Brussels

• Barry Andrews is a Member of the European Parliament from Ireland for the Dublin constituency. Mr Andrews was a member of Dáil Éireann with Fianna Fáil for the Dún Laoghaire constituency from 2002 to 2011. He is a member of the Committee on International Trade, Delegation to the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly and  Delegation for relations with South Africa. He served as Minister of State for Children from 2008 to 2011. He was appointed CEO of the charity GOAL from 2012 to 2016 and was also the Director-General of the Dublin-based Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), from 2017 until he stood down when he became a candidate in the EE2019 campaign.
• Kevin Keary is a member of the Cabinet of the EU Commissioner for Trade (2019-2024), responsible for relations with the World Trade Organisation, ASEAN (including digital trade negotiations with Singapore), Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Prior to that he was in the cabinet of the EU Commissioner for Agriculture (2014-2019). Prior to that he was a political adviser in the European Parliament (2008-2014) during which he worked on files including the General Data Protection Regulation on the Industry, Research and Energy committee. He has also been Chair of the Institute of International and European Affairs in Brussels (2013-2015). He holds a master’s degree in European Affairs from Lund University, Sweden, and a BA International (including an Erasmus year in University of Granada, Spain) from University of Galway. As well as English and Irish, he speaks Spanish, French and intermediate German.

Academia

• Professor Linnet Taylor is Professor of International Data Governance at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT). Her research focuses on digital data, representation and legitimacy, with particular attention to transnational governance issues. Her work on group privacy and data justice is used in discussions of technology governance in countries around the world. She led an ERC project on Global Data Justice (2018-23), aiming to develop a social-justice-informed framework for governance of data technologies on the global level. Her work has also been supported by the Luminate foundation and the EU AI Fund. She is a member of the Dutch Young Academy (De Jonge Akademie).
• Professor Nick Couldry is Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory Emeritus and Professorial Research Fellow in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. As a sociologist of media and culture, he approaches media and communications from the perspective of the symbolic power that has been historically concentrated in media institutions. He is interested in how media and communications institutions and infrastructures contribute to various types of order (social, political, cultural, economic, ethical). His work has drawn on, and contributed to, social, spatial, democratic and cultural theory, anthropology, and media and communications ethics. His analysis of media as ‘practice’ has been widely influential. In the past 10 years, his work has increasingly focussed on data questions, and ethics, politics and deep social implications of Big Data and small data practices. He is the author or editor of 17 books and many journal articles and book chapters. He has recently co-founded the Tierra Comun tri-lingual website to encourage networking with and among Latin American scholars and activists interested in data colonialism.

Civil Service

• Jean Carberry is the Assistant Secretary EU, Digital and Access to Finance Division, Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ireland. She leads the EU, Digital and Access to Finance Division of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. She is responsible for domestic and EU digital policy, including leading Ireland’s positions on EU digital and artificial intelligence policy and regulation proposals, and on enterprise adoption of digital technologies, including artificial intelligence. Jean led the development of Ireland’s AI Strategy, published in July 2021, and is responsible for implementation of the enterprise strand of the strategy. Jean is also responsible for EU affairs, Access to Finance and State aid policy. Before she joined the civil service, Jean worked for AXA, Standard & Poor’s and Ernst & Young. Jean is a Chartered Accountant and has an MBA in Finance from Fordham University in New York, USA.
• Celene Craig currently a consultant in media and communications legislation, regulation and policy, and acted as the Broadcasting and VOD Commissioner at the newly created Coimisiún na Meán from 2023 to 2024. Prior to the founding of the new commission, she was appointed Chief Executive of the BAI, in addition to having worked with its predecessors the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI)
  and the Independent Radio and Television Commission (IRTC).
  A significant dimension of her work in the BAI was her responsibilities for the formulation and review of a wide range of broadcasting/media-related policies and for advising on the implementation of legislative and regulatory changes for the
  media at national and European levels, including the regulation of harmful online content and the protection of media pluralism and freedom. In addition to her participation on the Advisory Board of UCD’s Centre for Digital Policy, she holds a number of part-time roles currently: Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland (GRAI) Authority Member; CaraDem (an Irish-led Democracy Initiative) Advisory Council Member; International Institute of Communications (IIC) Advisory Council Member.
• Ian Chambers is Deputy Commissioner, head of Frontline, Breach, Complaints and Information with Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, having previously served as Assistant Commissioner. Ian has previously worked with the Revenue Commissioners, and the Department of Social Protection Internal Investigations Unit. Ian joins the Centre’s MSc course annually as a guest lecturer in relation to data protection matters.

Civil Society

• Damini Satija is a public policy and human rights professional. Her background is in data and AI ethics with particular specialism in privacy, digital rights and tech equity. She was previously a Senior Policy Advisor at the Centre for Data Ethics & Innovation, an independent advisory body in the UK government working on data ethics and responsible innovation. She was also the UK’s appointed policy  expert at the Council of Europe’s Ad hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights. She has a Masters in Public Administration from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. In 2018, she was a Google Public Policy Fellow at Engine Advocacy in Washington D.C., working on tech policy issues affecting entrepreneurs and small businesses in the U.S. including net neutrality, encryption laws, copyright and content moderation. She was also a Global Policy Fellow at the Institute for Technology & Society in Rio de Janeiro, where she researched the implications of assigning property rights to personal data.
• Liz Carolan is founder and executive director of Digital Action, a campaigning organisation working to protect democratic rights from digital threats. She has been working at the intersection of technology, governance and democracy for 15 years. Her work with government has included supporting elected leaders at the Institute for Government in the United Kingdom and working in the President’s Office in Sierra Leone. She established the Open Data Institute’s international program, supporting accountability efforts in 30 countries, and helped to get the Open Data Charter off the ground as director of strategy.

Industry

• Ciarán Conlon is Government Affairs Director for Microsoft Ireland/European Government Affairs and adjunct associate Professor at UCD SPIRe. Before joining Microsoft he held research and teaching positions in Economics in University College Dublin (UCD), worked as a Research Economist with Ireland’s largest trade association before spending 8 years as Spokesman and Adviser to former Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Enda Kenny and another 5 years as Special Policy Adviser to Richard Bruton during his 5 year period as Enterprise Minister.  In Microsoft Ciaran supports the government outreach and policy work of Microsoft in Ireland while his role also reports into the EGA team in Brussels, given the particular importance of EU policy to the Irish economy and business environment. He has a Master’s degree in Economics from UCD, Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth and a postgraduate Diploma in Strategy, Innovation and Change from the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business. He was appointed by the Irish Government to sit on the National Competitiveness and Policy Council in 2019 and to the Grant Approval Committee of Science Foundation Ireland in 2020 and has been a member of the Irish Government’s Data Forum since 2018.
• Ryan Meade works with Google in Ireland as Public Policy & Government Affairs Manager. In this role he leads Google’s engagement with government, policy makers, and other stakeholders on a broad range of digital policy issues. Prior to joining Google in 2018, he worked as an independent public policy consultant with clients in the private and NGO sectors. Before this he spent 10 years in politics, working in various roles including as Special Adviser to the Minister for the Environment. Ryan is a member of the National Advisory Council on Online Safety (NACOS) and the Steering Group of Media Literacy Ireland.
• Una Fitzpatrick is a Dublin City University STEM graduate with a master’s in management from Smurfit Business School. She has spent the last 18 years working in the knowledge economy, specifically the last nine years being spent with Technology Ireland. Una was appointed Director of Technology Ireland in June 2018. Technology Ireland, a trade association within Ibec, is the largest and most influential tech sector representative group in Ireland. Una served as an executive board member of Digital Europe from 2020-2024, she is currently vice chair of the Digital Europe Cloud working group and is on the Board of Directors of FIT Ltd (Fastrack into Technology). She is a member of several Government working groups and forums such as the National Counter Disinformation Strategy working group. Una has extensive lobbying experience both at National and European levels.