Co-Founder and Chief Vision Officer, the Datasphere Initiative
Co-Founder and Executive Director, Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network
With profound sadness and heavy hearts, the Datasphere Initiative and the Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network mourn the loss of Co-Founder and Chief Vision Officer, Bertrand de La Chapelle, who passed away on August 26, 2026, in Paris, France.
Bertrand was a titan in the field of internet policy and global governance, a passionate leader of boundless ideas and singular vision whose work fundamentally shaped the architecture of digital governance as we know it today. Guided throughout his life by the conviction that “there is no greater mission for humans than uniting humans,” he dedicated over two decades to pioneering, designing, and championing multistakeholder governance models that allows nations, tech companies, and civil society to dialogue and cooperate across borders.
His career spanned remarkable breadth: from his early days as a tech entrepreneur to his diplomatic service as France’s Special Envoy for the Information Society, sitting on the ICANN Board of Directors, and co-founding the Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network and the Datasphere Initiative, he was, above all, a deeply transformative presence.
Bertrand possessed a rare blend of humor, deep generosity, and effortless charm. With his passing, digital governance loses one of its greatest minds, and the world loses an irreplaceable source of inspiration, wisdom, and light.
We extend our deepest condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues around the world during this difficult time.
The link to the online memorial, where you can share photos, messages, and contributions in his honor, will be shared soon.
A letter about a visionary
Brasilia, 27 August 2027
Bertrand was visionary. A man on a mission. To connect people and to better the world. He was someone that reflected on the issues of our age profoundly and imagined a new reality with the gift that only visionaries have and the eloquence that was so unique to him.
I thought of Bertrand in reading a passage from Socorro Acioli, a Brazilian writer, about people that are visionaries and live for a few hours a day in imaginary islands. They are the ones that take books, music, words in various languages, pen an paper, to do what they want with their time and come back stronger to face the world. She says these people recognize each other. That it all seems madness, but it is something else.
Bertrand was a madly optimistic visionary. It was like him to reference a video on genetics, a book about world architecture, or a quote from a great thinker, in the middle of a conversation about multistakeholderism and Internet governance. It was like him to take out his beautifully handwritten notes that he’d done with his fountain pen to articulate an idea over the trajectory of artificial intelligence. The depth of his imagination and how far and wide his intellectual journey went made me think of the creative minds Acioli spoke of – except Bertrand did not retreat to an island.
Bertrand’s island was not isolation, but the entire boundless world and people themselves. For not only was he a creative, but he cared deeply. Bertrand could not help absorbing the whole world around him. To question it, to imagine possibilities. He could not help meeting other people without diving into them, for he was inherently curious about humanity, and deeply interested in his interlocutors. He made you feel seen. And in doing that, he made the world an incredible place and people around him feel special.
Bertrand was the most generous of visionaries. He was a friend, a mentor, an idol, for myself and for so many others.
I learned multitudes from him. To ask the big questions, to imagine a better future, and to look at the world and to people as a source of inspiration. I learned to dive deep and to not shy away from big bold purposes. He listened, and in doing so, he gave me the drive to speak out and to lead.
Bertrand was a man on a mission. And his mission lives on. His vision, imagination, kindess and lessons are ingrained in the hearts and minds he touched. We are his legacy. We recognize each other.
I say we think of him now as only having retreated to that imaginary island where visionaries live. He is reading a good book, listening to his favourite albums, scribbling down with his elegant fountain pen, plotting his next speech and bold project. Let’s imagine this impossibility together. It sounds like madness, but it quite something else. It’s the only way to come back stronger to face the world. He would have wanted that.
To Bertrand, to his family and friends. In his memory.
With love,
Lorrayne Porciuncula
Co-founder and Executive Director of the Datasphere Initiative
