I am a researcher interested in the links between mobile phones and social and digital inclusion: both in my own backyard and globally. My professional experience and research encompass mobile communication studies, human computer interaction and technology for social change.
I co-Lead the Digital and Technology Research Group at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex.
I have a PhD from the Computing and Communications Department of the Open University, looking at the use of mobile devices by socially excluded women in my home town of Brighton. Read my research blog.
I have a keen interest in gender and technology issues. I’m an Editorial Associate of the International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology. I was also a co-founder and compere of 300 Seconds Brighton, an event aimed at increasing the number of women speakers at technology events. I’ve been developing my professional and academic expertise in the field of the social application of mobile phones since 2005. I worked with the NGO Fahamu on some of the earliest uses of mobile phones for activism in Africa, with the Tactical Technology Collective to create a toolkit for mobile activists. I served as a Director of the Sussex Community Internet Project and I was on the selection committee for the Young Foundation’s first Social Innovation Camp.
I co-authored a book chapter on mobile activism in Africa and delivered papers on mobile technologies at the following events:
- Mobile HCI 2014 Work-Home Boundaries and Mobile Technologies in the Lives of Socially Excluded Young Women in the UK
- Oxford Internet Institute Summer Doctoral Programme 2014
- Mobiles and participation? Three questions for mobiles in participation 2012 (DFID)
- C4D Innovation Event on Mobile Technology 2012 (GSMA)
- Participatory Technologies Symposium 2010 (Open University)
- e-Democracy 2008 (RIBA, London)
- Emerging Telephony Conference 2007 (San Francisco)
- Dust or Magic Conference 2004 (Oxford University)
You can contact me on becky.faith at open.ac.uk or follow me @becky_faith.