Stefano Quintarelli

Stefano Quintarelli (born 14 June 1965) is an Italian IT specialist[1][2][3] and a descendant of the Italian writer Emilio Salgari.[4] He was a member of the Italian Parliament in the XVII legislature,[5] as part of the Civics and Innovators group.

Stefano Quintarelli, 2012

He was a member of telecommunications and transport commission in Italian Parliament during the XVII Legislature and is President of AGID (Government agency for digital Italy)[6]

An Italian Internet pioneer and serial entrepreneur, he is a founder of I.Net, the first Italian business ISP that was listed on the Italian Stock Exchange and sold to British Telecom in 2000.

Quintarelli was recognized by Corriere della Sera as one of the thirty most innovative Italian entrepreneurs.[7]

After leaving BT group in 2007, until July 2012 he was a managing director of the digital area of Il Sole 24 Ore group, the leading Italian financial newspaper[8]

He is a founder and he was director of CLUSIT (Italian association of internet and IT security) and he was president of AIIP, the Italian internet provider association.

A former professor of computer security, author of several articles and books on Internet and its impacts on society and the economy, and curator of scientific seminars on technology for the italian financial community.

In 2015 he formally defined the concept of Device Neutrality and proposed a bill to enforce it in Italy. The bill was stopped at the final vote at the Senate in 2017, after many successful votes at the Chamber of Deputies and through all Senate committees, thanks to lobbying efforts by some multinational device manufacturers and telecom operators[9] . The law has since gained formal support at the European Commission[10] by BEUC, the European Consumer Organisation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Hermes Center for Transparency and digital human rights. A law with identic principles has been passed in South Korea[11] and the French telecoms regulator ARCEP has called for the introduction of Device Neutrality in Europe.[12]

He theorized the Internet as a dimension of existence, in which social and economic relations are created and developed[13] and the emergence of a new class conflict between intermediaries and intermediated that surrounds and dominates the traditional conflict between capitalists and proletarians, thus introducing in addition to the traditional categories of capital and labor, the information category which is controlled by a small number of info-plutocrats.[14]

Since 2014 he is the chairman of AgID, Italy's digital agency .[15] He has been recognized as ont of the 30 most innovative entrepreneurs in Italy[16] and is considered one of the world's 100 most influential people in digital government.[17]

He sits in the Board of trustees of Nexa Center for Internet and Society,[18] is a member of the Leadership Council of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network[19] for the United Nations and is a member of the High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence of the European Commission.[20]