Corneliu Bjola is Professor of Digital Diplomacy at the University of Oxford, UK, and the Head of the Oxford Digital Diplomacy Research Group. His research focuses on the impact of digital technology on the conduct of diplomacy, with a special interest in public diplomacy, international negotiations, and methods for countering digital influence operations.  His current research examines the emerging role of AI in diplomacy, with a particular focus on its capacity to support decision-making, refine negotiation approaches, and strengthen crisis response, while also addressing the ethical challenges posed by algorithmic bias in diplomatic communications.

His most recent publications include The Oxford Handbook of Digital Diplomacy (Oxford University Press, 2024, co-ed.), which provides a comprehensive overview of the theory, practice, and future of digital diplomacy across different regions and issues. Another recent volume, Digital International Relations: Technology, Agency, and Order (Routledge, 2023, co-ed.), explores how digital disruption impacts world order and global governance. Additionally, he has authored or edited several academic books on digital diplomacy, including the twin volumes Countering Online Propaganda and Violent Extremism: The Dark Side of Digital Diplomacy (2018) – listed by BookAuthority among the 20 Best New International Relations Books to Read in 2019 – and Digital Diplomacy: Theory and Practice (2015). His co-edited volume Digital Diplomacy and International Organizations: Autonomy, Legitimacy, and Contestation (Routledge, 2020) examines the broader ramifications of digital technologies on the internal dynamics, multilateral policies, and strategic engagements of international organizations.

He has conducted training sessions for the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Diplomatic Academies in U.K., European Union, Germany, Greece, Georgia, Spain, Israel, Lithuania, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Armenia, Honduras, Bahrain, Romania as well as for international organisations such as the UNITAR, the Digital Cooperation Organisation, United Nations System Staff College, the Commonwealth, the International Labour Organization, and the United Nations Population Fund.

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The turbulence of the international system has exposed the limits of traditional statecraft in managing the disruptive force of emerging technologies. While the liberal international order is under strain, innovation power—concentrated in fields such as AI, semiconductors, and quantum technologies—remains a decisive axis of global competition. In this environment, tech diplomacy has emerged both as a symptom of disorder and as a tool of re-order. It is a symptom because states can no longer impose order alone: non-state actors, from Big Tech firms to standard-setting bodies, wield unprecedented influence in global affairs. At the same time, it is a tool of re-order: tech diplomacy creates hybrid governance arrangements—trade and technology councils, policy sandboxes, quantum-tech initiatives—that embed principles into technical standards, translate values into practice, and experiment with new forms of resilience. The keynote will argue that tech diplomacy should be theorised not only as a practice of adjustment to disorder but also as a "laboratory of order-making". Its success or failure will determine which of three possible futures emerges: digital anarchy, marked by rivalry and fragmentation; patchwork order, stitched together by competing blocs and firms; or a fragile but functional cooperative order grounded in innovation-driven diplomacy.