Doreen Bogdan-Martin (born 1966) is the Secretary-General of the

International Telecommunication Union The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...

. She was elected at the 2022 ITU

Plenipotentiary Conference The expression Plenipotentiary Conference (of conference of plenipotentiaries) is used to refer to some diplomatic conference integrated by diplomats invested with the full power of independent action on behalf of their country's government. In the ...

in Bucharest, and as the first woman in the 157-year history of the ITU to become the Secretary-General. Previously, she was the first woman to become an Elected Official of the ITU, as the Director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau of the ITU (the Secretariat of

ITU-D The ITU Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU-D) is one of the three sectors (divisions or units) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU); it is responsible for creating policies, regulation and providing training programs and financi ...

Education and Early Career

Born in

Monmouth County, New Jersey Monmouth County () is a county located on the coast of central New Jersey. The county is part of the New York metropolitan area and is situated along the northern half of the Jersey Shore. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the county's population w ...

, Bogdan-Martin graduated from

American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was charte ...

with a Master’s degree in International Communications Policy, and with a Bachelor’s degree from the

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially UD or Delaware) is a public land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 mas ...

. She holds a post-graduate certification in Strategies for Leadership from the Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland, and is certified in Accountability and Ethics by the United Nations Leaders Programme. Bogdan-Martin began her career as a Telecom specialist at the

National Telecommunications and Information Administration The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce that serves as the President's principal adviser on telecommunications policies pertaining to the United States' ec ...

US Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for busin ...

in 1989.

International Telecommunication Union Career

In 1994, Bogdan-Martin joined the International Telecommunication Union's Telecommunication Development Bureau as a Policy analyst. She was instrumental in the creation of the Global Symposium for Regulators (GS
[1
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/nowiki>, the only global gathering for the world’s ICT regulators; as well as the ICT Regulatory collection tool and portal (ICT-Ey
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/nowiki>]). In 2003, she became head of the Regulatory Reform Unit, leading the Regulatory Reform Programme and co-authoring the annual "Trends in Telecommunication Reform" report from 2003 through 2007. In 2005, she became head of the Regulatory and Market Environment Division, managing programmes on

regulatory reform Regulatory reform concerns improvements to the quality of government regulation. At the international level, the "OECD Regulatory Reform Programme is aimed at helping governments improve regulatory quality - that is, reforming regulations that rai ...

, economics, and finance and advising governments on ICT reform and policy issues. In January 2008, Bogdan-Martin became Chief of the Strategic Planning and Membership department, the senior most position in the ITU's General Secretariat, and the first woman to ever occupy this position. She advised the ITU Secretary General and oversaw the organisation's Membership, Corporate Communications and External Affairs. She served as Secretary to the ITU governing body, and as Coordinator of United Nations affairs for the organization, where she created the ITU liaison office to the UN in New York. Bogdan-Martin also served as the Executive Director of the

Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development The Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development (until 2015: Digital Development) was established in May 2010 as a joint initiative by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural ...

, Co-Founder of the EQUALS Global Partnership to bridge the digital divide, Co-creator of the

GIGA Giga ( or ) is a unit prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of a short-scale billion or long-scale milliard (109 or ). It has the symbol G. ''Giga'' is derived from the Greek word (''gígas''), meaning "giant". The ''Oxford English Dic ...

school connectivity program with UNICEF, and creator of th
Generation Connect
initiative. As Director, she has focused on delivering new partnerships, global initiatives on connectivity, innovation, digital transformation and youth engagement. On 29 September 2022, Bogdan-Martin was elected as the 20th Secretary-General of the ITU at the Plenipotentiary Conference in Bucharest, Romania. She received 139 votes out of 172, defeating Russia's Rashid Ismailov. She is the first woman to serve as the ITU Secretary-General.

Professional affiliations

Bogdan-Martin an affiliate of the Harvard University Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society and a member of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Virtual Reality(VR) / Augmented Reality(AR). She is a Generation Unlimited Champion and a Champion of the EDISON Alliance led by the World Economic Forum. Other advisory bodies she serves on includes the Geneva-Tsinghua Initiative, the SDG Lab Advisory Board, the UN Technology Innovation Labs, and the Alumni Expert Council of the Internet Governance Lab of American University in Washington D.C. Bogdan-Martin is a member of the Amateur Radio League, and the IEEE. She previously served as member of the Board of Governors of the UN Staff College, Chair of the United Nations Strategic Planning Group, and Member of the Governing Committee of the Swiss Network for International Studies.

Personal life

Bogdan-Martin is married and has two daughters and two sons. She is fluent in English, French and Spanish. She is an active

Amateur Radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communic ...

operator holding

callsign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assigne ...

KD2JTX and, in 2014, arranged for school students in Switzerland to talk live with astronauts in orbit through

Amateur Radio on the International Space Station Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS), operating in the Amateur-satellite service, is a project sponsored by various entities and carried out by astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station who also have an a ...

Awards

On 23 September 2021 Bogdan-Martin was awarded the

's Outstanding Technology Policy Changemaker Award for technology policy and creating a more just, equitable, and productive society.

References

External links

* http://www.npanet.org/public/interviews/careers_interview_674.cfm * http://www.divainternational.ch/interview-with-doreen-bogdan-martin.html *Techonomy Media - Digitally United; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F1LlTkVCoI&t=551s *Milicom Empowering Women Webinar; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usfmKnEXgp4 *Geneva Solutions, Internet Governance Series: https://genevasolutions.news/science-tech/internet-governance-series-doreen-bogdan-martin *In Conversation: Jean-Yves Art and Doreen Bogdan-Martin Discuss Internet Access In the COVID Era https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx9Aiupdfi8 *Project Rewrite: https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/project-rewrite-a-conversation-on-womens-leadership-and-the-power-of-connectivity-with-doreen-1a83cd8f4616 *Invest for Good: https://www.investforgood.blog/blog/developing-connections *Geneva Solutions, ‘’Sizing up the environmental cost of digital technologies’’: https://genevasolutions.news/science-tech/sizing-up-the-environmental-cost-of-digital-technologies *Pacific Telecommunications Council 2021: https://www.ptc.org/2021/01/doreen-bogdan-martin-featured-participant-interview/ * * *Harvard: https://cyber.harvard.edu/people/dbogdan *Broadband Commission: https://www.broadbandcommission.org/commissioner/doreen-bogdan-martin/ *Concordia: https://www.concordia.net/community/doreen-bogdan-martin/ *Geneva Solutions: https://genevasolutions.news/science-tech/sizing-up-the-environmental-cost-of-digital-technologies {{DEFAULTSORT:Bogdan-Martin, Doreen International Telecommunication Union International Telecommunication Union people Living people 1966 births