The first transatlantic forum on strategic communications and digital disinformation

Event

The first transatlantic forum on strategic communications and digital disinformation

September 26, 2017

Please join the Atlantic Council for a high-level conference in DC featuring panels on the transatlantic response to disinformation and the way forward in strategic communications. View the full schedule of events on the Atlantic Council website.

Follow @ACEurasia for updates and engage using #StratComDC

This event is supported by:

Baltic-American Freedom Foundation
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency
NATO

This event is open to press and on the record.

Event Information

September 26, 2017, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Atlantic Council Headquarters
1030 15th Street NW, 12th Floor, West Tower Elevators
Washington, D.C.

For inquiries contact Geysha Gonzalez at ggonzalez@atlanticcouncil.org

Speakers

Ambassador Alberto M. Fernandez is President of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. (MBN). MBN provides news and information in Arabic to the Middle East and North Africa. As President of MBN, Amb. Fernandez oversees and manages two television networks (Alhurra and Alhurra-Iraq); two radio streams Sawa Iraq and Sawa Levant; and all of MBN’s digital and social media properties including, Alhurra.com, RadioSawa.com, Irfaasawtak.com, AlSaha.com and MaghrebVoices.com. According to international research firms such as Gallup, Alhurra and Radio Sawa have an unduplicated weekly reach of more than 25 million people in the Middle East. Sponsored by the U.S. government, MBN’s mission is to broadcast accurate, timely and relevant news and information about the region, the world and the United States to a broad, Arabic-speaking audience. Prior to joining MBN, Amb. Fernandez was Vice-President of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and is a member of the board of directors at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security (CCHS) at George Washington University. He is also a non-resident Fellow in Middle East Politics and Media at the TRENDS research and advisory center in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. He was a Foreign Service Officer from 1983 to 2015 and served as the State Department’s Coordinator for the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications from 2012 to 2015. He also served as U.S. Ambassador to Equatorial Guinea and U.S. Charge d’Affaires to Sudan. He held senior public diplomacy positions at the U.S. embassies in Afghanistan, Jordan, Syria, Guatemala, Kuwait, and in the Department’s Near East Affairs (NEA) Bureau. Amb. Fernandez was a career member of the U.S. Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, he was a recipient of a 2008 Presidential Meritorious Service Award, the 2006 Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Public Diplomacy, a 2003 Superior Honor Award for his work in Afghanistan, among many other awards. A graduate of the University of Arizona (B.A. and M.A.) and the Defense Language Institute, he served in the U.S. Army and came to the United States as a refugee from Cuba in 1959. He has published in Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal, the AFPC World Almanac of Islamism, Defense Dossier, Journal of International Security Affairs, Providence, WINEP Policy Brief, the Foreign Service Journal, “Cipher Brief,” MEMRI, Brookings “Markaz,” Georgetown Cornerstone, ReVista: the Harvard Review of Latin America, Middle East Quarterly, the Journal of the Assyrian Academic Society (JAAS), and lectured and debated on U.S. foreign policy in numerous international and academic venues. He speaks fluent Spanish and Arabic in addition to English.
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Frederick Kempe
President and CEO, Atlantic Council
The Hon. Ron Johnson
U.S. Senator (R-WI)
The Hon. Sheldon Whitehouse
U.S. Senator (D-RI)
Ambassador Daniel Fried
Distinguished Fellow, Europe and Eurasia Atlantic Council
Ambassador Tacan Ildem
Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy, NATO
Nils Svartz
Acting Director General, Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency
H.E. Jakub Dürr
Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs for European Issues, Czech Republic
Jim Sciutto
Chief National Security Correspondent, CNN
Peter Pomerantsev
Senior Visiting Fellow, Institute of Global Affairs, London School of Economics
President Toomas Ilves
Former President, Estonia
Edward Lucas
Senior Vice President, Center for European Policy Analysis; Senior Editor The Economist
Congressman Joaquín Castro
U.S. Representative (D-TX 20th District)
Miriam Elder
Global Editor, BuzzFeed News
Farah Pandith
Adjunct Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations; Former Special Representative to Muslim Communities, US Department of State
Dr. H.A. Hellyer
Senior Fellow, Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, Atlantic Council; Associate Fellow, International Security Studies, Royal United Services Institute
Michael Weiss
National Security Analyst, CNN

United States Agency for Global Media

Event

The first transatlantic forum on strategic communications and digital disinformation

Event Information

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