Tope Ogundipe

Co-Founder & Director at Tech Societal

Speaker

Tope is the Founder/Director at TechSocietal Consulting, a social enterprise excelling at technology policy programs management for social good. Specifically, TechSocietal engages with technology and/or digital policies, programs and products; for human rights, freedoms, gender and inclusion. Tope's consulting experience involves work with clients from global internet based organisations, consulting firms, and international aid organisations in areas of research, advocacy, gender mainstreaming, program management, capacity building, diagnostics, strategy development, and stakeholder engagement. She is currently working as a regional specialist on the UK Aid Funded Digital Access Programme (Trust and Resilience Component); towards more inclusive, safe and secure digital access for excluded and underserved communities in partner countries. Her work with clients on similar themes include a digital Inclusion diagnostic and strategy development to bridge the digital divide for underserved or unserved communities and PLWDs in a COVID-19 context, research to understand the digital gender gap and the economic impacts of these themes, as well as stakeholder engagement and advisory for major internet-based organisations. Tope worked previously as the Chief Operating Officer and as the Africa Programs Director at Paradigm Initiative (a pan-African social enterprise with presence in 8 African countries running digital rights advocacy programs) leading design, implementation and expansion of programs for the development of public policy for internet rights and freedoms throughout key regions of Africa. In these roles, she also organised the yearly bi-lingual Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum for 6 years, with participants from up to 30 African countries participating, and the 'Tech for Good Day' annually in Nigeria in association with Microsoft empowering the third sector to use technology for solving social problems. She’s an advocate for women’s rights in the digital space and has worked on projects with the Worldwide Web Foundation which involves research and policy advocacy on mainstreaming gender in national ICT policies.

Tope works with such regional and international networks as the Alliance for Affordable Internet, The IGF Best Practise Forum (On Gender and Access), African Internet Rights Alliance & the Net Rights Africa Coalition to advance digital access and resilience. She is an alumnus of the Harvard Kennedy School, the Lagos Business School & the Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria.