Rebecca Ryakitimbo is a technologist, writer and researcher. She has been an active contributor for GenderIT,a gender and ICT policy think tank. She has been an African School of Internet Governance (AFRISIG) Fellow, an Internet Society youth@IGF fellow, an UPROAR Fellow, a Google Policy fellow among other fellowships.She has also served as one of the Co-founders of Digital Grassroots as well as TechChix-Tanzania.Rebecca Coordinated the 2018 Tanzania internet Governance forum and pioneered the first Tanzania School of Internet governance(TzSIG2018). Rebecca also started the First women SIG dubbed the Arusha Women school of Internet Governance(AruWSIG) which she still co-convenes,its in its third edition now.
She has worked as a project team member with Kondoa Community network in using TV white spaces technology to bring internet connectivity to rural communities.Currently Rebecca is a national geographic explorer and Principle Investigator for WildNET a National Geographic funded project that will deploy community wireless networks and monitoring systems within the Ngorongoro and Serengeti ecosystems of Tanzania with the aim to monitor ecosystem health via citizen science.Prior to been a an explorer Rebecca was a digital rights program officer at Paradigm Initiative leading PIN’s digital rights work in East Africa.