Chris Beall created and leads Project CONNIE (Coordination & Open Networking Needs for the Information Environment), a new initiative to link the parallel, often disconnected global networks supporting the integrity of the democratic information environment. CONNIE will provide “intelligent facilitation,” bridging current and planned activities and capacity-building efforts across policy, geographic and operational silos, reducing duplication, amplifying emerging bright spots, and bolstering faltering efforts. With support from the Omidyar Network, CONNIE is currently consulting global partners and readying its prototype for testing.
Chris advises Canadian and international government and civil society partners on fostering a healthy information environment and countering clandestine foreign influence operations, most recently supporting efforts to launch the “Global Challenge to Build Trust in the Age of Generative AI”. He is global lead, collaboration and coordination at the DISARM Foundation. Previously, Chris was a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he led a multi-stakeholder crisis response network bringing together civil society, government and industry partners working to protect the integrity of Ukraine’s information environment. Chris also led the taxonomy working group for Latvia’s, Canada’s, and the Alliance for Securing Democracy’s 2023 Summit for Democracy cohort on information integrity.
Chris created and led the Global Platform Governance Network (GPGN) at CIGI. The GPGN brought together civil servants, regulators and legislative staff from democracies around the world addressing aspects of digital platform governance (see the recent publication on lessons learned for meaningful collaboration). Prior to the pandemic, Chris held leadership positions in a range of departments and agencies within the Government of Canada, including as the founding director of the Digital Citizen Initiative at Canadian Heritage. Chris holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford.
