TS
Thomas Schneider
Switzerland
Ambassador and Director of International Affairs, Swiss Federal Office of Communications, Federal Department of Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications
Presentation
Ambassador Thomas Schneider is leading the Swiss delegation in various key international fora in the field of digital and internet governance , including AI. He is the chair of the Council of Europe’s Committee on AI (CAI), mandated to negotiate a binding convention on AI. He is a vice-chair of the OECD’s Committee for Digital Economy Policy. He is the president of the EuroDIG Support Association since its creation in 2012. He has acted as chair of the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee on Media and Information Society in 2018-2019, as a vice-chair in 2020-2021 and is now a member of the CDMSI bureau. He has also been a member of the bureau of the CoE’s Ad Hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAHAI) in 2019-2021. From 2014-2017, he was the chair of ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee and in this role negotiated the compromise among governments regarding the “IANA Stewardship transition”, the biggest reform in the ICANN system. He was responsible for the organization of the 12th UN IGF in Geneva in December 2017 on behalf of the Swiss government and co-chair of the IGF’s Multistakeholder Advisory Group in 2017. He participated in the meetings of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, as personal advisor of Swiss president Doris Leuthard (2018-2019). Since 2003, he has been coordinating the Swiss activities with regard to the implementation and follow-up of the UN World Summit on the Information Society.
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