Episode 11: How to use ICT to fight human trafficking and labour exploitation

The Migration & Diaspora Podcast

Hello, I'm Loksan Harley and you're listening to another episode of the Migration & Diaspora Podcast, a show about all things migration. I'm joined today by Hannah Thinyane to talk about Apprise, which is a tool for screening vulnerable populations with the potential to unmask situations of forced labour and human trafficking.

A little bit about Hannah: Hannah is currently a Principal Research Fellow at the United Nations University Institute in Macau, where she leads the Migrant Tech Research Project. Since 2016 she has led a multi-disciplinary team, innovating and inventing ICTs to support proactive and consistent screening of workers in situations of labour exploitation and human trafficking. She has over 15 years’ academic and practical experience in the area of mobile computing, ICT for development, and human-computer interaction. During this time, she has undertaken applied computing research, conceptualizing, designing, developing and rolling out systems for underserved areas in Africa and Southeast Asia. She has authored more than 90 peer-reviewed publications based on her research, publishing in both academic and policy circles. Hannah’s work has been presented at or showcased by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Trafficking and several other international forums. As you'll also learn, although somewhat obscured by her Australian accent, Hannah has grown up and worked in a number of different countries and considers herself part of the Welsh and UK diasporas, so listen out as I quiz her on her grasp of the Welsh language at the beginning of the interview!

Our discussion focuses on Hannah's experiences utilising technology to benefit migrants, especially those finding themselves in exploitative conditions. It's really worth listening to if you are curious about the different technological applications that can benefit migrants and the steps to take to develop such applications.

Key takeaways are to keep things user and solutions-focused (as opposed to tech-focused), focusing resources on working with target users to develop and pilot your tech solution. Anyway, all this will become apparent during our interview, so without further ado, I'd like to thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy the show.

Useful links:

• @Apprise: https://twitter.com/AppriseSolns
  
• Apprise website: https://www.apprise.solutions/
  
• Apprise research-facing website: https://cs.unu.edu/research/migrant-tech-apprise
  
• ICT skills training for survivors of sexual exploitation: https://cs.unu.edu/research/migrant-tech-survivors
  
• The app being used in the Philippines with survivors: https://neuroscape.ucsf.edu/technology/#ace
  
• Another tech project Hannah is working on to support survivors of exploitation in their reintegration: https://cs.unu.edu/research/migrant-tech-survivors
  
• Connect with Hannah on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-thinyane-b9704035/