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Malavika is the inaugural Executive Director of the Digital Asia Hub, an independent research think-tank incubated by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Prior to her relocation to Hong Kong, she was a fellow at BKC, and continues her engagement as a Faculty Associate. 

A technology lawyer for over 15 years, she practised law at Allen & Overy, London, and was Vice President and Technology Counsel at Citigroup. A graduate of the National Law School of India, Bangalore, Malavika has an LL.M. from Northwestern University, Chicago. She was a Visiting Scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, and has had fellowships at the University of Sydney and the Institute for Technology & Society, Rio de Janeiro. She taught India’s first course on information technology and law in 1997. 

She serves on the Extended Programming Committee of the annual Computer, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) conference in Brussels, and on the Advisory Board of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). She was previously a member of the Executive Committee of the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems, and an Associate Fellow with Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs), as part of its Asia-Pacific Programme. She was also a member of the High-level Expert Advisory Group to the OECD project, “Going Digital: Making the Transformation Work for Growth and Well-being”.

She has been based in Singapore since she joined the faculty of the Yong Pung How School of Law at SMU. Her interests straddle law, technology, architecture, design and dance, and she is especially invested in the intersection of spatial, bodily and intellectual privacy, identity and autonomy. 
 


Projects & Tools

Advising Governments: Public-Interest Taskforce

Through this project we assist people working in governments across the globe in dealing with pressing challenges related to innovative digital technologies.

Digital Asia Hub

The Digital Asia Hub is an independent, non-profit Internet and society research think tank based in Hong Kong.

Digital Ethics in Times of Crisis: COVID-19 & Access to Education and Learning Spaces

A global research sprint explores digital transformation at a pivotal moment in time

Digital Self-Determination Research Sprint

From March to May 2021, we co-hosted a virtual program that convened 25 student participants from 21 countries spread over six continents.

The Ethics of Digitalization

Led by the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), the Berkman Klein Center, and the Digital Asia Hub, and in collaboration with the Global Network of…


News

News
Jun 25, 2021

What we learned about the future of education from COVID-19

What is learning and where and how does it happen? The pandemic let us consider these questions in new ways.

What is learning and where and how does it happen? The pandemic let us consider these questions in new ways.

News
May 20, 2021

Youth and Media, BKC Policy Practice inform UNICEF report on Children’s Data

UNICEF report shares vision for better approach to children’s data

UNICEF report shares vision for better approach to children’s data


Community

Digital Asia Hub

Drones & Dreams

A Speculative Sprint Story Collection

This new publication from the Digital Asia Hub collects the outputs of a two-day speculative fiction–writing workshop held in December 2018

Jan 16, 2019
Video

The Geographic Opportunities and Challenges of AI

Malavika Jayaram of the Digital Asia Hub

Malavika Jayaram discusses the language we use to talk about Artificial Intelligence, and the impact of AI in Asia.

Jan 11, 2017

Events

May 26, 2021 @ 10:00 AM

Framing Decisions

Video & Podcast: A Book Talk about Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil

Video & Podcast: A book talk about human advantage in an age of technology and turmoil

May 13, 2014 @ 12:30 PM

Does Size Matter? A Tale of Performing Welfare, Producing Bodies and Faking Identity

Malavika Jayaram, Berkman Fellow

By offering a perspective that is somewhat different from the traditional western focus of privacy, Malavika Jayaram hopes to generate a more inclusive discourse about what it…

Dec 12, 2013 @ 6:00 PM

Cyberscholars Working Group

at MIT

The Cyberscholar Working Group is a forum for fellows and affiliates of MIT, Yale Law School Information Society Project, Columbia University, and the Berkman Center for Internet …