A curation of essays, interviews, talks, op-eds by and/or featuring yours truly. Also, additional roundups for 2020-2023, 2014-2019 and on COVID-19 ).
2025
Glocalizing tech regulation (An essay I contributed to a special issue of International Politik on Power and Technology, where I share an African perspective on the ‘Brussels Effect’ of the GDPR, and the fundamental tensions in the way Europe sees its role in the global order. The essay was originally published in German).
Neo-Feudalism: Are today’s workers free agents or modern-day serfs? (I joined distinguished scholars at the Doha Debates, as well as students from the Qatar Foundation Education City, to discuss the evolving relationship between workers and corporations in an age of algorithms).
Who owns the narrative? Journalism, digital sovereignty and resistance in Africa. (I had the honour of delivering the opening keynote at the CTRL+J Africa conference where I shared thoughts on the tyranny of optimism as exercised on the subject that is Africa, invisibilized narratives and thoughts on digital sovereignty and resistance).
Africa’s youth potential: A policy mirage (The English Version of an essay I contributed to Internationale Politik’s May 2025 Special Issue on Africa. It is my polemic against the rhetoric on youth potential on the continent, which is at once a mirage and obfuscation on the policy (in)decisions, (mis)investments and the stubbornness of a rigid status quo that has made most avenues for Africa’s youth unviable and unrealizable).
What Do Emerging Economies Want from AI? (I joined this Harvard Center for International Development’s GEM25 opening panel for a discussion grounded in realpolitik, including the disruptions in development/overseas development assistance and what they portend for African countries).
Institutional Innovation in an Unsecure World (I joined the 10th edition of the UNDP Istanbul Innovation Panel to discuss, among other things, the role of digital technologies in reorienting institutions, and what we can learn from the resilience of ‘values’ like corruption. Lastly, I encouraged the remoralizing, repoliticizing and rewilding of institutions, if they are to be responsive to the challenges and opportunities of the times).
Digital Public Infrastructure: A Practical Approach for Africa (An essay I co-authored with fellow African tech policy practitioners on situating DPI’s promise for inclusive digital development within the existing digitalisation trajectories that African countries have already undertaken — and to make the case therein for ‘why DPI’— rather than approach the continent’s digital landscape as a tabula rasa).
2025 Kenya Foreign Policy Outlook (I joined fellow researchers and analysts to discuss Kenya’s latest review of its foreign policy outlined in the so-titled ‘Sessional Paper No. 1 of 2025 on the Foreign Policy of the Republic of Kenya‘. I shared my reflections on the science, technology and innovation diplomacy pillar, and what tech-related foreign policy/diplomacy means for the country).
2024
Introduction to Digital Colonialism: A Critical Perspective (I had the honour of delivering the opening keynote for the Decoding Digital Colonialism event by the German Federal Agency for Civic Education. It was a great opportunity to take stock of the continuities of colonial practices and the coloniality of power that is prevalent even in the digital age).
How Californian and African City Connections Can Build Up Smart City Diplomacy (An essay I contributed to an exploratory series at Carnegie California to accompany the city of Los Angeles’ development of an Africa Trade and Investment Strategy. I make the case for a smart city diplomacy that pairs sub-national diplomacy with two pressing global governance challenges: climate change and the rapid diffusion of digital technologies).
Citizen Experiences with DPI: Kenya’s Digital ID Transition (A brief I co-authored taking a critical look at the technopolitical theatre in which Kenya’s digital ID quest is playing out. We highlight the conditions required for effective digital public infrastructure (DPI) interventions while centering citizen experiences often overlooked in DPI outcomes speak).
On common cyber threat vectors affecting African countries’ digital financial systems (In which I speak to ITWeb Africa, on the sidelines of the IT Web Security Summit 2024, where I delivered a keynote on insights from the CyberFI project I’ve been leading at Carnegie, as well as on South Africa’s prospective leading role on cybersecure digital development on the continent).
When the ‘technological is political.’ The future of AI, for better or worse. (In this two part series by Arete News, I share many words on who’s shaping AI governance, the subjectivity of concepts such as ‘AI for good’, and what regulatory superpowers like the European Union can learn from the global majority’s corpus of wisdom on ‘glocal’ regulation).
The DPI Approach to Digital Identity & Digital Development(In part 1 this ID4Africa2024 panel, I joined colleagues from the Gates Foundation and UNDP in contextualizing waht Digital Public Infrastructure means for Africa’s digitalization journeys, offering a word of caution about narratives and their power to excite, confuse or even deflate and generate resistance/reluctance).
Global governance of digital technologies: A contemporary diplomacy challenge (My Masters dissertation [2021, finally published publicly] addressed the challenge of global governance of digital technologies, advocating for the reform of international institutions to include non-state actors and non-western governments. It explored the growing demand for involvement of non-state actors and considers the role of diplomacy in addressing this task [arguably still relevant today].)
Surveillance, Discrimination and Tech Theatre in Nairobi (A discussion with the Edgelands Institute on the implications of a rapid digitalization of security in my city).
Security and Trust in Africa’s Digital Financial Inclusion Landscape (A culmination of a three year project assessing cybersecurity in Africa’s digital financial services landscape, this co-authored paper draws the links between technical aspects of cybersecurity and resilience with sociocultural determinants of trust, and how those should inform how digital financial inclusion is advanced, especially for the un(der)served).
Female policy experts enabling Africa’s tech landscape (In line with the International Women’s Day 2024 theme — Inspiring Inclusion— I spoke to Connecting Africa about strides and hurdles facing African women in tech (policy), including my own journey in the space)
African countries are caught in the middle in the geopolitical tech debate(In an interview with the Crown Princess Mary Centre (Denmark), I share my take on how Africa is impacted by and impacting tech geopolitics).
The democratisation of information and its influence on culture over time (At the 2024 Culture Summit Abu Dhabi, I shared my take on the impacts of tech on media and culture in a globalized world, including challenging prevailing assumptions of tech diffusion — notably ‘west to rest’)
