Stakeholder Group: Government
Region: Group of Latin America and Caribbean Countries - GRULAC
Biography
Juan Fernández is a Senior Advisor in the Ministry of Informatics and Communications of Cuba and an Assistant Professor in the University of Informatics Sciences (UCI). Previously he was Advisor for the National Directorate of Informatics of Cuba, Coordinator of the Cuban Commission for Electronic Commerce and Director of informatization of the Ministry of the Steel, Mechanic and Electronic Industry (SIME).
Before that he was CIO of the Corporation of Information Technologies and Automation (CITA), Technical Director and Project Manager in the Robotic and Software Center (EICISOFT), and a Senior Researcher and Professor in the Microelectronics Research Center of the Havana Polytechnic Institute (ISPJAE). He was a member of the Strategy Council of the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development and a founding member of the United Nations ICT Task Force and of the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG). He participated actively in the negotiating process for the outcome documents of both phases of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
He has given lectures and published articles in Cuba and abroad in various topics that includes the Management of Big Software Projects, Electronic Commerce and the economic sustainability of internet.
His current interests are the strategies and models of the use of ICTs for development, the organization of the software industry in developing countries and the economic sustainability of internet.
He has a Physics Degree from Havana University and the degree of Senior Researcher of the National Academy of Sciences of Cuba. He has received various technical and scientific awards, and has a Patent in Image Processing. He is also a FIDE International Chess Master.