Launch of The Digital Innovation & Democracy Initiative

Special Remarks

• The Honorable Mark Warner, Senator for the Commonwealth of Virginia

Moderator 

• Edward Luce, Financial Times

Speakers

• Dr. Karen Donfried, President, The German Marshall Fund of the United States
• Ambassador Karen Kornbluh, Senior Fellow and Director, Digital Innovation & Democracy Initiative, The German Marshall Fund of the United States
• Julie Fernandes, Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Digital Innovation & Democracy Initiative, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

As we approach new frontiers of technology, including artificial intelligence, robotics, 5G, the Internet of Things, and bioengineering, that offer enormous societal advancement, it is critical that we also safeguard against their misuse. The Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative will leverage GMF’s extensive networks to connect Silicon Valley and the transatlantic policy community to develop strategies that advance innovation to strengthen democratic values. Technology promises to solve many of our most pressing societal challenges and further advance individual freedom. But without guardrails, technology has also been abused to undermine democratic values notably in the online deployment of disinformation, cyber threats, and weaponization of ethnic tensions.  

Please join us as we launch this exciting new initiative with U.S. Senator Mark Warner, a leader in promoting innovation and developing policies to address the 21st century, and EU Ambassador David O'Sullivan in a conversation on the future of technology and democracy.

If you have any questions, please contact Menyae Christopher at +1 202 683 2675 or email [email protected].

Registration begins at 4:15 p.m. 

Reception to Follow

U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA)

The first in his family to graduate from college, Mark Warner spent 20 years as a successful technology entrepreneur and business leader in Virginia before he was elected Governor in 2001. When he left the Governor's Office in 2006, Virginia was ranked as the best state for business, the best managed state, and the best state in which to receive a public education.

Governor Warner was elected to the United States Senate in 2008, where he serves on the Senate Finance, Banking, Budget, and Rules Committees as well as the Select Committee on Intelligence, where he is the Vice Chairman. He has been recognized as a national leader in fighting for our military men and women and veterans, and working to design a bipartisan, comprehensive plan to address our country's debt and deficit.

As an early investor in the cellular telephone business, he co-founded the company that became Nextel and invested in hundreds of start up-technology companies that created tens of thousands of jobs.

Dr. Karen Donfried

Dr. Karen Donfried is president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), a non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening transatlantic cooperation. Before assuming this position in April 2014, Donfried was special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs on the National Security Council at the White House. Prior to that, she served as the national intelligence officer for Europe on the National Intelligence Council. Donfried first joined GMF in 2001 after having served as a European specialist at the Congressional Research Service. From 2003-2005, she handled the Europe portfolio on the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff. She returned to GMF from 2005 to 2010, first as senior director of policy programs and then as executive vice president.

Donfried is a trustee of Wesleyan University, her undergraduate alma mater. She received her doctorate from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a Magister from the University of Munich. She is a Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for European Studies and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. 

Ambassador Karen Kornbluh

Karen Kornbluh joined the GMF as Senior Fellow and Director of the Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative from the Council on Foreign Relations where she was Senior Fellow for Digital Policy. Previously, she was the U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. She served as Policy Director to then-Senator Barack Obama, Deputy Chief of Staff at the Treasury Department, and Director of the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs at the Federal Communications Commission. Kornbluh was executive vice president at the data measurement firm Nielsen and started her career as an economic forecaster and management consultant. She founded the New America Foundation’s Work and Family Program and has written extensively on both technology and family policies in publications including The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic Monthly, and the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology. She serves as a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and is a Mozilla Fellow and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Julie Fernandes

Julie Fernandes is nonresident senior fellow with GMF’s Digital Innovation Democracy Initiative and the associate director for Institutional Accountability and Individual Liberty at the Rockefeller Family Fund. Prior to joining the Fund, she served as advocacy director for Voting Rights and Democracy at the Open Society Foundations. She also worked as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division in the Obama administration and as special assistant for Domestic Policy to President Bill Clinton. In addition, Ms. Fernandes served as the senior counsel and senior policy analyst at the Leadership Conference for Civil & Human Rights, one of the nation’s leading civil rights organizations. Ms. Fernandes has testified before Congress on voting rights issues and has authored several research reports and magazine pieces primarily in the areas of voting rights and criminal justice reform. Regarding her education, Ms. Fernandes received both her J.D. and A.B. degrees from the University of Chicago and clerked for the Honorable Diane P. Wood at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.