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Malavika is the Executive Director of the Digital Asia Hub, an independent, non-profit internet and society research think tank based out of Hong Kong with a regional focus. She is currently an Affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and has previously been a Fellow in residence, and a Faculty Associate.

In a former life as a practising technology lawyer, Malavika was an Associate at Allen & Overy, London, and was Vice President and Technology Counsel at Citigroup EMEA. Her activism around biometric identifiers, data privacy, and inequality in India and the majority world led her to pivot towards civil society and academia. She has been a Fellow with the Centre for Internet & Society, India, since 2009 when she helped start their privacy program. She was a Visiting Scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, and has had fellowships at the University of Sydney and the Institute for Technology & Society, Rio de Janeiro. She was on the faculty of the Yung Pung How School of Law at Singapore Management University, and has taught at Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law as part of the Master of Science in Law program, bridging STEM and the law. She taught India’s first course on information technology and law in 1997 (not a typo).

Malavika is committed to expanding the universe of narratives and stories we tell about technology, and in bringing Asian and non-Western perspectives into dialogue with dominant paradigms and tropes. As part of this practice at Digital Asia Hub, she convened the AI in Asia series (2016), the Fairness Accountability and Transparency/Asia conference (2019), and the Platform Futures project (2020-2023). She helped bring Drones and Dreams, a speculative sprint story collection, to life (2019).
 


Projects & Tools

Advising Governments

Through this project we assist - in the public-interest - people working in governments across the globe in dealing with pressing challenges related to innovative digital…

Digital Asia Hub

The Digital Asia Hub is an independent, non-profit Internet and society research think tank based in Hong Kong.

Past

Digital Ethics in Times of Crisis: COVID-19 & Access to Education and Learning Spaces

A global research sprint explores digital transformation at a pivotal moment in time

Past

Digital Self-Determination Research Sprint

From March to May 2021, we co-hosted a virtual program that convened 25 student participants from 21 countries spread over six continents.

The Ethics of Digitalization

Led by the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), the Berkman Klein Center, and the Digital Asia Hub, and in collaboration with the Global Network of…


News

Fast Company
Jun 25, 2021

What we learned about the future of education from COVID-19

What is learning and where and how does it happen? The pandemic let us consider these questions in new ways.

What is learning and where and how does it happen? The pandemic let us consider these questions in new ways.

May 20, 2021

Youth and Media, BKC Policy Practice inform UNICEF report on Children’s Data

UNICEF report shares vision for better approach to children’s data

UNICEF report shares vision for better approach to children’s data


Community

Digital Asia Hub

Drones & Dreams

A Speculative Sprint Story Collection

This new publication from the Digital Asia Hub collects the outputs of a two-day speculative fiction–writing workshop held in December 2018

Jan 16, 2019
Video

The Geographic Opportunities and Challenges of AI

Malavika Jayaram of the Digital Asia Hub

Malavika Jayaram discusses the language we use to talk about Artificial Intelligence, and the impact of AI in Asia.

Jan 11, 2017

Events

May 26, 2021 @ 10:00 AM

Framing Decisions

Video & Podcast: A Book Talk about Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil

Video & Podcast: A book talk about human advantage in an age of technology and turmoil

May 13, 2014 @ 12:30 PM

Does Size Matter? A Tale of Performing Welfare, Producing Bodies and Faking Identity

Malavika Jayaram, Berkman Fellow

By offering a perspective that is somewhat different from the traditional western focus of privacy, Malavika Jayaram hopes to generate a more inclusive discourse about what it…

Dec 12, 2013 @ 6:00 PM

Cyberscholars Working Group

at MIT

The Cyberscholar Working Group is a forum for fellows and affiliates of MIT, Yale Law School Information Society Project, Columbia University, and the Berkman Center for Internet …