The title of my research is: ”Using digital micro certificates in the recognition and validation of skills of the informal sector in Africa” The key research questions are: -What is the digital learning capacity of people in the informal sector? -How do we design digital platforms and present learning content so that it fits the learning styles and abilities of the informal sector? -What value do people in Africa give to (informal) micro-certificates compared to traditional formal certificates? -How can new technologies (AI, Machine learning...) support development of automated and varied skills validation? My research aims to give insight to servicing a new segment of people that has traditionally been neglected by development activities. The informal sector people are not the poorest of the poor in Africa and fall outside many development aid programmes. At the same time it consists of most people taking part in the labor force. Formalising the informal sector people to tax-paying citizens is key to the economic development of most African countries.

I am working on the Aid, Policy, and Growth nexus, which is close to development cooperation, policy intervention, and sustainable agriculture development. I am particularly interested in addressing the global shared responsibilities and contemporary issues of the food crisis, climate change, and poverty in developing countries.

My research project contributes to sustainability and ethics discussions in organisation studies by exploring personal integrity through a posthumanist lens. It aims to redefine traditional concepts of integrity to foster new approaches to ethical decision-making. The study focuses on sustainability professionals (SPs) and their complex web of relationships within organisations, where human and non-human actors are intertwined and collaboratively shape decision-making. By examining the entanglements between SPs, food, technologies, and environments, the project seeks to understand how these interconnected relationships influence personal integrity.

The Role of Village Community Banks in Tanzanian Female Entrepreneurs’ Lives. The doctoral dissertation studies the characteristics of community banking in the global South, with the focus on Tanzanian Village Community Banks VICOBAs. It seeks to address the benefits and drawbacks of the community groups. In addition, the study explores how mobile technology, namely mobile money service, can benefit entrepreneurs’ businesses.

Applying foresight methods and tools in a range of topics, in particular to anticipate the energy transition in the Global South. Research interests: anticipatory governance, innovation ecosystems, off-grid solar photovoltaics, pioneer analysis, science-communication, startups. Co-author of "Electrification in Peer-to-Peer Society - a New Narrative for Sustainable Futures" (2019) and "La Electrificación en la Sociedad Entre Pares – Una Nueva Narrativa para Futuros Sostenibles" (2020).

Projects

Neo-Carbon Enabling Neo-Growth Society – Transformative Energy Futures 2050

Saujanya is a postdoctoral research fellow working in the Research Unit of Oral Health Sciences. He is currently woking in the topic realted to oral epidemiology, oral health inequalities, oral and general health, patient-reported outcome measures, and oral health promotion using digital tools.

The Image and Practices of Evolving State-Society Relations: Uzbekistan´s Street-Level Bureaucrats in Administrative Transformations

My dissertation examines the perspectives of Bolivian civic actors in forest fire management and politics in the Bolivian Chiquitania; exploring how responding to the socio-ecological crisis, resistance and alternative utopias interlink in the Bolivian activism.

Indigenous governance, extractivism, Ecuador

I'm a student in the doctoral programme of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki. My research is at the intersection of agroecology, political ecology and youth employment and livelihoods. In particular, I focus on young farmers in Benin and their health-related motivations and strategies in using ecological farming methods.