Interview with Alison Gillwald

Graduating from Rhodes University with a B.Journ in the early 1980s, Alison received her PhD in 2009 from Wits University. Her thesis reflected her working career in telecommunications, having been appointed by Parliament to the founding Council of the South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (SATRA) in 1997, after establishing the policy department in the first broadcasting regulator, the Independent Broadcasting Authority, in 1994. She has served on the boards of the public broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation; AVUSA, one of the largest listed media and lifestyle companies on the JSE; Womensnet; and the Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) project. She is currently executive director of Research ICT Africa (RIA), an African digital policy and regulatory think-tank that works across 20 African countries. Alison is currently also an adjunct professor at the University of Cape Town’s Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, where she convenes a doctoral programme in the Digital Economy and Society in Africa, covering professional development and executive training for policymakers, regulators and parliamentarians in the areas of policy, regulation and data governance. In addition, Alison founded the Southern African Journal of Information and Communication and has published in the areas of telecommunications and broadcasting policy and regulation, gender and politics.