Latin America and the Caribbean
Dr. Robert Muggah is a researcher, entrepreneur and practitioner. He specializes in physical, digital and climate security. He also works extensively on issues related to urban planning, forced migration, and climate and nature solutions.
Muggah co-founded the SecDev Group to drive digital transformation and reduce cyber threats around the world. As a principal, he leads the firm’s work on digital harms and digitally secure cities. He also co-founded the Igarapé Institute – an award-winning global think and do tank focused on public security and climate action. Muggah also co-founded Bioverse – a forest intelligence start-up that leverages satellites, drones and AI to accelerate the bioeconomy – and SuperNature, an urban planning consultancy.
Muggah is also an adviser to McKinsey’s and sits on the board of several technology start-ups. He has worked with dozens of national and city governments, technology companies like Google, Meta, Uber, and YouTube and international agencies such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank in Africa, Asia and the Americas. He has conducted major assessments for UNODC, UNDP, UNDPS, UBDPKO, and other in the Amazon, Caribbean, West and Central Africa, Middle East and the Balkan and been nominated to multiple councils and panels by the UN Secretary General.
Muggah has won awards for producing interactive data visualizations and predictive platforms to track city fragility and resilience, climate mobility, and promote AI safety and ethics. He is the recipient of several academic and humanitarian awards and has been a fellow at the University of Princeton, Singularity University, the University of British Columbia, the University of Oxford, the University of San Diego, the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Switzerland.
Muggah also co-founded the Stability Journal and serves on the editorial boards of several prominent scholarly journals. Between 2000-2010, Robert was the research director of the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey. Since then, Muggah has edited, authored or contributed to dozens of books and peer-review articles. His last volume - Terra Incognita (Penguin, Random House) - is available in 8 languages. He regularly contributes to annual United Nations Human Development Reports, World Bank Development Reports, the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Reports, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Fragility Reports, and other flagship publications.