Maria Ressa

Panel Member; Journalist and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate - Appointed to Independent International Scientific Panel on AI

For the first time in history, the world has an independent scientific body dedicated to artificial intelligence. On February 13, 2026, the United Nations General Assembly appointed 40 experts to a three-year panel charged with assessing AI's economic and social impacts—a vote that passed 117-2, with only the United States and Paraguay opposed. The vote marks the clearest split yet between American AI policy and the rest of the world, including traditional US allies in Europe and Asia.

Updated Feb 13

CEO of Rappler; 2021 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate - Featured speaker at 2026 announcement

On January 27, 2026, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds to midnight—the closest it has ever been to symbolic annihilation in its 78-year history. The four-second advance from 2025's 89-second setting reflects what the Science and Security Board called a year of escalating dangers: the expiration of the New START treaty on February 5, 2026 (ending 54 years of legally binding nuclear limits), aggressive nuclear modernization by the United States, Russia, and China, artificial intelligence supercharging disinformation campaigns that Nobel laureate Maria Ressa described as "informational armageddon," and the global rise of autocratic governments less accountable to their citizens.

Updated Feb 2

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, CEO of Rappler - One remaining case pending before Supreme Court

Frenchie Mae Cumpio was 20 years old when police kicked down her door at 2 a.m. and claimed to find a grenade on her bed. Six years later, she remains in prison—now convicted of terrorism financing and facing up to 18 more years. The regional court acquitted her of the weapons charges that justified her original arrest but found her guilty of funneling money to communist insurgents, based largely on testimony from witnesses who gave contradictory statements about meeting a nine-year-old terrorist financier.

Updated Jan 23