Alison Gillwald (PhD) is the former Executive Director of Research ICT Africa. She is also an adjunct professor at the University of Cape Town’s Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance. A former broadcasting and telecommunications regulator in the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) and the South African Telecommunications Authority (SATRA, together now ICASA), she has published widely on and been actively involved in telecommunications policy formulation and regulation across the continent and global South. Her applied research and practice continues to focus on digital equality and data justice, as well as on internet, data and AI governance at the national, continental and international levels. She continues to lead RIA’s After Access surveys, extending the development of digital indicators into new areas of the digital and platform economy for evidence-based policy formulation on the continent. In 2023, she conceptualised the background paper on digital inequality for the UN Women CSW 67, applying Research ICT Africa data to analyse intersectional digital inequality, linking it to data injustice and its manifestations in AI. Alison leads RIA’s technical assistance to the African Union Commission on the African Union Data Policy Framework, endorsed by member states in 2022, and the implementation plan focusing on capacity building and technical assistance for policy formulation. She recently co-led the Data Justice project of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) and now co-leads the Algorithmic Transparency in the Public Sector project, which is looking at different public algorithm repositories as a mechanism of public accountability empowering citizens to understand and safeguard the use of their data
in automated decision-making. She also led the Research ICT Africa team commissioned by UNESCO to prepare a position paper on information integrity for the G20 Brazil in 2024, where she has also served on the T20. She serves on the Digital Inclusion Roundtable of the United Nations’ Secretary General’s Digital Cooperation Roadmap and has previously served as Deputy Chairperson of the Ministerial Broadband Advisory Body; the Ministerial Digital Migration Task Force, the ICANN President’s Task Group on Multistakeholderism; the African Ministers’ Advisory Group and ITU Gender Task Team. She has served on the board of the public broadcaster, the SABC, AVUSA and the Media Monitoring Project. She currently serves on the board of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in Canada. Her latest publication looks at Rerouting Geopolitics: Narratives and the Political Power of Communications in a chapter in Padovani et al., Global Communication Governance at the Crossroads.
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