Shaping the Glitch.

Dr. Tawfik Jelassi has nearly four decades of international experience across four continents, spanning academia, the private sector, government and international organizations. For the last five years he was Assistant Director-General of UNESCO, in charge of global initiatives and programs on digital transformation and policies, artificial intelligence, the governance of digital platforms, digital capacity building, freedom of expression, media development and access to information.

After a Ph.D. from New York University Stern School of Business, he held academic positions including Department Chair, Dean and Professor of Technology Management at INSEAD, IMD and Ecole des Ponts Business School, and was Faculty Guest at Harvard Business School, the Indian Institute of Technology (Delhi) and Tongji University (Shanghai). He is Chair of the Board of the Tech Diplomacy Global Institute, a Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge, and a Member of the Advisory Board on Digital Futures at Stanford University. He also served as Chairman of the Board of Ooredoo Tunisia and as Tunisia’s Minister of Higher Education, Scientific Research, and Information & Communication Technologies.

He has published seven books and over 100 research articles and case studies, received teaching and research excellence awards in Europe, China and the USA, and holds two Presidential decorations, the “Order of the Republic” and the “Order of Merit in the fields of Science and Technology”. In January 2026 he was recognized as one of the world’s Top 50 Leaders in Tech Diplomacy.