Africa’s Data Opportunity? Cross-Border Data Flows and IoT

Akinwale Goodluck is the Head of the GSMA in Sub-Saharan Africa and has primary responsibility for the attainment of the GSMA’s objective in the region focusing on collaboration between mobile operators, governments and other ecosystem players to overcome the physical, social and economic barriers to GSMA’s vision for a better future.

Akinwale Goodluck is a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria and has had a career spanning Investment Banking, Legal Practise and in the last 15 years been engaged in the ICT & mobile communications sector working for MTN Nigeria Communications Limited for 14 years, 7 of which was at Executive level with primary responsibility for the management of the Regulatory, Commercial Legal, Reputation, Corporate Governance and Stakeholder management risks for MTN Nigeria.

Akinwale provided leadership for the Regulatory objectives of the MTN Group Limited and all its 23 Operations spread across Africa and the Middle East. Akinwale has been recognized as an authority, respected resource person and much sought after speaker locally and internationally in the realm of ICT Regulation & other utilities.

He is an alumnus of the Lagos State University, The Nigeria Law School and the Harvard Business School. Akinwale is an avid cyclist, a friend of the Arts particularly theatre and a firm believer in Social Responsibility.

Caroline Mbugua is the Senior Policy Manager SSA, she leads policy activities in the East Africa region. Caroline drives GSMAs advocacy programs and supports members though engagements with Regulators, Policy makers and other stakeholder in the ecosystem in order to shape the Policy and Regulatory landscape in the region to achieve connectivity for everything and everyone for a better future.

She has over 13years experience in the Telecommunication industry, before joining the GSMA, Caroline worked at Safaricom PLC as the Policy and Stakeholder engagement lead. She implemented various policy programs with a variety of national and regional stakeholders.

She engaged with industry regulatory bodies and government on topical issues that affect the telecommunication sector such as; spectrum, infrastructure, interconnect, competition, taxation, privacy, etc. She contributed to the shaping of the policy environment in Kenya and East Africa at large by representing Safaricom at the East Africa Communication Organization (EACO) and Africa Telecommunication Union (ATU).

Caroline holds an MBA from the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and is an alumni of Strathmore Business School, Policy Executive Program.

Kamal is a Policy Manager on the Africa Team. In his role, Kamal is involved in the delivery of GSMA Advocacy programmes in the Sub-Saharan Africa region and the dissemination of messages on a wide variety of policy topics, including Spectrum.

He has worked with the Nigerian Telecoms Regulator and, prior to joining the GSMA, he worked with Etisalat Nigeria where he managed Regulatory Compliance, Spectrum Policy and Technical Regulatory matters. Kamal has also been a member of the Technical Advisory Committee that prepares Nigeria’ s participation at International fora on spectrum and other technical matters.

Kamal holds a B.Sc in Computer Engineering from the American University of Cyprus and an M.Sc in Mobile and Personal Communications from King’s College London. In his spare time, he indulges in Photography and has been witnessed cheering for Manchester United.

Ammar Sabbagh is an expert in IoT, 5G with current focus on IoT monetization.

Sabbagh loves to explore the possibilities of new technologies. Thus, he `has spent most of his career advancing innovation within large corporations like Ericsson, Time Warner Telecom and Marconi, where he launched new products, solutions and secured revenue. He has wide experience managing international cross-functional, multi-regional teams in the areas of smart cities, IOT and Cloud services.

Sabbagh lived and studied in Portland, Oregon, USA and has an MBA from Marylhurst University and B.S. in electrical engineering from Portland State University.

Boris is the Director of Privacy at GSMA. In his role, Boris seeks to lead public debate around privacy in mobile and to help deliver long-term benefits for mobile users.

He brings with him a wealth of privacy experience in the areas of IT and digital. Before joining GSMA, Boris was at Accenture for nine years where he lead the data privacy function for Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America and successfully obtained one of the first ever approvals from EU data privacy regulators for so-called Binding Corporate Rules.

Previously, Boris spent three years as legal adviser to the UK’s Information Commissioner and six years in private practice. He has also worked at the European Parliament and the European Commission.

Boris sits on the European Advisory Board for the IAPP (International Association of Privacy Professionals) and holds IAPP CIPP/E and CIPM certifications in addition being a 16+ PQE solicitor.