Neema Iyer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Neema Iyer is a technologist and artist. She is the founder and director of Pollicy, a civic technology organization based in Kampala, Uganda.

Early life and education[]

Iyer was raised in Nigeria by parents who are Tanzanian and Indian.[1] She then attended Emory University and completed a Masters in Public Health with a focus on epidemiology and statistics before returning to Africa.[1][2]

Career[]

After Iyer moved to Uganda in 2013,[3] she worked in information and communications technology, and then founded the civic technology organization Pollicy with grant funding from Facebook and Mozilla.[1]

Pollicy and Iyer have conducted research, including about gender-based violence in Africa, and online safety for women,[4] with reports illustrated by Iyer.[3][5][6] In 2020, after Iyer submitted the concept idea to the Mozilla Creative Awards, Pollicy partnered with Mozilla to create the "Choose Your Own Fake News" game,[7] which her team spent months developing.[8][9] Iyer drew the characters for the game, and emphasized in her designs the target audience of Africans.[8] Other Pollicy projects include a mockumentary about digital security developed with support from the University of California, Berkeley Center for Long-term Cybersecurity,[7][10] and a "Digital safe-tea" game designed with a "choose your own adventure" format to promote online safety awareness for women in Africa.[11]

In July 2021, Iyer was appointed to the Global Women's Safety Advisory Board at Facebook.[3]

Honors and awards[]

  • 2021 Quartz Africa Innovator[12]
  • 2021 Digital Equality Award, Research and Knowledge Builder category, Coalition for Digital Equality (CODE)[13]
  • 2021-22 Digital Civil Society Lab (DCSL) Practitioner Fellow, Stanford University[2][14]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c Gangji, Inaara (June 18, 2021). "Driving Feminist Data For Change". Forbes Africa. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  2. ^ a b "Neema Iyer". Stanford Center for Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity. Stanford University. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  3. ^ a b c Balungi, Claire (July 31, 2021). "Neema Iyer: Blazing a trail in technology and data". Daily Monitor. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  4. ^ Taylor, Lin (January 4, 2021). "Love, tech and online abuse of women in the time of coronavirus". Thomson Reuters Foundation News. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  5. ^ "REPORT: 30% of Ugandan women have experienced gender based harassment online". The Independent. August 21, 2020. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  6. ^ Whitehead, Anne (August 20, 2020). "One in three women harassed online - survey". Daily Monitor. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  7. ^ a b Harding, Xavier (June 11, 2020). "Getting to Know Pollicy, the Creators of Choose Your Own Fake News". Mozilla. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  8. ^ a b Salaudeen, Aisha (June 10, 2020). "'Choose Your Own Fake News' game wants to tackle misinformation in East Africa". CNN. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  9. ^ Lichtenstein, Amanda (June 16, 2020). "A new game plays with ideas about how disinformation works in East Africa". Global Voices. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  10. ^ "Fall 2019 Arts Contest Winners". CLTC. University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  11. ^ Fallon, Amy (August 13, 2021). "An innovative game is helping Ugandan women to combat online violence". Quartz. Archived from the original on August 13, 2021. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  12. ^ "Quartz Africa Innovators 2021: Female innovators lead the way". Quartz. Yahoo. September 22, 2021. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  13. ^ Olupot, Nathan Ernest (July 23, 2021). "CODE Announces Winners For The Inaugural Digital Equality Awards". PC Tech Magazine. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  14. ^ "DCSL Names Practitioner Fellows 2021-22". Stanford PACS. January 14, 2021. Retrieved 27 September 2021.

External links[]

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