Gianfranco Ciccarella has a University Degree (Cum Laude) in Electrical Engineering and more than 35 years of experience in Telecommunications, working in the Telecom Italia Group Companies with growing technical and managerial responsibilities. From January 2016 he started a Consultancy activity on TLC Strategy, IP Services and Networks.

The consultancy focus is on TLC strategy mainly addressing topics related to business development and Telco transformation towards Edge Cloud Computing architecture and Services/Network Architectures.

Positions and responsibilities in the Telecom Italia Group include:

Corporate CTO for Telecom Argentina and TIM Brazil Companies

Vice President Next Generation Access Networks (NGAN) and Partnerships in the Strategy Department of Telecom Italia.

Telecom Italia Sparkle CTO and CIO

Director of the Post Graduate Training & Technical Department at Scuola Superiore Guglielmo Reiss Romoli (SSGRR) in L’Aquila

Research and teaching in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of L’Aquila (where he became Associate Professor) as well as at the New York Polytechnic University (where he was Adjunct Associate Professor).

Other activities:

Member of the Board of Directors, CEO and Chairman for a number of Companies within the Telecom Italia Group

Member of the Akamai Advisory Board

Presentations/invited speeches made to international Conferences and Round Tables.

Solange Guo Chatelard is a Research Associate at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Belgium. She graduated from the London School of Economics (2005) and Sciences Po Paris (2008). Her research centres on China’s domestic and international reforms, with a focus on development, society and state formation based on years of extensive fieldwork in China. Since 2008, she has focused on China’s new global engagements with Africa based on an extended case study of Zambia (2008-2013). She has conducted long term ethnographic field work in China, Zambia, as well as other African states.

Committed to research and public outreach beyond academia, Solange works extensively with global media outlets such as the BBC, France 24, CNN, Al Jazeera, ARTE, National Geographic etc providing insight and analysis through interviews, debates, articles and film documentaries about China’s growing global impact.

In addition to her research, Solange has also produced two film documentaries about China’s growing presence in Africa, “When China Met Africa” (2011) co-produced by BBC and ARTE and winner of the 2010 Margaret Mead Film Award in New York; and the investigative film documentary “King Cobra and the Dragon” (2012) for AL JAZEERA. Finally, she helped establish the world’s largest international academic network on China-Africa affairs, Chinese in Africa/Africans in China Research Network (CA/AC), and currently serves as a member of its Executive Board.

Innovation advisor has operated, and operates, for government institutions, public administrations and in the private sector on innovation and digital technologies, with a specific focus on tourism and e-government.

He has gained multiple experience in managing international institutional relations and coordinating corporate marketing projects.

As a member of the Board of Directors of the Agency for the Promotion of Technologies for Innovation of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers in Italy, promoted agreements with China government for the implementation and coordination of three sino italian technology transfer centers CITTC and promoted “Italia degli Innovatori” the internationalization campaign to help italian companies to match with potential chinese partners, on the occasion of Expo2010 in Shanghai.

He contributed to found the Sino-Italy Research Center on Exhibition and Convention Industry in Shanghai, for the training of the management of the Expo2010 in collaboration with Fiera Milano, the Jiao Tong University – Antai Business School and the MIP Business school of the Polytechnic of Milan.

Rocco Panetta, founding and managing Partner for Panetta & Associati and CEO at PTP Privacy Technology Professionals, is an internationally renowned technology, telecoms and privacy lawyer and a certified privacy professional.

Rocco is currently member of the Board of Directors of IAPP International Association of Privacy Professionals and IAPP Country Leader for Italy.

Former counsel of the Italian Government (Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri) on the tlc Ultra Broadband strategy and IoT Internet of Things Task Force.

Rocco Panetta has been a top-level officer at the Garante, the Italian Data Protection Authority heading the legal department supervising and dealing with, inter alia, marketing activities, public licensed operators and international data transfers. While at the Data Protection Authority he has been Italy’s representative at the European Commission within the activities of Art. 29 WP, involved in subgroups on BCR, SCC, SH, APIS/PNR, IMI.

He is currently Ethics Expert at ERCEA – European Research Council Executive Agency of the European Union in Brussels.

Rocco has served both as Secretary General of the Italian Commission on Environmental Impact Assessment (Commissione VIA) and as a Commissioner of the same (for 4 years).

He has authored and edited more than 200 publications, including books, articles and collections. He is currently invited to conferences and round tables as speaker or panel moderator. For more than one decade, contract professor at Università Roma Tre and University of Rome La Sapienza in Private and Civil Law and currently is professor and supervisor to masters and specialization courses on Privacy and IT Law at LUISS Guido Carli in Rome.

Throughout the years, Rocco has been ranked amongst leading lawyers by Chambers Europe, Legal500, TopLegal, Who’s Who Legal. In 2015, 2018 and 2019 he was awarded Best Privacy Lawyer of the Year at Legalcommunity’s IP&TMT Awards.

In 2016, TopLegal listed Rocco within the most influential 50 Italian lawyers under 50. Passionate of good wine, gin, food and travels, Rocco is the co-owner of the historic bespoke tailoring Sartoria Atelier Panetta, based in Rome.