Ms. Anita Gurumurthy
Founding member and Executive Director, IT for Change, Bangalore, India
Ms. Anita Gurumurthy (India), Founding member and Executive Director, IT for Change, Bangalore
Anita Gurumurthy is a founding member and executive director of IT for Change (ITfC) where she leads research on the platform economy, data and AI governance, democracy in the digital age and feminist frameworks on digital justice. Anita actively engages in national and international advocacy on digital rights and contributes regularly to academic and media spaces. She serves as advisor on various bodies including Save the Children’s ICT4D Brain Trust, Minderoo Tech & Policy Lab ‘s Board, and the United Nations Secretary-General’s 10-Member Group in support of the Technology Facilitation Mechanism (TFM).
Anita leads a range of research projects: Unskewing the Data Value Chain, a policy research project for equitable platform economies; Centering Women in India’s Digitalizing Economy, a policy research and learning exchange project spanning India, Africa and the EU on women and the future of work; Recognise-Resist-Remedy, a project to address gender-based hate speech in the online public sphere.
She also contributes to policy forums and academic spaces: She was Part of the expert group set up by UN Women towards CSW 64. She contributes regularly to policy related processes in global policy arenas, such as the WTO Public Forum, UN Human Rights Council, UN-CEDAW, UN-CSW UNCTAD, UN Women, UNESCO and other venues, and the work of Special Rapporteurs of the UN. She Has represented civil society positions in global events on many occasions including the UN Internet Governance Forum (plenary session on cybersecurity at IGF 2017, opening session and main session on human rights and the Internet at IGF 2016 and closing session at IGF 2008). She was invited to deliver a keynote at the B'AI Global Forum launch event at the University of Tokyo in March 2021. She was plenary speaker at the IAMCR’s 2020 conference (online). Also spoke at IAMCR main plenaries - 2016 conference in Leicester, UK, and 2014 conference in Hyderabad, India. She has contributed to global civil society discussions on the post-Covid digital context including at the Women’s Working Group on Financing for Development; the Transnational Institute’s webinar series ‘Taking on the Tech Titans’, and FES’ discussions on Gender and the Digital Economy in Asia. Lastly, she was a Keynote speaker at the AAAI/ACM conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Society in February 2020.