Ria welcomes Dr Andrew Rens as senior research fellow

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Research ICT Africa welcomes Dr. Andrew Rens to the team as a Senior Research Fellow. Andrew is an accomplished attorney, academic and policy advocate with an excellent history in public interest focusing on information communication technology (ICT) and intellectual property (IP) issues.

Andrew qualified as an attorney with a BA LLB from Wits University and went on to graduate with a Master of Law, focusing on “Intellectual Property Issues on the Internet” at Wits Law School. He obtained a doctoral degree from Duke University in North Carolina in the U.S. where he wrote about the use of Creative Commons licenses for educational materials.

Andrew cut his teeth in public interest law at the Wits Law Clinic, which serves some of the most disadvantaged members of our society. While at Wits, Andrew also pioneered course in Information Technology Law.

Andrew has been a Fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School where he worked with Larry Lessig. From 2007 – 2010, Andrew was the first Fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation where he worked on “access to knowledge, IP law reform and open education in South Africa”.

More recently, Andrew was employed at the American University’s Internet Governance Lab in Washington D.C. where he concentrated on regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of things (IoT).

His work at RIA supports ICT4D in Africa policy. His current research includes regulation of the digital economy in SADC and the implications of AI for IP. Read RIA’s submission to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) on AI and IP, drafted by Andrew.

Andrew blogs at Ex Africa Semper Aliquid Novi.

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