Yoti Selects its Digital Identity Research Fellows

“The program promises to shed light on a number of issues pertaining to digital identity, and may also help to raise Yoti’s profile as a provider of digital identity solutions based primarily on mobile and facial recognition technologies.”

This past spring, Yoti announced a new Fellowship Programme aimed at fostering research into under-explored areas of digital identity, and the company has now selected three individuals to carry that research out.

One is Tshepo Magoma, a South Africa-based researcher and strategist who delve into South Africa’s digital identity program. Magoma’s efforts will revolve around concerns about human rights, with the researcher eager to come up with policy recommendations and safeguards against potential rights violations.

Paz Bernaldo, meanwhile, is a Chilean development researcher and activist. She will carry out research in Argentina, studying the identity needs of unemployed and underemployed individuals in Gran Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata.

Finally, India’s Subhashish Panigrahi, a documentary filmmaker and activist, will carry out multimedia projects to spotlight the marginalized groups most affected by Aadhaar, India’s sprawling national biometric ID program.

Each Fellow will receive £30,000 in pay, with an additional £5,000 available for expenses.

The program promises to shed light on a number of issues pertaining to digital identity, and may also help to raise Yoti’s profile as a provider of digital identity solutions based primarily on mobile and facial recognition technologies. For its part, Yoti has explained that its interest in running the fellowship program lies in its potential for finding specific identity challenges in need of solutions, rather than the usual top-down approach in which digital identity technologies are developed first, and applications are found later.