Arsene Tungali

Organization:	Rudi International
Affiliation:	Fellowship Program, I* Organization
Stakeholder Group(s):	,|xyz|xyz| }}
Region:	Africa
Country:	The Democratic Republic of The
Email:	arsenebaguma [at] gmail.com
Website:	https://about.me/ArseneTungali
Facebook:	Arsene Tungali
LinkedIn:	Arsene Tungali
Twitter:	@arsenebaguma

Arsene Tungali B. is a Congolese (DRC) young leader and role model, passionate about issues related to youth, media, leadership and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) among others. He currently identifies himself as an Internet Freedom advocate based on his current advocacy and research work in that area. He is also an entrepreneur running both a nonprofit and a a business. Mr Tungali has received recognition such as the 2015 Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders award, a program started by President Obama, which led him to take earn a Certificate in Leadership from the University of Delaware, in Delaware and an internship with the El Pomar Foundation, in Colorado Springs, USA.

Professional work

Current

Arsene is a Co-Founder and Executive Director of Rudi International since July 2012. Rudi International is a Congo-based organization supporting the people in need in areas such as education, capacity building and advocacy. Rudi is well known in the Francophone African region as one of the organizations working at the forefront of digital rights, Internet development, and capacity building. In this area, Rudi has convened in November 2018, the first-ever Conference on Human Rights at Digital Age in the DRC that brought together digital rights activists, lawyers, human rights defenders from Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya to discuss and build support around major digital rights threats in the region.

In February 2016, Mr. Tungali started a multi-services company, Smart Services Sarl (where he serves as Chief Executive Officer and employing 3 full-time staff and up to 4 consultants), a company specialized, among others, in translation and interpretation services, benefiting individuals as well as companies. Smart Services Sarl has served the major humanitarian organizations operating in the region in their language needs. The Congo is a Francophone country and many of these international organizations are coming from English speaking countries; they have therefore found a trusted partner on the ground who knows the local culture and have relied on the support of this company to provide professional language services. Mr. Tungali is a sworn interpreter.

Past

His past work experience includes working with:

- The UNICEF DRC as Consultant in Communications and Advocacy, where he supported the regional office (based in Goma) in all their communications and advocacy plans, strategies.

- Peace One Day as Field Officer, where he supported and represented the British peace-making organization's efforts in the DRC and the Great Lakes Region of Africa for their 2015 Peace Campaign, leading to the massive celebration of the International Peace Day.

- The Mutaani Project as Web Editor, where he was in charge of producing articles for the website and training web journalists in web content production. Before joining Mutaani Project, he worked in the same capacity for Now Africa CAN, an organization dedicated at showcasing the positive side of the African continent and its people.

Volunteering positions

Mr. Tungali believes in volunteerinsmas a way to give back to his community. He has supported a number of organizations in an advisory capacity as well as an Intern such as with The Congo Tree where he served as a leadership trainer and mentoring young leaders.

Additionally in 2013, Mr.Tungali started the Mabigwa Forum, an annual gathering that brings together emerging leaders from different sectors to connect, inspire, and get inspired. This annual event has inspired many emerging leaders in the Congo and supported them into expanding their business reach, improve their leadership capabilities and give them access to a network of like-minded leaders on whom they can rely on.

ICT policy and Internet governance

Mr Tungali is consulting in Internet governance projects and initiatives since 2011 when he first attended the UN's Internet Governance Forum (IGF) as a youth participant. He then was involved in IG related debates on a local, regional and global levels, attending the African IGF in 2013 and in 2016 (after he went to the 2016 African School on IG in Durban, South Africa), the global IGF as an Internet Society Ambassador (2015 and 2016). At the IGF, he is either a speaker at various workshops or a session organizer on topics ranging from child online safety, participation of civil society in Internet governance, cyber security and youth participation in discussions. He does research, speaks at conferences and meetings on Internet freedom in Africa and in the world. He is one of the prominent voices fighting Internet shutdowns in Africa and worldwide.

ICANN 51 in Los Angeles was Tungali's first ICANN Meeting, and as an ICANN Fellow, was one of the first young people in the DRC to attend meetings like ICANN and IGF. He then got interested and joined working groups, constituencies such as the Non Commercial User Constituency (NCUC, a constituency under the NCSG) and is now very interested in the African region DNS policy development. He then came back for the ICANN 55 meeting in Marrakech and ICANN 59 in Johannesbourg as a returning fellow and coach. Tungali was elected to join the GNSO Council (seated at ICANN60 in Abu Dhabi) for a two years term, representing the Non Commercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG).

Of what he hopes to accomplish in ICT in the future, Mr Tungali says, "My biggest plan is to engage more young people in my country in Internet related topics mainly regarding their online presence. The DRC is a fast growing its internet community so many young people have started using internet. I feel it is time to prepare them on how they can best benefit from the Internet and influence its policies." He is open to all new opportunities that will help young people in the DRC and hopes to engage in constructive discussions.