Programs

DRILL Program

PIN receives applications for its Digital Rights and Inclusion Learning Lab (DRILL) once a year. The successful applicants work full time with Paradigm Initiative team members for 9 months. As a mid-career fellowship, potential candidates are expected to have a minimum of 5 years’ experience as technology or social innovators, researchers, policy experts, and/or entrepreneurs. Fellows must have a relevant postgraduate qualification, be exceptional individuals who bring new learnings and innovations as well as gain exposure to the digital ecosystem.

PIN receives applications for its Digital Rights and Inclusion Learning Lab (DRILL) once a year.

The successful applicants work full time with Paradigm Initiative team members for 9 months.

As a mid-career fellowship, potential candidates are expected to have a minimum of 5 years’ experience as technology or social innovators, researchers, policy experts, and/or entrepreneurs.

Activities

PIN hosts innovative learning around digital rights and inclusion in Africa, and serves as a space for enhanced capacity, practice and reflection aimed to involve and connect different stakeholders and create dialogue amongst researchers, social innovators, policymakers and actors, the private sector, as well as civil society. The successful fellows are involved in a number of activities, including the following;

  • Work full time within any of the PIN offices.
  • Work on an innovative project.
  • Host a Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum (DRIF) session.

 

 

  • Host monthly ecosystem/sector meetings with the PIN Team to engage the ecosystem on critical issues arising or existing.
  • Conduct biweekly presentations and prepare content to share with the PIN team on their project
  • Feature a monthly DRILL podcast.

Fellows

Kofi Yeboah

Kofi Yeboah

Kofi Yeboah is a graduate of the University of Alberta, Canada where he earned both his Masters degree in Communications and Technology and an embedded Certificate in Community-based Research and Engagement. Also, he earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana where he studied Economics and Sociology. His research interests lie at the intersections of the internet, emerging technologies, and the digital divide in sub-Saharan Africa. Kofi was a co-lead of the Global Voices research team that conducted a cross-regional field study of Facebook’s Free Basics app, where the app was measured against collectively-developed benchmarks of usability, quality of connection, language and accessibility, content, and privacy/data policies. His articles and thoughtful comments on internet freedom and authoritarian technology have appeared in major international and local media outlets including Aljazeera, Democracy in Africa, Coda Story, Fast Company, and Global Voices Online. His current research focuses on exploring why artificial intelligence inclusion gaps exist and identifying the key contributing factors that continue to widen the gap. He spends most of his time exploring how emerging technologies could benefit excluded groups in the global south, especially sub-Saharan Africa.

Silver Francis Oonyu

Silver Francis Oonyu

Silver Francis Oonyu is interested in research on learning difficulties of blind children in Uganda. Silver received a Master of Education in Vision Studies at the University of Pittsburgh in 2012. He also holds a Graduate Certificate in African Studies from the same University, in Pennsylvania USA. He received a Bachelor’s Degree in Education specializing in History and Religious Studies from Makerere University in Uganda. Silver Francis Oonyu has been teaching blind children in Uganda since 13 April 1995 when the Ministry of Education and Sports sent him to Amuria Secondary School, in the rural heart of Teso Sub Region in Eastern Uganda. In 2014 Silver Francis Oonyu founded the Silver Memorial Inclusive Learning Centre now called SMILE which is one the first Inclusive Schools in Soroti Uganda. Silver is a strong believer in Justice in Education for blind children in Uganda and wherever they may be!

Captura2

PRECIOUS DEDE
Shares her Amazing Story

My name is Dede Precious. An alumna of AbaLIFE 2017 Batch A. I heard about AbaLIFE after

Captura1

PRECIOUS DEDE
Shares her Amazing Story

My name is Dede Precious. An alumna of AbaLIFE 2017 Batch A. I heard about AbaLIFE after

Next cohorts

Advisory board

Roselyn Ifeoma Micheal

DRILL - 2021

Precious Dede

DRILL - 2021

Felix Ndidi

DRILL - 2021

Enechukwu Chibuke

DRILL - 2021

Chigozie Israel

DRILL - 2021

Fatima Saleh

DRILL - 2021

Gideon Awanife

DRILL - 2021

Felix Ndidi

DRILL - 2021

Oritsemisan Favor Enemigin

DRILL - 2021

Chigozie Israel

DRILL - 2021