Bonaventure Saturday
Research Manager, Pollicy
Kampala, Uganda
Actions
Bonaventure Saturday is a researcher and project manager with over ten years of experience in digital rights, gender justice, and civic engagement in Africa, with a particular focus on online safety for women in public life, technology facilitated gender based violence, data governance, and feminist digital inclusion. He has extensive experience in managing and evaluating donor funded programmes, conducting needs assessments and policy relevant research, and engaging multi stakeholder actors across civil society, government, academia, and the private sector. As a feminist digital rights advocate, he contributes evidence based perspectives to policy discourse and is committed to advancing inclusive, safe, and rights respecting digital environments across Africa
Links
Area of Expertise
Topics
Building AI That Works for Africa: Lessons from Digital Public Infrastructures in Africa
Governments across the world are integrating artificial intelligence into public services, often relying on existing Digital Public Infrastructure such as digital identity, payment systems, and data exchange platforms. Despite rapid adoption, many AI initiatives inherit structural challenges already present within these digital systems, including exclusion, weak accountability, limited transparency, and unequal access.
This session examines what AI practitioners can learn from Digital Public Infrastructure initiatives across Africa. Drawing on comparative research from Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa, it identifies governance, technical, and institutional factors that influence whether AI strengthens or weakens public trust.
Participants will gain practical recommendations for designing AI enabled public services that prioritise inclusion, transparency, interoperability, and human rights. The presentation provides a perspective from the Global South that complements existing discussions on AI governance and responsible innovation.
Invisible Labour & Data: What Domestic Workers Teach Us About Building Inclusive AI Infrastructure
Artificial intelligence is often presented as a technological breakthrough driven by algorithms, large language models, and computing infrastructure. Far less attention is given to the human labour and everyday data practices that make AI systems possible and determine who benefits from them.
Drawing on research with domestic workers in Nairobi Kenya, this session explores how invisible forms of digital labour shape AI infrastructure. Domestic workers increasingly interact with AI mediated recruitment platforms, messaging applications, digital identity systems, payment technologies, and algorithmic management tools. These interactions generate data that are rarely recognised as labour despite becoming part of the digital ecosystems that support AI development and deployment.
The session introduces a feminist lens for understanding AI infrastructure to explore questions of consent, data ownership, surveillance, digital exclusion, and unequal power relations, demonstrating how these issues influence both AI governance and everyday working conditions.
Participants will gain practical insights into designing AI systems that recognise invisible labour, protect vulnerable communities, and promote equitable data governance. The session combines empirical evidence from African contexts with policy and design recommendations relevant to researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and technology developers interested in responsible AI
AI Without Data Justice Is Just Better Automation
Artificial intelligence is often judged by the performance of its models. Discussions typically focus on accuracy, bias mitigation, explainability, or regulatory compliance. Much less attention is given to the governance of the data that make these systems possible.
This session argues that AI cannot be considered trustworthy if the underlying data are collected, governed, and used in ways that reproduce unequal power relations. Better algorithms built on unjust data practices simply automate existing inequalities at greater speed and scale.
Drawing on research from African digital ecosystems, including Digital Public Infrastructure, civic technology, FemTech, and digital labour platforms, the presentation introduces data justice as a practical framework for evaluating AI systems. It examines questions of consent, ownership, participation, representation, accountability, and community agency across the AI lifecycle.
Participants will learn how data justice differs from conventional AI ethics, why it should be integrated into AI design and governance from the outset, and how organisations can identify data governance risks before they become AI risks. The session concludes with a practical framework that researchers, developers, policymakers, and technology leaders can apply when designing or evaluating AI systems
Protecting Women Political Actors from Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence in Africa
This session examines how technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) systematically excludes women from political life in West and East Africa. Drawing on recent research by Pollicy in Ivory Coast and Tanzania, the session highlights how social media platforms, while enabling women in politics and women human rights defenders to engage constituents, mobilise supporters, and amplify advocacy, also expose them to coordinated online harassment, gendered disinformation, sexualised attacks, and threats.
Participants will explore patterns of digital targeting during electoral cycles, cultural and structural drivers of online abuse, and the limitations of legal and platform-based recourse. The discussion will be structured into three interactive sections:
Understanding how TFGBV manifests online and its impact on women’s political participation.
Evaluating gaps in platform moderation, legal protections, and governance frameworks that fail to address local and linguistic contexts.
Co-developing practical recommendations for policy, platform accountability, and civil society interventions that strengthen women’s safe digital participation.
The session will use moderated discussion, scenario-based exercises, and real-time synthesis of insights to generate actionable strategies for policymakers, regulators, civil society, and digital rights advocates across the region.
An Afro feminist Analysis of Digital Public Infrastructure and Gendered Consequences
Digital Public Infrastructure is increasingly promoted across Africa as a foundation for digital government, financial inclusion, and public service delivery. National digital identity systems, interoperable data platforms, and digital payment infrastructures are expanding rapidly. Evidence from recent deployments indicates that efficiency driven design priorities often overshadow inclusion, rights protection, and accountability.
This session presents findings from comparative research conducted in Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa examining how digital public infrastructure governance choices affect women, ethnic minorities, and other marginalised communities. The research identifies structural barriers embedded in system design, data governance frameworks, and institutional accountability arrangements. These barriers include exclusion from identity registration processes, gendered patterns of access to digital services, and limited mechanisms for redress when digital harms occur.
The discussion moves beyond problem identification to examine practical governance responses relevant to West African contexts. Participants will analyse how gender responsive design principles, rights respecting data governance frameworks, and institutional accountability mechanisms can be integrated into digital public infrastructure programmes. The session will draw lessons from the African experience to support policymakers, regulators, and civil society actors working to build inclusive and trusted digital systems.
Expected outcomes include concrete policy recommendations for embedding gender by design approaches in digital public infrastructure governance and strengthening accountability mechanisms for digital systems deployed in public administration.
From Homes to Hashtags: Women Domestic Workers and the Struggle for Fair Labor Policies in Kenya
This discussion will focus on how Kenyan women domestic workers utilize digital platforms in accessing employment, mobilization, and advocating for fair labor practices.
Participants will engage with members from domestic worker collectives, labour platforms, civil society organizations, and policy actors to share experiences, observations, and insights, and practical strategies.
The workshop will be structured into three interactive sections:
1. exploring current use of digital platforms by domestic workers to find work and mobilise,
2. discussing challenges and opportunities for online mobilization, and
3. co-identifying actionable approaches to strengthen domestic worker advocacy, with lessons that can be applied to other sectors or regions..
The participants will contribute through facilitated questions capturing different perspectives encouraging knowledge sharing of experiences from different backgrounds. Real-time feedback and learnings will be collected by capturing key points from discussions and short feedback rounds
Bonaventure Saturday
Research Manager, Pollicy
Kampala, Uganda
Links
Actions
Please note that Sessionize is not responsible for the accuracy or validity of the data provided by speakers. If you suspect this profile to be fake or spam, please let us know.
Jump to top