ID4Africa seeks speakers for special webinar panel on inclusion in digital identity

ID4Africa is calling for speakers for a special live-cast episode of its webinar series focussing on inclusion as part of its International Identity Day commemoration on September 16, 2020.

Following a successful series of four webinars, the Movement will pause for the month of August, and then resume its full online engagement in September. In the latest episode on Unique Digital Identity Numbers, two-thirds of surveyed attendees said the same unique ID number should be used across all sectors.

ID4Africa has issued a concept note to inform prospective speakers about the focus on inclusion, which the organization calls “the greatest challenge for identity in Africa right now.” With the widespread government actions to mitigate the public health and economic impacts of COVID-19, the goal of providing identity credentials to society’s underserved has become even more urgent, the note says.

Identity systems must be empowering and useful for people to want to participate, and should be accessible and free in order to be fully inclusive. A key challenge to identity authorities is how to motivate people to participate in mass enrollment programs prior to launching services that require them, in order to avoid excluding people from those services. Other challenges include prioritizing applications and services in the context of developmental economics, and possibly finding a way to perform onboard remote populations.

The panel for the webinar will include Alan Gelb of the Center for Global Development and Barry Cooper of South Africa’s CENFRI, and ID4Africa Executive Chairman Dr. Joseph Atick will moderate.

Another webinar, ‘Spotlight on Face Recognition Technology,’ will be held on September 3, and a ‘Spotlight on Nigeria – Country Progress Report’ has been announced for September 23.

All webinars are available on YouTube and ID4Africa’s Knowledge Hub.

Article Topics

Africa  |  biometrics  |  credentials  |  digital identity  |  ID4Africa  |  identity management  |  International Identity Day  |  remote biometrics  |  webinar