Dama S.
Ronda Z.
Andrew O.
27 attendees
Artificial Intelligence (AI) & ICT4D - A Range of Perspectives
Tue, May 28, 6:30 PM
Google for Startups Campus
We are delighted to welcome five confirmed speakers to our Meetup being hosted at Google Campus London: - Chris Locke, Founder, Caribou Digital. Chris will be sharing highlights of their research on the opportunities and challenges in the application of Natural Language Processing in low income countries. - Lola Ololade Durodola, Bank Manager for HSBC and PhD Candidate at Coventry University. Lola will focus on artificial intelligence ethics in banking and its corporate governance from a social responsibility and international development perspective. - Isabelle Amazon-Brown, Independent Consultant. Issie has just returned from 2 months of usability testing with sexual and reproductive health (SRH) chatbots in Kenya and India, and will share practical insights from this work. - Noor Mo'alla, Founder and CEO, Collision AI. Noor will be speaking about the opportunities and challenges present in using AI for good and the work Collision AI is doing in building early prevention tools using artificial intelligence and machine learning for the purpose of providing actionable, live and timely insights to direct resources around peacebuilding and humanitarian action. - Dr Elina Naydenova, Founder, Feebris. Elina will be discussing her development of an AI-engine for early detection and monitoring of respiratory conditions away from the hospital. We hope to see you all there, and please arrive on time as we'll provide snacks (including a cake to celebrate reaching 1,000 members!) and drinks so you're not too hungry before dinner. Sincerely, Your ICT4D London Meetup Organizers
Akshay D.
Annual ICT4D Social with Bond and DIAL - Buffet & Drink!
Tue, Mar 19, 5:30 PM
The Feathers
If you missed last year's post-Bond conference social in Canary Wharf, you missed out big time. Don't make the same mistake this year!!! We're happy to partner with Bond and DIAL to offer our members an evening of food and merriment, along with one free drink. Please come meet the Who's Who of the London ICT4D community, learn about upcoming projects, and generally let's kiss winter GOODBYE together! Do register early so we can confirm numbers for the buffet and drinks. SEE YOU THERE!!!
Abhimanyu B.
Lean Impact: How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good
Tue, Jan 15, 5:30 PM
[ALSO REGISTER YOUR PLANNED ATTENDANCE HERE: https://www.cvent.com/events/lean-impact-how-to-innovate-for-radically-greater-social-good/registration-85b58dd456984ec08883464158adba6f.aspx?r=640d4cc5-3a6a-4647-84e9-e47365a4ce6f&fqp=true] Nesta Executive Director of Research, Analysis and Policy Kirsten Bound will be joined in conversation by Ann Mei Chang, leading expert on social innovation and author of "Lean Impact: How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good" The discussion will focus on Chang's insights into innovation for social good drawn from her decades of experience at Silicon Valley companies and with nonprofits and government, including as a Senior Engineering Director at Google and as Chief Innovation Officer at USAID. In Lean Impact, she introduces three core guiding principles for change-makers to innovate; think big, start small, and relentlessly seek impact, and as part of the conversation will be sharing some of the real-world stories that helped her shape these principles. There will also be an opportunity for Q&A. Registration will open at 17:30 with the event starting promptly at 18:00. The event will close at 19:00 followed by networking drinks until 20:00. To learn more about Ann Mei Chang and her new book, please check out this brief interview we conducted here: http://rondazg.com/a-special-gender-mobiles-interview-with-ann-mei-chang/! We look forward to seeing you all there!!!
Anouska H.
Meet the Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) at our Autumn Mixer!!!
Tue, Oct 16, 6:30 PM
Please join us for Autumn drinks at the GSMA, sponsored by the Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL). DIAL is a development organization working to bring together the public and private sectors to realize an inclusive digital society that connects everyone to life-enhancing technology in developing countries. DIAL acts as steward for the Principles for Digital Development, a community-driven global good designed to advance the role of digital technology in development and to accelerate the end of global poverty through thoughtful practice and program design. Please join Allana Nelson, Manager, Principles for Digital Development and Matt Haikin, Manager, Insights & Impact from DIAL on October 16th to learn more about the Principles for Digital Development and to discuss DIAL's role in supporting the ICT4D sector going forward. 18.30 Welcome drinks and networking 18.45 Welcome from the GSMA 18.50 Introducion to DIAL and the Principles for Digital Development (Allana Nelson) 19.10 Discussion of the benefits of endorsing and using the Digital Principles (UK endorsers of the Principles - TBC) 19.45 Drinks, snacks, lightly facilitated networking 20.30 Close Bring a bag, there may be goodies to take away! 😊 Sincerely, Your ICT4D Organizers
Aditi P.
Ailin M.
ICT4(Dis)Ability: Insights for the Global Disability Summit 2018
In our Meetup on Tuesday 31 July, we are going to take a deep dive into the ICT4D aspects of people living with disabilities, dovetailing with the Summit's exploration of Technology and Innovation in this space. Disability tech (including assistive technology) is a topic for which much remains to be done if we are truly to help empower underserved populations with information and communication technologies. According to the UK government: "Only one in ten people in the world today who needs assistive products and services to maintain or improve their lives or promote their independence has access to them. These products include traditional aids such as wheelchairs, hearing aids and walking sticks, and increasingly digital solutions, such as apps to convert speech to text." ***UPDATED SPEAKER LINEUP*** SPEAKER 1: Eleanor Lisney "Eleanor Lisney (http://ethoelisney.uk/) is a campaigner, founder member, public speaker and coordinator. She is an access advisor, an aspiring creative practitioner and co founder of both Sisters of Frida, a disabled women's collective and Culture Access, which is about supporting access, bringing an inclusive edge intersectionally. She was involved in Museums and the Web (ICHIM in Europe) and was the previous publicity chair for EVA London Conference, (Electronic Visualiation and the Arts) She was born in Malaysia and has lived in Strasbourg, France and studied at Austin, Texas. She has written on museum accessibility and is passionate about embedding intersectionality in all her work. She has two grown up children. Eleanor will be speaking on the importance of language in accessibility considerations for instance for people for whom English is not their first language, for people with learning difficulties, dyslexic or autistic people." SPEAKER 2: Alice Gathoni Alice Njeri Gathoni comes from Kenya and is currently a PhD candidate at the Open University in Milton Keynes. Her PhD explores 'The Lived experiences of social media use by youth with disabilities in higher education in Kenya'. Alice has worked extensively with young people with disabilities and their families as an; educator, special needs educational coordinator, placement provider and as a volunteer in various capacities. Her research interests are centred on education, youth, disability and ICT4D. Alice will discuss preliminary findings of her current PhD. It will highlight participants' social media activities in higher education in relation to their choice of social media, what they value about social media and the people/ networks they engage with. It will in turn consider how these youths' social media activities influence their capabilities. Implications for policy and practice will also be discussed. SPEAKER 3: Umesh (uMe) Pandya Umesh (uMe) Pandya is driven by using design and technology to solve problems that matter, he has been working as a practitioner in the digital sector for over 18 years, conceiving and launching inclusive, human centred, digital products, services and ventures. Co-founder of Wayfindr, an award-winning, social tech, not-for-profit that empowers vision impaired people to navigate the world independently. Umesh also has led the product design and development of a couple of well-received FinTech products that have improved the banking experience for older people and people with physical and/or cognitive impairments. Umesh will share the story behind Wayfindr and how they designed and validated the worlds first open standard for audio navigation to help blind and vision-impaired people to navigate the world independently. Umesh will talk about the tools and methodologies they used over the course of this investigation. From a co-created idea to an international standard in under two years. We always say you won't want to miss the meetup, but we always mean it! This is a topic that rarely gets attention, so do come learn insights from those working directly in this area of ICT4D.
Billy S.
ICT4D London goes London Tech Week with Eric Osiakwan: SPECIAL EVENT!
Thu, Jun 14, 6:30 PM
Bethnal Green Ventures (BGV)
Next week is London Tech Week and we here at ICT4D London are very proud to invite you to a special evening talk and networking opportunity with a legend and multi-hyphenate of ICT4D from Ghana, Eric Osiakwan! We will be kindly hosted by Bethnal Green Ventures – an early stage investor in tech for good. MORE ABOUT ERIC: "Eric Osiakwan is Managing Partner of Chanzo Capital, an entrepreneur and investor with 15 years of ICT industry leadership across Africa and the world. He has worked in 32 African countries setting up ISPs, ISPAs, IXPs and high-tech startups. He Co-Founded Angel Africa List, Angel Fair Africa and currently serves on the board of Farmerline, SMS GH, Forhey, Teranga Solutions, SeeSayDo, Oasis Websoft, Siqueries, Amp.it, SameLogic, Bisa app, Wanjo Foods, Ghana Cyber City and WABco – some of which are his investments. He was part of the team that built the TEAMS submarine cable in East Africa and an ICT Consultant for the WorldBank, Soros Foundations, UNDP, USAID, USDoJ, USDoS as well as African governments and private firms. Eric authored "The KINGS of Africa's Digital Economy", co-authored the "Open Access Model", adopted globally by the telecommunications industry, "Negotiating the Net" – the politics of Internet Diffusion in Africa and "The Internet in Ghana" with the Mosaic Group. He was invited to contribute ideas to Prime Minister Tony Blair's Commission for Africa. Eric is a TED, Stanford, MIT and Harvard fellow. Visit www.ericosiakwan.com for more information." Eric will talk to us about growth funding for businesses in sub-Saharan Africa, and champion his concept of KINGS in terms of the top five technological powerhouses on the continent. We will also hear from BGV, who run an early stage tech for good accelerator programme. They have just embarked on a journey to support startups looking to provide tech solutions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals for international development through their partnership with angel investors and founders of the Global Goals accelerator Andy Wales and Ed Gillespie. For more info, visit their website here: https://bethnalgreenventures.com/blog/achieving-the-global-goals-using-tech-for-good/ Our talks will last no longer than 45 minutes and the rest of the time will be free for London Tech Week networking. We hope you will join us if you're in town or based in London and looking for a unique ICT4D experience. SEE YOU ALL THERE!
Alan U.
ICT and digital identities
Campus London
Hi everyone, Our next next ICT4D London meetup will focus on digital identities – the perks, the opportunities and the risks. According to the World Bank 1 billion people around the globe still struggle to prove their identity and are cut off from essential services, facing difficulties in exercising their rights. (Source: https://id4d.worldbank.org/global-dataset) With new technologies emerging and used to improve access to services, we'll hear from a number of fantastic speakers working in this space highlighting the need for innovation and the opportunities that come with it, but also the pitfalls of using ICTs and the risk associated with vulnerable populations. This month's Tech for Good meetup is hosted at Campus London, Google's space for entrepreneurs. Find out more about Campus London: https://www.campus.co/london/en Best wishes, Dama and Ronda UPDATE - 22 May 2018 Hi everyone, We're looking forward to hosting you at the next meetup. See below for the line up of speakers talking about the different digital ID projects they are involved in. Anjali Ramachandran The ID Question is a series about identities in the modern age by Padmaparna Ghosh, edited by Anjali Ramachandran. It was published on How We Get To Next and ran from January to May 2018. The ID Question was launched to build on original research about India's national biometric programme, Aadhaar, by Caribou Digital. The research was conducted in 2017, and Storythings (the publishers of How We Get To Next) worked with Caribou at the time to build the Identities Project online for a core group of policymakers and development professionals. Anjali Ramachandran leads partnerships and syndication at Storythings, a content studio that works with clients like the Omidyar Network, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Pearson Education. She is also a co-founder of Ada's List, a global network for women in technology, and writes the Other Valleys newsletter about creativity and technology in emerging markets. Ceri Greenland Ceri is the Senior Market Engagement Manager for the Digital Identity Programme at GSMA. Ceri works with mobile operators, governments and NGOs to bring Digital Identity services to scale and facilitate industry collaboration in developing the Digital Identity ecosystem. She returned to the GSMA in 2017, after a period of time at the UK Communications regulator, Ofcom. Prior to this, she worked in the GSMA's Spectrum team as the Policy Advisor for Africa and the Middle East, working with ministries and regulators across the region on spectrum policy, mobile broadband and last-mile connectivity issues. Ceri holds an MSc in Globalisation and Development from London's School of Oriental and African Studies and earned B.A. degrees in International Relations and Business from the University of Redlands in California. Nicolas Moreno de Palma Nicolas is the Impact Partnerships Manager at Simprints, a tech non-profit that works to close the identification gap using biometrics. A telecommunications engineer and MBA by education, he has formerly held corporate customer and business relationship management positions within large multinational organisations in wide range of sectors - Johnson & Johnson, Vodafone and Salesforce, to name a few. He is passionate about ideas that make the best technology available for those who need it the most and about putting best practices of the private sector into practice within impact-led initiatives. Edward Duffus Plan International and partners are developing an open source standards-based software solution to provide for civil registration and population data needs in low resource settings. The OpenCRVS platform will be free and adaptable for different country contexts. Edward is the Head of Innovation at Plan International, a global development and humanitarian organisation that advances children's rights and equality for girls. He started his career in the British Army, transitioned to IT consulting but then found his niche at Plan International, where since 2013 he has been able to use his expertise as a technologist to make a real social impact.
Aghogho A.
ICT as a Catalyst for Gender Equality?
Capeesh
ICT can be a powerful catalyst for political and social empowerment of women, and a tool to promote gender equality. But often we've seen that limited access to ICTs, low levels of literacy and exposure to abuse and harassment have had detrimental effects on women. In celebration of Women's History Month, On Tuesday, 20th March 2018, we are hosting a social meetup with talks from Linda Raftree, Seyi Akiwowo (Glitch UK), and Bonnie Chiu (Lensational) talking about the use of ICT and its impact on women, opportunities, and accompanying conflicts. This meetup follows on from MERL Tech London and we welcome enthusiastic ICT4D folks to join us for FREE food, drinks, networking and inspiring talks. Food and drinks for this meetup are kindly sponsored by Salesforce.org. About the speakers: Linda Raftree supports strategy, program design, research, and ethical uses of technology and digital data in international development initiatives. She advises Girl Effect on digital safety, security, and privacy, and contributes to their research and strategy efforts. She has supported development of responsible data policies and guidelines for CRS and USAID. Linda runs Technology Salon in New York City and organizes the MERL Tech conference. Prior to becoming an independent consultant, Linda worked for 16 years with Plan International. She has published on the intersection of digital technology and adolescent girls, child/youth migration, youth workforce development, and monitoring and evaluation. Her side projects include Regarding Humanity, which examines narrative agency in the development, film, and social impact spaces; and WhiteSave.me, a parody of techno-utopian solutions for complex problems. She blogs at Wait... What? and tweets at @meowtree. Seyi Akiwowo is a locally elected politician in East London, making her the youngest black female Councillor in Newham. Seyi is a London School of Economics graduate, a Fellow at the Royal Society of the Arts and has had eight successful years working in the policy, politics and sustainable development sectors in the UK and abroad including Kuwait, Istanbul, UAE, Prague, Brussels, India and Bosnia. Seyi founded Glitch!UK an non-for-profit online abuse advocacy, campaigning and training organisation. This was after facing horrendous online abuse and harassment when a video of her speech at EYE 2016 went viral last year. Through Glitch!UK, Seyi lobbies social media companies and decision makers and has also developed and published a recommendations report. Seyi recently spoke at the UN Geneva on the online abuse politically active women face. She has developed various training workshops on online abuse and how to be a good online citizen. She tweets at @seyiakiwowo. Bonnie Chiu is the Founder and CEO of non-profit social enterprise Lensational, which equips marginalised women with photography training and digital skills. Since launching in 2013, the organisation – which has expanded to a team of 120 volunteers – has taught photography to 700 women across 20 developing countries, and established partnerships with Getty Images, Standard Chartered, Colgate and Vodafone Institute. She has been awarded Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur in Europe in 2017, the Young Achiever of the Asian Women of Achievement Awards in 2016 and recognised as the Ambassador of Sustainable Development Goal 5 - Achieve Gender Equality - in the Lavazza calendar.She is also the Managing Director of The Social Investment Consultancy (TSIC), an international strategy consulting firm that advises clients on maximising social impact. Bonnie tweets at @bonnieschiu. COME CELEBRATE WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH WITH US!
Exploring the premise of civic tech
• What we'll do Hello everyone, and a happy new year! We hope you all had a great start to the year. We're excited to welcome you back to the London ICT4D meetups, an informal gathering of people interested in the use of ICT. For our first event of the year, we are starting off with a session on civic technologies, exploring ways of citizen enabled and participatory engagement. We have a number of speakers lined up with more details to follow soon, but for now RSVP and let us know, if you are attending (and if not follow online via www.twitter.com/ICT4D_LDN). If you have a civic tech project and would like to talk about it, then just send us a message via meetup. There will be some time afterwards for networking and an open forum to discuss future topics, so feel free to leave suggestions in the comments section. We're looking forward to seeing you all. ***UPDATE*** We're really excited to welcome you back for the first meetup of 2018. We'll be hearing from: – The team from React (https://reactpolls.com/) React is the future of opinion polling: delivering results in hours, rather than days. Founded by the team behind the Labour Party's campaign technology, our mission is to revolutionise how we measure public opinion. – The team from Every One Every Day (https://www.weareeveryone.org/) Every One Every Day aims to make practical participation a key way for making everyday life better for families, friends and neighbours in Barking and Dagenham. It builds on the imaginative types of 'hands on' projects that people have been creating over the last few years in their own neighbourhoods. These projects include sharing knowledge, spaces and resources, for families to work and play together, for bulk cooking, food growing, tree planting, for trading, making and repairing, and for growing community businesses. – Civica Digital (https://civica.digital) Civica digital is a team focused on civic technology. We build digital tools that strengthen citizenship, helping organisations to be more open, responsive and with better digital services. Civica Digital are behind the development of Urbem Digital (https://urbem.digital/) – Fireside chats (Tell us about your civic tech project) We have a few slots for fireside chats available. If you want to talk about your civic tech project, do get in touch. – Open discussion (future topics) Best wishes, Dama and Ronda
Andy JD W.