuals’ engagement within their environment (nature, online, and digital immersive) may be connected to their mental health and wellbeing. UK.
Dayn Amade, CEO Tablet Comunitário, Mozambique.
Emanuele Giovannetti, Professor of Economics, School of Economics, Finance and Law, Anglia Ruskin University, UK
Emmanuel C. Lallana, Chief Executive, Ideacorp (Philippines); Digital Development Advisor, UN/ESCAP Asian and Pacific Training Center for ICT for Development (APCICT), (Republic of Korea).
Florian Sturm, Project Manager, ict4d.at, Austria.
G. “Hari” Harindranath, Professor of Information Systems in the Department of Digital Innovation & Management, School of Business & Management, and member of the UNESCO Chair in ICT4D, at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.
Georg Steinfelder, Graphic Designer and Project Manager, ict4d.at.
Irene Antonopoulos, Department of Law and Criminology, Royal Holloway, University of London (UK) with research focusing on human rights, migration and environmental degradation.
Isabella Wagner, Österreichischen Plattform für Forschungs- und Technologiepolitikevaluierung and ict4d.at.
James Crabbe is a Supernumerary Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford (UK), a ‘100 Talents’ Special Visiting Professor at Shanxi University, Honorary Professor at both Changchun University of Science & Technology and at Wuhan Business University, China, and in 2021 was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the Institute of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.
Jill Marshall is Law Professor in the Department of Law and Criminology at Royal Holloway, University of London (UK) and specialises in feminist legal theory and the human rights of women. Before becoming an academic, she was a senior international litigation lawyer.
Jinfeng Zhou (Secretary General, China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, CBCGDF)
Knud Erik Skouby, Professor, Communication, Media and Information Technologies/ES (Electronic Systems), Aalborg University-Copenhagen, Denmark.
Leandro Navarro, Professor, Department of Computer Architecture, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Catalunya)
Leon Gwaka, Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Technology, Innovation and Competition, University of Pennsylvania, USA.
Linda Wong (Deputy Secretary General, China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, CBCGDF)
Michael J. Oghia, External Relations Coordinator, Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance (SDIA).
Mohamed Shareef, Minister of State for Environment, Climate Change and Technology, Republic of Maldives.
Natalia Robinson, UNESCO Chair in ICT4D, UK
Narayanan N. Kulathu Ramaiyer, Director, Institute of Social Informatics and Technological Innovations (ISITI), Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Malaysia).
Nic Bidwell, Associate Professor and Head Techno-Anthropology and Participation Research Group, Technical Faculty of IT and Design, Aalborg University, Denmark; Adjunct Professor, Faculty of IT, International University of Management, Namibia
Onyema Nduka, Lecturer in Sustainable Power Systems in the Electronic Engineering Department of Royal Holloway University of London, UK.
Paul Spiesberger, Chair and Project Manager ict4d.at, Austria.
Poline Bala, Director, Institute of Borneo Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak(UNIMAS), Malaysia.
Raphael Kariuki, Researcher, ict4d.at.
Redouane Touati, Assistant Professor of Information and Communication Sciences, Université de Yahia Farès de Médéa, Algeria.
Robert M. Davison, Professor and Editor in Chief of the Information Systems Journal and the Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, City University of Hong Kong.
Roger Atsa Etoudni, Ministry of Higher Education, Cameroon
Roger Harris, The Institute of Social Informatics and Technological Innovations (ISITI), Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS).
Serge Stinckwich, Head of Research at United Nations University Institute in Macau
Suay Melisa Özkula, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow “DIGI-EMP” – University of Trento, and Visiting Research Fellow – International Telecommunications Union
Tasfia Rahman, Research Assistant, RC-DISC, University of Canberra, Australia
Tim Unwin, Chairholder of the UNESCO Chair in ICT4D, and Emeritus Professor of Geography at Royal Holloway, Unversity of London, UK; formerly Secretary General of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (2011-2015).

Youth Members

Max Hamilton (Convenor YouthDESC)
Khadija Amir (Pakistan)
Sagarika Chaudhary (Research Scholar Research Scholar, Department of Management Studies, IIT Delhi, India)

Associate Members

Associate Members are those interested in and supportive of the coalition’s work but at present are not able to take a proactive role as Members.

Ali Husnain, Lecturer, Department of Computer Science, COMSATS University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Bryan Plummer, Signalytic
Gema del Rio Castro, Center for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI), Spain
G. Hari Harindranath, Professor of Information Systems, Department of Digital Innovation & Management, School of Business & Management at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
Luc St-Pierre, Chief, Space Applications Section, United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA)
Maja van der Velden, Professor, Sustainabillity & Design Lab, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway.
Michelle Thorne, Green Web Foundation
Peter H. Hellmonds, Founder and CEO, Arete Publica Associates, Germany
Peter Littlewood, Dept. of Physics, James Franck Institute, and the College Fellow, Institute of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, USA
Ugo Vallauri, Policy Lead and Co-Founder, The Restart Project, UK