Francesca Bria

Francesca has a PhD in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Imperial College, London and MSc on Digital Economy from University of London, Birbeck. As Senior Programme Lead at Nesta, the UK Innovation Agency, she has led the EU D-CENT project, the biggest European Project on digital democracy and digital currencies. 

She also led the DSI project on Digital Social Innovation in Europe, advising the EU on digital social innovation policies. She has been teaching in several universities in the UK and Italy and she has advised Governments, public and private organisations and movements on Technology and Innovation policy, and its socio-economic impact.

Francesca is an adviser for the European Commission on Future Internet and Innovation Policy. She is currently the Commissioner of Digital Technology and Innovation for the City of Barcelona in Spain and she is leading the DECODE project on data sovereignty in Europe.

Francesca’s work focusses on one of the key issues of our time: how can we give people the ownership of their data? In her recent report (co-authored with Evgeny Morozov), she explores how can societies regain control not only over digital technology, data, and infrastructure, but also over the services that are mediated by smart technologies—such as utilities, transportation, education, and health. She has been listed in the Top 50 Women in Tech by the Forbes Magazine, and in the World’s top 20 most influential people in digital government by Apolitical. She has also been featured in the Italian Magazine Repubblica “D”, amongst the 100 Women Changing the World.