Speaker Bio
John Warnes is currently serving as Senior Innovation Officer at UNHCR, leading on the agency's Connectivity for Refugees and Digital Employment strategic initiatives, where he focuses on brokering strong partnerships and facilitating solutions to ensure that all refugees and the communities that host them have the right and the choice to be included in a connected society. This builds on his experience as lead of the UNHCR's Digital Innovation programme, also serving briefly as acting Deputy Head of UNHCR's Innovation Service. Prior to this, John was engaged in designing and implementing technology solutions to support UNHCR's activities around communicating with communities in emergencies. Previously he worked with the Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities (CDAC) Network, exploring sector wide issues relating to community engagement and accountability to affected people. He has also spent time working in the private sector for a telecommunications company, and working for transparency and accountability NGO Transparency International in Berlin. He holds a BA in Politics from the University of Bath and an LLM in IT and Telecommunications Law from the University of Southampton.