The WIGSAT Group is a consulting company which provides services to WIGSAT. We are a team of senior policy planning staff with a wide range of experience in advising governments and donors on policy and programming.

The team has combined international experience in multi- and bilateral organizations, research institutions, and the non-profit sector.

Sophia Huyer, PhD, Executive Director

Sophia Huyer is the founding Executive Director of WIGSAT. She has published and spoken widely on international gender, science and technology issues policy, including ICTs and social development. She is also Research Director of the Gender Advisory Board of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development (GAB-CSTD) and acts as Senior Advisor to the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD). She has worked with international agencies such as the Canadian International Development Agency, the Organization for American States, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), UNESCO, the UN Institute for Training and Research on Women (INSTRAW), and others. Recent reports and publications include "89.1 FM: The Place for Development. “Power shifts and participatory spaces in ICTD", in Journal of Community Informatics with R. Sterling and J.K Bennett "Information and communications technology and gender equality: new opportunities and challenges for public administration to implement the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals" prepared with Gloria Bonder and Nancy Hafkin for the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and“"Female Empowerment and Development in Latin America: Use versus Production of Information and Communications Technology”, in the MIT journal Information Technologies for International Development (ITID), the second based on work with the Gender Advisory Board and the OAS in developing recommendations for the Summit of the Americas in 2004. She was also lead author on "Women in the Information Society", in From the Digital Divide to Digital Opportunities: Measuring Infostates for Development published by Orbicom. She is one of the Main Contributors to the UNESCO International Report on Science, Technology and Gender, 2007.

Sophia is also a member of Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and Natural Resources Management (WOCAN). She received her Ph.D. in Environmental Studes from York University, Toronto.

She is co-editor, with Nancy Hafkin, of Cinderella or Cyberella? Empowering Women in the Knowledge Society published by Kumarian Press.

Sophia's full c.v.

Marilyn Carr, D.Phil, Senior Associate

Marilyn Carr is a Development Economist with over 20 years' experience working in Africa and Asia. She has a B.A. in African and Asian Studies and a D.Phil in Development Economics from the University of Sussex, and an M.Sc in Economics from the London School of Economics. She has been Senior Economist with the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) in the UK, Senior Economic Adviser for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) based in New York and Harare, and Regional Adviser on Small Enterprise and Appropriate Technology for the Women's Centre of the UN Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa. Dr. Carr was a founding member of the international network 'Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO)" of which she was also Director, Global Markets Programme. She has held fellowships at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Ottawa, and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in London, and has researched and published widely on gender and the informal economy, small business development and rural industrialization, and gender, science and technology. Her most recent publication is an edited volume commissioned by the Commonwealth Secretariat which is entitled Chains of Fortune: Linking Women Producers and Workers with Global Markets.

Marilyn's full c.v.

Nancy Hafkin, PhD, Senior Associate

Nancy J. Hafkin has been working on issues of gender and information technology and development for nearly thirty years. In 1976, she co-edited Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change (Stanford University Press). From 1976-1987 she worked as Chief of Research and Publications at the African Training and Research Centre for Women of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia). In the area of information technology Nancy Hafkin spearheaded the Pan African Development Information System (PADIS) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) from 1987 until 1997. She then served as Team Leader for Promoting of Information Technology for Development, of the Development Information Services Division of ECA (UN) from 1997 until 2000, where she was Coordinator of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI), the African governments' mandate to use ICTs to accelerate socio-economic development in Africa. Nancy also served as a facilitator in establishing the Partnership for Information and Communication Technologies in Africa (PICTA), a coordinating body of donor and executing agency partners in support of the AISI. Dr. Hafkin headed a number of early efforts at electronic connectivity in Africa, particularly through the Capacity Building for Electronic Communication in Africa project, 1993-1996 (CABECA) and the organization of major conferences including the Regional Symposium on Telematics (1995), Global Connectivity for Africa (1998) and the first African Development Forum: Challenges to African of Globalization and the Information Age (1999). In 2000 the Association for Progressive established an annual Nancy Hafkin Communications Prize competition, with the first prize allocated to women-led initiatives. Retired from the United Nations since 2000, Nancy works as a consultant on gender and information technology and is Director of the consultancy Knowledge Working. Among her publications is Gender, Information and Developing Countries (published by USAID). She serves as vice-president of the board of PACT and as Chair of the board of SATELLIFE; she is also a member of the boards of the Global Women's Learning Network and Kabissa. She is a member of the high-level panel of advisors of the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT for Development. Nancy has a Ph.D. in African history from Boston University.

She is co-editor, with Sophia Huyer, of Cinderella or Cyberella? Empowering Women in the Knowledge Society published by Kumarian Press.

Nancy's full c.v.

Anne Holmes, Senior Associate

Ann Holmes has worked in education, entrepreneurship and social issues, particularly science, engineering, and technology (SET) as well as gender and leadership, since she began work with the Ontario Women's Directorate in 1984. Her areas of expertise include facilitation and planning - for not for-profit organizations and the public sector; providing strategic advice and coordination to organizations and groups. She also uses her pedagogical background and adult education expertise to provide training in gender issues; designing and delivering sessions to raise awareness and to expand skills in gender-based analysis, including capacity as a licensee in the methods developed by Status of Women Canada.

She is the WIGSAT representative to the Steering COmmittee of the International Taskforce on Women and ICTs, and coordinator of the ITF Canada initiative. Other professional affiliations include member of the editorial board of The International Journal of Gender Science and Technology; and advisor to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council/RIM Chair for Women in Science and Engineering - Ontario.

Publications include “Communicating with Those Who Do Not See the Need for Change” as part of the proceedings Developing a Sustainable Strategy for Supporting Women and ICTs - Communicating effectively with Funders, both in Gateway to Diversity: Getting Results Through Strategic Communications a conference of the Women in Engineering ProActive Network Inc., St. Louis, Missouri, 2008.

She was also an invited Speaker: “Equal time, Equal Resources: Making SET study and work a better place for women”. A seminar sponsored by the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET at the Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, 2006.

More information.