Kersti is a senior consultant and researcher who has been working on the intersection of technologies, communication and socio-political change since the early 2000s, before the ICT4D and later open data hype hit. She has worked in countries such as Rwanda, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Cambodia, where she has been leading the strategic planning, policy advice, and implementation of diverse civic participation processes. Kersti is a convinced hybrid between disciplines and is lecturing in the Communication for Development program at the University of Malmö.
She is an expert in inclusive and co-creative program and strategy design, as well as participatory and activist research.
Kersti gets extremely uncomfortable when innovation is equated with the latest tech hypes. This is mirrored in her doctoral research. As a PhD researcher with the DATACTIVE project she works on power dynamics within the transnational civic engagement in the context of civic technology activism and the wider open governance field, with particular attention on collective action and collective identity formation. She is currently based at the Centre on Social Movement Studies at Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, Italy.
Keywords: civic tech, social movements, collective identity, power, communication