Speakers

Barbara Held Held is a freelance journalist and moderator for the German Publishing House “Behörden Spiegel“. In addition, she is working as senior advisor in telecommunication, cyber security and innovative technology projects for the consulting firm „friedrich30”, specializing in (mission-)critical communication and digitalization in the field of public safety.

Behind this are over twenty years of strategic involvement with IT and security topics cts in the remit of the German Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) and in the European Commission.

From 2012 until her retirement 2020, Barbara Held was head of department at the Federal Agency for Digital Radio of Security Authorities and Organizations (BDBOS). There she led the departments of principle (for law, press IT security, etc.), operations, and strategy and control. In this role she served as elected member at the TCCA board.

Prior to her time at BDBOS, Barbara Held progressed through several positions at the Federal Ministry of the Interior in Berlin and in Brussels at the European Commission. Until 2012, she steered police IT strategies in the Public Security Department. At the European level, she represented Germany as head of delegation in various Council working groups on Schengen and Prüm matters.

From 2004 to 2008 Barbara Held was assigned as seconded national expert to the IDABC Programme (today ISA Programme) of the European Commission, managing projects creating and supporting interoperable cross-border services.

In former times, she also worked at the German government's IT coordination and advisory office, where her responsibilities included formulating and marketing the federal administration's open source and open standard strategies and various eGoverment projects.

Barbara Held holds a master's degree in Hispanic Studies, Journalism and History from the University of Mainz. She has a doctorate in Communication Studies from the Free University of Berlin. In the context of her doctoral research she spent one year as Special Visitor at Stanford University, CA. During her time at the BMI she attended a six-months, full-time course on “International Security Policy” at the Federal Academy for Security Policy (BAKS) in Berlin.