ICT and digital identities

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.