Nanjira Sambuli is a researcher, policy analyst and strategist studying the unfolding, gendered impacts of digitalization/ICT adoption on governance, diplomacy, media, entrepreneurship, and culture, especially in Africa.
Nanjira is a Ford Global Fellow. She is also a board member at The New Humanitarian, Development Gateway, and Digital Impact Alliance. She also advises the Carnegie Council’s AI and Equality Initiative and the Alliance for Inclusive Algorithms. She is a member of the Gender Advisory Board at the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD). She is also a Diplomacy Moderator at the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA).
Nanjira previously led digital equality advocacy efforts at the World Wide Web Foundation, and worked at iHub Nairobi, where she provided strategic guidance for growth of technology innovation research in the East Africa region. She has also served as co-chair of Transform Health, as a Commissioner on the Lancet & Financial Times Governing Health Futures 2030 Commission, as a panel member on the United Nations Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, and as a deputy on the United Nations Secretary General’s High-Level Panel for Women’s Economic Empowerment.
We are in an era in which states seek to demonstrate their power and values through the construction of new cities. This new wave of development is global: in Egypt with the New Administrative Capital, in Indonesia with Nusantara, in Kenya with Konza Techno City and Tatu City, and in California’s Solano County.
As the testing ground for subnational diplomacy, Los Angeles and African cities can partner to leverage innovation to meet global challenges like climate change and emerging technology governance.
Africa leads the world in mobile money adoption while cyber attacks and fraud are rising. How are new efforts faring to increase security and trust in digital financial inclusion?
Fear that artificial intelligence will be used to disrupt elections is spreading. Over the next year, the strength and resilience of democratic institutions may be tested like never before.
A series of cyber attacks devastated Kenya’s digital infrastructure in July. Now, with major new digital initiatives underway, the country must find a way to restore the public’s confidence in cybersecurity.
This event explored the significance of the entry into force of the Malabo Convention—the only cybersecurity convention in the world that combines cybersecurity, cyber crime, electronic transactions, and data protection in one legal instrument—with input from African cybersecurity and financial sector experts.
Bolstering cybersecurity has become an increased priority in the financial sector. Maintaining a secure cyberspace for the financial system has implications for digital financial inclusion, particularly among vulnerable populations.
Over the past few years, Big Tech firms’ failure to address privacy concerns and combat disinformation has prompted a growing debate about the apparent conflict between their professed values and their bottom lines.
In tech we trust? Unfortunately, the most optimistic response would be, “It depends”. For tech to deliver on any promises, and especially to minimize and not introduce new harms, is wholly dependent on the human processes that generate it, and that order our co-existence.
No matter the outcome of Kenya’s presidential election, it will be crucial to focus on bolstering democratic and institutional performance, political accountability, and citizen participation beyond Election Day.
