Victor Pinchuk Foundation to Hold a Public Panel Discussion «Cybersecurity and Disinformation in Ukraine and the West»

On May 24, 2018, Victor Pinchuk Foundation will hold a public panel discussion «Cybersecurity and Disinformation in Ukraine and the West». General Keith Alexander, Director of the National Security Agency (2005-2014) and CEO and President of IronNet Cybersecurity; Jared Cohen, bestselling author, former advisor to two secretaries of state, and CEO of Jigsaw; and Toomas Hendrik Ilves, President of Estonia (2006-2016) will participate in the discussion. It will be moderated by Anne Applebaum, expert on International Affairs, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author.

More than 400 Ukrainian students, scholars, opinion-makers, and security issues experts as well as the recipients of Zavtra.UA and WorldWideStudies scholarship programs of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation will take part at the event.

This is the second public panel discussion on security issues organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in Ukraine. The first one was conducted in December 2017 featuring leading world experts: Ash Carter, U.S. Secretary of Defense (2015–2017), Wesley K. Clark, NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (1997-2000), and Jack Keane, Chairman of the Board, Institute for the Study of War. The Victor Pinchuk Foundation also organizes security roundtables in Kyiv and Munich Ukrainian Lunch at the occasion of the Munich Security Conference to promote Ukraine on the global security agenda and underline Ukraine’s importance for Europe’s security and the international order.

General (Ret) Keith Alexander

At IronNet Cybersecurity, as the CEO and President, General (Ret) Keith Alexander provides strategic vision to corporate leaders on cybersecurity issues through development of cutting-edge technology, consulting and education/training. He is reinventing how industries mitigate cybersecurity threats with IronDefense, a patented solution designed to detect and alert on anomalous enterprise network behaviors through fine-tuned analytics. His goal is to bridge communication systems between private and government sectors to create the next level of intelligence sharing and protect the nation against cyber threats on a global stage.

General Alexander is a four-star general with an impressive 40-year military career, culminating in role of the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and Chief of the Central Security Service (CSS) from 2005- 2014. He holds the distinction of serving in this role longer than any other director. While serving as the NSA Director, he was appointed by Congress to be the first Commander to lead the U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM). He held this role from 2010-2014, establishing and defining how our nation is protected against cyber attacks.

Anne Applebaum is a Pulitzer Prize winning historian, journalist and commentator on geo-politics. Informed by her expertise in Europe and her years of international reporting, Anne examines the challenges and opportunities of global political and economic change through the lenses of world history and the contemporary political landscape. Appointed Visiting Professor of Practice at the London School of Economics Institute of Global Affairs in 2017, Anne is in charge of a program on “fake news” and 21st century propaganda, and will be running projects designed to find solutions. She was Director of the Transitions Forum at the Legatum Institute from 2011-2015, an international think tank, an Adjunct Fellow of the Center for European Policy Analysis, and is former Phillipe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at the London School of Economics. Her current book, Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine is the winner of the 28th Lionel Gelber Prize 2018. Her other books include Pulitzer Prize-winning, Gulag: A History, the Cundill Prize for Historical Literature, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1946, and Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe. Anne writes a biweekly foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. We are happy to have her here today. Please give a warm welcome to Anne Applebaum.

Jared Cohen is CEO of Jigsaw, formerly Google Ideas, and Chief Advisor to Alphabet Executive Chairman (former Google CEO) Eric Schmidt. He has authored four books, including the New York Times and international bestseller, The New Digital Age: Transforming Nations, People and Our Lives.

Formerly, Jared served as Advisor to two secretaries of state, Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. A Rhodes Scholar and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, he has been recognized on TIME's 100 Most Influential People list and Foreign Policy's Top 100 Global Thinkers list.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves served as President of Estonia from 2006 to 2016. In this post, he was key in driving the initiatives in e-government and cyber security for which the country has been acknowledged as a world-leader. From 1993 to 1996, Ilves served in Washington as the Ambassador of the Republic of Estonia to the United States of America and Canada. During this time, he initiated with education minister Jaak Aaviksoo the Tiger Leap initiative to computerize and connect all Estonian schools online. From 1996 to 1998, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs. From 2002 to 2004, Ilves was a Member of the Estonian Parliament; in 2004 he was elected a Member of the European Parliament. As an MEP, he initiated the Baltic Sea Strategy that later was implemented as official regional policy of the European Union. Toomas Hendrik Ilves was elected President of the Republic of Estonia in 2006, and was re-elected for a second term in office in 2011. During his presidency, Toomas Ilves was appointed to serve in several high positions in the field of ICT in the European Union. Since November 2016, Ilves has co-chaired The Global Futures Council on Blockchain Technology.