Nai Lee Kalema Valuable Conversations with UCL IIPP

Welcome to Valuable Conversations with the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. On this episode, MPA alumni Justin Beirold sits down with Ph.D. candidate Nai Kalema. If you have been following this podcast, you heard Nai as co-host on several episodes, including our conversations with George the Poet, George Aye, and Damon Silvers. But today is all about Nai. Nai is a brilliant scholar and practitioner, who has been working for years on topics including global development, innovation, and strategic design. Her Ph.D. thesis is about digital transformation and determinants of health and their relationship with Digital Identity systems in Kenya and Uganda. The recording of this episode was unusual. Typically we book a guest, record the episode, and then I lightly edit it before release. But with Nai it went a little differently. I first interviewed her when we just started working together on the podcast, in November 2021. In that conversation, we talked about her life - growing up in Minnesota, attending George Washington University, and watching the Black Lives Matter movement emerged in her home state after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. We discussed her work at MIT and Harvard on global development and innovation policy, and how she got interested in design. And she told me why she chose to attend IIPP for her Ph.D. research. We also talked about her research. But this is where we changed things up. By the time I was ready to release the episode, quite a lot of time had passed. And most importantly, Nai has made enormous progress in her research - including narrowing down her topic to health and digital ID systems in Kenya and Uganda. So what you are about to hear is two interviews: one on her life journey and background, and a second one, recorded nearly a year later in October 2022, where we dig in deep on the research: Digital ID, the fact that both Biometrics and Eugenics were both invented at UCL by the same person - Sir Francis Galton - and some of the bigger picture concepts like data colonialism. Because this episode is long, I’ve included time stamps if you want to skip around. Nai is so awesome that I have tried to work with her as much as possible. It is worth noting that along with George the Poet, Nai is the first black PhD student at IIPP. And as we discuss in the conversation, I think she is the perfect person to assume that mantle. I’ve learned so much from her, and I’m so grateful for her hard work and time. I hope you enjoy my conversations with Nai Kalema. *****-3 min: Nai’s life journey, education, working in development and innovation -34 min: why Nai chose IIPP for her Ph.D. research -48 min: Design Justice -55 min: Nai’s Ph.D. research on digital ID and health in Kenya and Uganda.***** -Recorded in two conversations: November 2021 and October 2022 -Learn more about Nai: - Nai Kalema https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/nai-lee-kalema - Follow Nai on Twitterr: @NaiKalema -Learn about our host: - Justin Beirold  https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/justin-beirold - Justin’s Twitter: @VibeEconomy -Follow IIPP on Twitter: @IIPP_UCL https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/ -Production and music by Justin Beirold