The Team
Damaris Mabeya
Founder
Ms. Damaris Mabeya is the Founder of Aminia Dada Innovations (ADI). This is a Kenyan woman-led organization that works towards the promotion, protection and realisation of inclusive digital rights for all.
Damaris has previously worked with the UN Human rights charter bodies and it’s subsidiaries in promoting women’s development through formulating human rights based approaches. She has extensive experiences in substantive research and has been key in the execution of institutional strategies and mechanisms on gender inclusivity in Geneva, Switzerland.
At the International Telecommunications Union and various organizations, Damaris liaised with external institutions in developing policy papers and frameworks. She has developed and implemented regulatory mechanisms on socio-economic tools towards digital inclusivity in developing countries. Damaris recently participated on a panel on 'Redefining Gender Equality in the Digital World' at the 2022 General Connect Global Youth Summit, by the ITU in Kigali, Rwanda
Shamira Ahmed
Board Member
Shamira is a development economist with over ten years' experience. She has economic modeling, economic regulation, policy implementation, advocacy, and economic development policy formulation expertise on sub-Saharan African (SSA) and the global South.
She has led and contributed to a wide range of projects and initiatives such as: providing key economic development inputs that shaped the African Union Commission's Continental Data Policy Framework, identifying research gaps and initiating strategic collaborations with key stakeholders to advocate beneficial artificial intelligence (AI) and circularity in SSA, and providing strategy advice that considers how decentralized finance, AI, platformisation, and advanced data analytics will disrupt operational models in the South African private bank and wealth management ecosystem, to name a few. She has broad research, strategy, and advisory proficiency on multiple industries and a versatile skill set, which she gained from working as: a commercial market research consultant at a multinational consultancy firm; a multi-industry trade, industrialisation, and investment economist in the public sector; a senior economist at a think tank; and, as a data economy technical advisor for an international development cooperation agency. She is also an associate consultant at a leading research and consulting firm that specialises in research and strategy advice on capital markets and financial services in SSA.
Shamira is an Australia Awards Africa Scholarship recipient and Graeme Wilson Leadership Prize awardee. She has a quantitative economics and econometrics academic background obtained from the University of Johannesburg and Australian National University.
Blandina Bobson
Board Member
Blandina Ijecha Bobson is the Director of Programmes for Oxfam in Kenya heading the Women’s Rights and Gender Justice, Governance and Accountability and Natural Resources programme pillars. She has over 13 years’ experience leading the conceptualization, design, resource mobilization, implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation of both development and humanitarian programmes within the region.
Blandina is a Women’s Rights Champion and is passionate about amplifying the voices of women through research, writing thought pieces and challenging both formal and informal patriarchal systems that propagate gender inequalities and prevent women and girls from enjoying their rights and achieving their full potential in life.
Cristiana Flutur
Board Member
Ms. Cristiana Flutur joined the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) in 2012, as an expert in the Unit for International Relations and European Affairs. She has an active role in representing Romania in the ITU and other international foras.
In June 2019, she was appointed Director for International Affairs within ANCOM, managing the activity of three units which cover issues such as relationship with international and regional organisations, translations and bilateral cooperation, EU affairs, the organization of events and travels, respectively.
Ms. Flutur is the first woman to hold the position of chair of the Committee for ITU Policy (Com-ITU) and co-president of CEPT (The European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations), for a period of three years that started in June 2018, being re-elected to a second three-year term in 2021.
She has acted as European vice-chair of the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference 2018 (PP-18) and main coordinator for the European Common Proposals and Positions for PP-18.
Cristiana also holds the chairmanship of the Advisory Board for the Network of women for WTDC (NOW4WTDC), an initiative which is designed to encourage gender balance in the activities leading up to the World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC) and beyond.
Ms Flutur is an Economics graduate from the Faculty of Finance and Banking, Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies and holds a master’s degree from the same university in European Economics. She has an extensive experience in the public sector, in both national and international institutions.
