Teona Turashvili

Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI)

Teona Turashvili – Georgia

Academic background: I have been working at Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) since 2012 on issues of e-governance, internet and telecommunications. Currently I am an E-Governance Direction Lead at the institute.
I obtained a Master’s degree in Political Sciences at University of Warsaw. I wrote master thesis about the role of e-services and e-government initiatives in public administration reforms of Georgia. I am also a graduate student of MSocSC in Transformation in the South Caucasus at the Center for Social Sciences, at Tbilisi State University.

Please explain why you are interested to participate at the Euro-SSIG:
My everyday work is related to internet. I would love to broaden my knowledge and experience in the issue. Also, I will get to know well-known and prominent experts, practitioners and members of academia, representatives of different sectors working on these issues. I will also try to contribute to discussions and be an active member in sharing Georgia’s cases, context, challenges and opportunities in this field.
Gained experience, information and contacts will help me to share best practices in Georgia while implementing several projects about internet at IDFI. For instance, currently I am a director of the project: Improving Legal Safeguards for Internet Freedoms in Georgia. It aims to address the issue of blocking, blocking and take-down of illegal content regulations in Georgia. We plan to study international practice in order to initiate new regulations, which will increase accountability of law enforcement and other respective government agencies. Additionally I am a contributor author to Freedom on the Net program commissioned by Freedom House and my 3-years experience of preparing Georgia’s report on freedom of internet will make me a valuable asset to the event and its discussions.