Board

Jessica Dickinson Goodman bridges the worlds of technology and politics. Starting with an internship at 15 with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, continuing through her undergrad degree at Carnegie Mellon followed by an internship at Harvard Law School’s Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society, Jessica works to bring the best of both worlds to what she does.

Jessica’s first job out of college was running national online communications in DC for the largest anti-human trafficking NGO in the US serving survivors of all forms of trafficking. There, she built tools to track traffickers, ran dozens of successful advocacy campaigns, raised $500K/yr online, and taught self-defense to clients who heard she had gotten her black belt when she was 17.

After a stint staffing the chair of the Washington state House Appropriations Committee, Jessica served as a scheduler for now-U.S. Vice President Kamala D. Harris from 2015-2017, managing high-profile relationships, complex security and logistical issues, and supporting her team during the transition to the U.S. Senate. She leverages those skills as an Impact Coach in the U.S. State Department-funded TechWomen program, helping technical leaders from the Middle East, Africa, Central, and South Asia to design powerful social interventions for their communities.

Inspired by the team she mentored through the US State Department’s TechWomen program, she built up her technical skills taking Java, Python, and C++ simultaneously and was named one of Foothill College’s Top STEM students. She returned to Foothill in 2021, teaching a Social Justice and Technology class to students from communities underrepresented in STEM.

Today, Jessica serves as Board President of the Internet Society of the San Francisco Bay Area, supporting her team’s exceptional work on tech policy education and helping underserved communities’ get better access to the Internet; she is one of the youngest women ever elected to run an Odd Fellows lodge in the order’s 150 year history; on her weekends, she manages a community garden and California native plant garden in South San José. Jessica practices her Arabic daily.

I am Yup’ik Eskimo and Indigenous person from Alaska.  I have grown up in Alaska all my many years of life.  I have a 20 year old daughter and 9 year old son.  I was involved in finance and accounting with a local CPA firm for 7 years before starting a nonprofit organization with two other Indigenous Alaskans.   I am excited to learn and help bring the internet to connect our communities.  I hope to continue to use my education, knowledge and experience with the Internet Society and people in a team who are different from me to build internet policy, data, and infrastructure to bridge the digital divide and bring resilience in resolving challenges that become opportunities to build friendships, communities, and bridges for our youth and elders to shape the future of the internet that keeps humanity informed with truth and facts, from reliable data, and connected with the people we care about.  I believe in the mission of the Internet Society and look forward to connecting in the space that’s always been.

As a San Francisco based attorney (http://ImagineLaw.com), Robin Gross has 20+ years experience working on cutting-edge intellectual property rights, cyberspace, and technology legal issues. Ms. Gross founded and run IP Justice (http://ipjustice.org) an international civil liberties organization that promotes balanced intellectual property laws and protects freedom of expression in a digital world. She also teach international intellectual property law at Santa Clara University School of Law and serve on the Executive Committee for ICANN’s Noncommercial Users Stakeholders Group (NCSG). Previously Ms. Gross worked as the first intellectual property rights attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation where she litigated several precedent-setting cases involving digital copyright law. Ms. Gross obtained her Juris Doctorate degree from Santa Clara University School of Law in 1998 and she graduated from Michigan State University’s James Madison College with degrees in international relations and political philosophy in 1995.

I grew up in the Belle Haven neighborhood of Menlo Park and hold a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Princeton University. I’m a first-generation Mexican-American with family from the southwestern Mexican states, Michoacán and Guerrero.

My professional background includes extensive program work at various nonprofits in the Bay Area that benefit low-income communities in Menlo Park and East Palo Alto. I’m passionate about ensuring that all people are presented with accessible opportunities and guidance they need to be successful. I have worked on a range of issues including: foreclosure and homelessness prevention, anti-predatory lending, small business development and financial literacy, and youth mentorship, and free tech education. I currently run Evergreen Collective, a nonprofit I founded to help BIPOC-led & serving nonprofits solve financial sustainability challenges.

I am a first-generation Latine with a bachelor’s degree in Chicana and Chicano Studies, and a minor in Computer Science. One thing about me is that I moved around a lot growing up, after being born in Modesto CA, we then moved to Idaho, to Ontario (California, not Canada), to Pomona, to Stockton, and finally to San Jose. But because I moved so much, I don’t have a place to call my hometown.

In the many cities I lived in, I noticed differences in how school demographics and resources went hand-in-hand. The biggest difference between schools with a majority white population and schools with a majority Latine population is the technology available. Now, I am working to bring access to technology to the community and teaching how to use it to its full potential. Currently I am working with StreetCode Academy as an Operations Manager.

Fatema Kothari is the Senior Program Manager for Microsoft’s Airband Initiative within the Technology & Corporate Responsibility organization. With 10+ years in large-scale program execution, strategic management, and engineering, Fatema leads Airband’s global operations to expand internet connectivity to unserved rural communities in over 20 countries. As an advisor on digital empowerment, Fatema has also contributed her expertise to the Federal Communications Commission.

Fatema is an avid advocate for gender parity in technology. She served on the board for the global non-profit Girls in Tech SF for three years and currently, is an advisor to leading women entrepreneurs from Africa through the TechWomen program run by the U.S. Department of State.

An engineer by education, Fatema holds a Master’s degree in Telecommunications from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Caitlin started her career in education before pivoting to technology over ten years ago. As a Scrum Master and Program Manager with Fitbit she led the delivery of Fitbit’s Sleep features, Smart Track, Reminders to Move, Meditation, and Period tracking apps. Following Fitbit, she continued work in smart fitness technology by launching Tonal’s initial slate of Programs and Classes. For the last three years Caitlin has been a Technical Program Manager at Great Place to Work, leading both US and Serbian development teams, managing the team’s SOC2 application, and serving as Jira administrator. Outside of work, Caitlin volunteers with TechWomen and Technovation to empower more women and girls to engage with technology.

Tom Thorley is the Director of Technology at the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) and delivers cross-platform technical solutions for GIFCT members.

He worked for over a decade at the British government’s signals intelligence agency, GCHQ, where Tom specialized in issues at the nexus of technology and human behavior. Tom spent five years working in the US Government, Military and Intelligence agencies to coordinate intergovernmental relationships and providing expert consultancy on cyber issues, disinformation, technology strategy and operational planning. Prior to his deployment to the US, Tom built and operationalized Data Science teams to inform operations and discover threats, particularly focused on counter-terrorism.

As a passionate advocate for responsible technology, Tom is a mentor with All Tech Is Human and Coding It Forward and also volunteers with America On Tech and DataKind.

Tom is a graduate of the University of Liverpool (BA) and the University of Bath (PgC)

Gustavo Ortega, a Senior Computer Security Researcher at Toyota Motor North America, holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Engineering and specializes in information system security. He is certified in Cybersecurity by (ISC)2 and holds multiple GIAC certifications, including GCIH, GCIA, GCCC, and GPEN. With expertise in application security, security architecture, penetration testing, offensive security, and red teaming, Gustavo has actively contributed to hands-on software development projects, improved application security, and implemented enterprise security architecture in the cloud within the private sector.

Beyond his professional responsibilities, Gustavo is dedicated to advancing security standards and participating in Internet governance initiatives. He has obtained a diploma in internet governance and is an engaged participant in various internet governance schools, including the North American School of Internet Governance (NASIG) and the South School of Internet Governance (SSIG).

Gustavo is a passionate advocate for cybersecurity, striving to promote a safer and more inclusive Internet for all individuals.