Mesfin Fikre Woldmariam

Mesfin Fikre Woldmariam is an Assistant Professor at the College of Business and Economics and an affiliate at the Institute for Development and Policy Research at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. He is also a Co-Investigator on a British Academy’s ODA International Interdisciplinary Research Project called Gender and Digital Repression: The Practice and Toll of Digital Repression on Women in the Authoritarian Turn. He holds a PhD in Information Systems from Addis Ababa University.

Mesfin Fikre’s academic research interests lie at the intersections of technology, business, social science and development. He focuses on inclusive technological solution design and socio-technical systems in the context of technology-impoverished societies. He has a particular interest in AI policymaking, AI for socio-economic analysis, and predictive analysis and modelling for development.

Recent projects Mesfin Fikre has led include designing mobile money systems for rural societies who cannot read and write in collaboration with IMTFI of the University of California, Irvine, and exploring the use of AI technologies in humanitarian action context with funding from IDRC and SIDA under a program called AI4D implemented by African Center for Technology Studies (ACTS). He is currently a grant recipient from  the International Institute of Forecasters under an initiative called Forecasting for Social Good. He is also working on AI policymaking as well as internet shutdown.