Ory Okolloh
Ushahidi & Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures

Cyber activist Ory Okolloh first rose to international prominence during the post-election violence that engulfed Kenya between December 2007 and January 2008. Her interactive mapping platform, Ushahidi—meaning “testimony” in Swahili—enabled citizens to report incidents in real time and visualise dangerous areas, helping people avoid zones of violence. Released as open-source software, Ushahidi went on to become a global reference for crisis mapping and has since been deployed in humanitarian emergencies around the world, including after major earthquakes. During the 2010s, Okolloh held leadership roles at Google Africa before joining Omidyar Network, the philanthropic investment organisation founded by one of eBay’s creators, where she championed civic participation and digital rights. Today, she is recognised as one of Africa’s leading voices on digital governance. A committed advocate and critical thinker, she works to ensure that artificial intelligence becomes a tool for empowering communities rather than enabling surveillance or deepening exclusion. Okolloh now serves on the investment committee of Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures (VKAV), a pan-African venture capital firm that backs mission-driven entrepreneurs across the continent. Her career embodies a distinctly African vision of technology—one grounded in citizenship, inclusion and democratic accountability. Her influence is particularly significant in debates surrounding the ethical implications of AI: from data collection and digital sovereignty to algorithmic bias and the reproduction of political and social inequalities.