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Robert Muggah

Principal at SecDev Group and Co-Founder Igarape Institute, Co-chair Global Parliament of Mayors

Robert Muggah is a globally recognized specialist in smart and green cities, geopolitics and public safety, cyber security and the digital economy. He is co-founder and principle of the SecDev Group – a digital risk firm focused on using data-driven analytics to solve complex challenges with clients ranging from Facebook to Eurasia Group. He also co-founded the Igarapé Institute – ranked the top social policy think tank in the world by Prospect in 2019 – and committed to data-driven security, justice, digital rights and climate action. Robert is also a senior adviser to McKinseys as well as the EU, OECD, UN agencies, and the World Bank. He serves on the board of several technology start-ups and designs big data analytics for a range of clients. For two decades Robert has advised national and municipal governments, tech companies and international organizations in over 50 countries on issues ranging from data-driven crime prevention and urban renewal to supply chain risk management to mitigating cyber threats. He is a fellow at Princeton University, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and faculty at Singularity University. He also serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Future Council on Cities, its annual Global Risk Report and co-chairs the Global Parliament of Mayors. He is frequently invited by the UN Secretary General to contribute to high-level panels and reports. Robert has authored eight books and dozens of articles in peer-review journals – including most recently Terra Incognita: 100 Maps to Survive the Next 100 Years (2020, Penguin/Random House). He is a regular contributor to the Atlantic, BBC, CNN, Financial Times, Guardian, Economist, Financial Times, New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, and Wired (as well as over a dozen French, Spanish and Portuguese outlets) and gave TED talks in 2015, 2017 and 2019. He has given dozens of live talks using mesmerizing data visualization platforms and remote sensing techniques. Robert received his PhD from the University of Oxford.