Our keynote speaker this year is Maria Ressa, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist who co-founded the pioneering investigative news outlet in the Philippines, Rappler. Her career spans nearly 40 years of journalism work in Asia. Ressa faced political harassment and arrests under the Duterte government. She is author of the book "How to Stand Up to a Dictator." She is CEO of Rappler, and also a professor of practice at Columbia University, where she co-leads its Technology Initiative. Her journalistic work and fight for press freedom has been recognized worldwide: she was named one of Time's Most Influential Women of the Century in 2020, and also, in 2021, UNESCO awarded her the Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, among many other awards.