Dorothy Gordon | |
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Born | Dorothy Gordon |
Education | Achimota School, University of Ghana, University of Sussex |
Dorothy K. Gordon is a Ghanaian technology activist and development specialist. She was the founding director general of the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (AITI-KACE). [1] She left AITI-KACE in 2016. She is former board member of Creative Commons and currently serves on its advisory council. She also serves on the board of Linux Professional Institute [2] [3] [4] [5]
Gordon was born in Nsawam, Ghana, she spent her childhood in the United Kingdom and Nigeria and returned to Ghana for secondary school. She is fluent in English and French.
She received her secondary education from Achimota School and went on to the University of Ghana and the Institute of Development Studies of the University of Sussex.
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Gordon has worked in technology and development for over 25 years. She worked as a Senior Deputy Resident Representative at the UNDP. Dorothy Gordon steered policy and training programmes on open source technologies of AITI-KACE in Ghana and other African countries [6] as a council member of the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA). In 2013, she was named one of twenty of 'Africa’s Most Powerful Women In Technology'. [7]
Her early career was focused on rural development and environmental issues. She completed National Service with the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research at the University of Ghana working on migration studies. She moved to Senegal where she worked with ENDA Tier Monde (Environment Development Action in the Third World), first on the Action Research Team in the Sine-Saloum and Fleuve and then as editor for the English version of the international journal ENDA-Action.
After her post-graduate studies she joined UNDP in the newly formed NGO division in UNDP-HQ as the Africa 2000 network co-ordinator. She designed and implemented this multimillion-dollar project with a focus on sustainable environmental management and promotion of indigenous technical knowledge transfer between rural communities throughout the African continent. Other UN assignments included work as Assistant Resident Representative in Zambia and managing volunteer engagements in the Sahel and subsequently South Asia with United Nations Volunteers in Geneva and Bonn. In her role as Senior Deputy Resident Representative in India she had oversight over one of the largest UNDP country programmes with direct responsibility for achieving targets against negotiated monitoring and evaluation frameworks during a period of organisational restructuring. The first joint programme evaluation was carried out during her tenure.
During a special leave from the UN to work in Ghana, she was a consultant on the USAID Leland project with a focus on public access through telecenters as well as other projects for CAFRAD, ECA, UNDP and others. As a PricewaterhouseCoopers associate, she worked on public and civil society assignments involving strategy and organisational restructuring. She also lectured on NGO management at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration. She served for 2 terms on the board of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation and was part of the team which drafted the National Media Policy incorporating principles of media freedom and independence.
Appointed in 2003 as the first Director-General of the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT, she set up strong internal systems and external partnerships to establish and strategically position AITI as a Centre of Excellence in ICT with a global reputation and strong leadership within Africa. Financial sustainability was achieved through consistent growth and expansion of activity in areas of training, consulting, community engagement and advisory services for governments, regional and multilateral bodies including ECOWAS, UNESCO and the World Bank as well as major global technology companies.
In addition to technology leadership through introduction of emerging technologies and related new training products and methodologies, she ensured that AITI-KACE also supported programmes including code camps and information literacy to reach underserved communities. These included women, the aged and rural youth. The annual innovation week was established to encourage technology start-ups, strategic use of licensing regimes including CC and GPL and improved links between public, private and civil sectors and the technology community. AITI is a best practice example for India's IT diplomacy and South-South cooperation. The Centre has inspired the establish of many similar Centres globally.
As Director-General she served as a member on a number of think tanks, commissions and advisory panels including the World Bank World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends; Global Commission for Internet Governance (GCIG) for 'One Internet'. [8]
Currently she remains actively involved at Board or Jury level on a number of global initiatives working on defining a better technology mediated future. She is a board member and expert for the World Summit Awards. [9] [10] She also serves on the board of directors of the Linux Professional Institute. She works on gender and technology with Chatham House and as Chair for the Working group on Information Literacy UNESCO/IFAP. She is also an Advisory council member Creative Commons Global and for kasahorow [11] an NGO that gives African language speakers around the world the freedom to express themselves in their own languages in the digital age.
She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Cyber Policy as well as the International Journal of Gender Science and Technology. She is a long term Council Member of the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa. She is also Chair of Literacy Bridge Ghana, which works to save lives and improve livelihoods of impoverished families through comprehensive programmes that provide on-demand access to locally relevant knowledge.
Madam Dorothy was at the just ended World Summit Awards Grand Jury in Ghana and spoke as the WSA Expert in Ghana. The event was held from November 3, 2018 to November 7, 2018. [12]
Kofi Atta Annan was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founder and chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation, as well as chairman of The Elders, an international organisation founded by Nelson Mandela.
The United Nations Information and Communication Technologies Task Force was a multi-stakeholder initiative associated with the United Nations which is "intended to lend a truly global dimension to the multitude of efforts to bridge the global digital divide, foster digital opportunity and thus firmly put ICT at the service of development for all".
George Mark Malloch Brown, Baron Malloch-Brown is a British diplomat, communications consultant, journalist and former politician serving as president of Open Society Foundations since 2021, having previously served as Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations under Kofi Annan from April to December 2006. A former member of the Labour Party, he served as Minister of State for Africa and the United Nations in the Brown government from 2007 to 2009.
The World Summit Awards (WSA) rewards Information and Communications Technologies projects that have a positive impact on society at the local level. The award was initiated in 2003, within the framework of the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society. After the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 56/183. The awards are open to companies, organizations, or individuals from any of the UN and the UNESCO Member States. They are divided into 8 different categories. The world summit awards are managed by the International Center for New Media (ICNM), a non-profit organization based in Salzburg, Austria. ICNM was founded by Peter A. Bruck, in 2002.
The Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (AITI-KACE) is Ghana's first Advanced Information Technology Institute (AITI). It was established in 2003, through a partnership between the government of Ghana and the government of India.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Group (UNSDG), previously the United Nations Development Group (UNDG), is a consortium of 36 United Nations funds, programmes, specialized agencies, departments and offices that play a role in development. It was created by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in order to improve the effectiveness of United Nations development activities at the country level.
Ayisi N. Makatiani is the Managing Partner and CEO of Fanisi Capital Ltd, which manages the Fanisi Venture Capital Fund for investing in East Africa. Makatiani has been featured in The Economist, Fortune (magazine), CNN, NHK, BBC, Financial Times (London). He has been voted as the top East Africa CEO three times in a row by his peers.
Alan Claude Doss is a British international civil servant who has spent his entire professional life in the service of the United Nations, working on peacekeeping, development and humanitarian assignments in Africa, Asia and Europe as well as at United Nations Headquarters in New York City.
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India-Ghana relations are the bilateral relations between India and Ghana. As members of the Commonwealth, India maintains a High Commission in Accra and Ghana has its High Commission in New Delhi.
The Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) is a public co-educational university spread over four campuses and made up of six schools, ten research centers located at Greenhill in Accra, Ghana.
The Ministry of Communication and Technology is a government ministry responsible for the development of communications and technology in Ghana. The ministry's offices are in Accra, Greater Accra.
Yawa Hansen-Quao is a Ghanaian founder, social entrepreneur and a feminist. She sits on the Board of Directors of Ashesi University, serves on the advisory board, Women's Institute for Global Leadership and Benedictine University. She is the founder of the Leading Ladies Network (LLN), a member of the African Leadership Network and the World Economic Forum's Global Shapers Community. She is a force to reckon with in the education and well-being of the girl child.
Mary Chinery-Hesse,, née Blay is an international civil servant and diplomat serving as the first woman Chancellor of the University of Ghana, inducted on 1 August 2018. She was the first female Deputy Director-General of the International Labour Organization
Mohammed-Sani Abdulai is a Ghanaian educator and IT professional. He is currently the president of Lakeside University College.
The African Summit on Women and Girls in Technology is an international summit organized by the World Wide Web Foundation and the Alliance for Affordable Internet in collaboration with other international organizations and ministries. It is a gathering of digital equality advocates who are mostly women and the main focus of discussion is bridging the digital gender gap.
Nana Adjoa Adobea Asante is as of 2020 the acting director of the National Folklore Board and one of the youngest government agency heads in Ghana.
Roberta Annan is a Ghanaian businesswoman and the founder of the African Fashion Foundation. She is also an investor, philanthropist, and a United Nations Environment Programme Goodwill Ambassador. Annan was the youngest African to be inducted into the African Leadership Hall of Fame. A graduate of Carleton University and Georgetown University, Annan began her career with an internship at the U.N. headquarters in New York City. Annan is the owner of Annan Capital Partners, an investment company in Sub-Saharan Africa, and ALDG, a portfolio of assets in sustainable hospitality, agribusiness, and sustainable luxury in Africa.