Nai Lee Kalema
| Nai Lee Kalema | |
|---|---|
.jpg) File:Nai Lee Kalema (cropped).jpg Nai Lee Kalema speaking at IIPP Forum 2025 | |
| Born | Minnesota, United States |
| 💼 Occupation | |
| Known for | Digital Governance Algorithmic Governance Global Political Economy of Digital Transformation |
Nai Lee Kalema is an American scholar of international relations and global governance and PhD researcher in Innovation and Public Policy at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP), at University College London. Kalema's research is on the global political economy of digital transformation and algorithmic governance.
Kalema was a 2024–2025 Technology and Human Rights fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights Policy[1] and is a Critical Infrastructures Lab fellow (geopolitics) at University of Amsterdam.[2] She is also a member of Tierra Comun.[3]
Early Life and Education
Kalema was born in suburban Minnesota to an African-American mother and a Ugandan father. She moved to Washington, D.C., for her university studies in English literature at George Washington University. At university, she took an interest in African diaspora studies. Kalema explored in her work connections of all the African cultures globally – including the US, Latin America, and the Caribbean – and the comparative structures of power affecting the African diaspora in different places.[4]
Academic Work
Kalema's doctoral research is on the global political economy of digital transformation and algorithmic governance, specializing in international organizations' coordination and advancement of global digital policy (referring to the growing body of transnational and international laws, treaties, agreements, norms, standards, etc.) and governance arrangements through globally coordinated efforts and prominent digital transformation initiatives (e.g., digital public infrastructure, data governance, and algorithmic governance).
Kalema warned against the perception that data is neutral. She pointed to the fact that interpretation of data is a form of power, even when it is delegated to automated systems. The interpretation of data affects people's lives in a way that is not neutral.[5] She publicly discussed the loss of control of individuals over their data accumulated and stored by digital platforms.[6]
In 2023, Kalema was a visiting researcher at the University of Copenhagen's Centre of African Studies (CAS).[7]
Global Perspective on Data Governance
Kalema examines in her work how political, economic, and cultural forces shape global digital transformation governance, policy, and projects within and amongst countries.[8] She examined the so-called Digital Transformation for Development (DX4D) initiatives’ depoliticising, technocratic, and value‐extractive dynamics and effects.[9] In her research, she is focused on the exploitation of the Global South. She identified some countries as digital colonies where large technology multinationals extract data with little effort.[8] She collaborates with legal scholars on questions of AI supply chains.[10]
Kalema engaged in conversations on decolonizing public institutions.[11] She worked on and visited Uganda for her research.[12]
References
- ↑ "Nai Lee Kalema". Harvard Kennedy School. Retrieved 29 July 2025.
- ↑ "Nai Lee Kalema". Critical Infrastructures Lab. Retrieved 10 August 2025.
- ↑ "Nai Lee Kalema". Tiera Comun. Retrieved 29 July 2025.
- ↑ Justin Beirold (1 February 2025). "Nai Lee Kalema". Valuable Conversations with UCL IIPP (Podcast). UCL. Retrieved 29 July 2025.
- ↑ "Tequiologías - entrevista Nai Lee Kalema". YouTube. <A+> Alliance. Retrieved 29 July 2025.
- ↑ "CRUNCH: Data Mourning". London Architecture Diary. 30 September 2024. Retrieved 29 August 2025.
- ↑ "Guest PhD researcher, Nai Kalema, links up with CERTIZENS in Copenhagen". University of Copenhagen. 2 January 2023. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Yalçıntaş, Altuğ; Heise, Arne (2025). Decolonial Narratives in Economics. Edward Elgar Publishing. ISBN 9781035329649. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
Nai Lee Kalema advocates for a decolonial perspective in global digital transformation policy and PSDT, proposing a framework called the decolonial global political economy of digital transformation (GPEDT)
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- ↑ "Fachbereich Politik- und Verwaltungswissenschaft" [Department of Politics and Public Administration] (in German). Universität Konstanz. Retrieved 27 August 2025.CS1 maint: Unrecognized language (link)
- ↑ "AI and Infrastructure Research Group". Law as Science. Retrieved 27 August 2025.
- ↑ "Nai Lee Kalema on Decolonising Public Administration". UCL. 24 January 2024. Retrieved 29 July 2025.
- ↑ "MIT Students 2017 Cohort @ the RAN Innovation Lab". US AID and Resilient Africa Network. Retrieved 29 July 2025.
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