Alison Gillwald (PhD) is the Executive Director of Research ICT Africa (RIA) an African digital policy and regulatory think-tank that works across 20 African countries. She is also adjunct- professor at the University of Cape Town’s Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance where she supervises doctoral students undertaking transdisciplinary research in digital policy regulation and data governance. A former regulator she was appointed to the founding Council of the South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (SATRA) in 1997, having headed the policy department at the first broadcasting regulator, the Independent Broadcasting Authority established in 1994. She has advised the South African Presidency, the National Planning Commission, the Competition Commission and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, in addition to the African Union Commission, SADC, CRASA and the SADC Parliamentary Forum. She has been commissioned by the International Telecommunications Union, the World Bank and the African Development Bank to undertake research to inform policy across a number of Africa countries and collaborates with networks across the Global South to build evidence base for decision-makers. She is the deputy chairperson of Giganet, the international academic internet governance conference and was an inaugural associate editor of the ITU journal, Discoveries.