Kwami Ahiabenu, II is founder of www.penplusbytes.org, a non-profit organization that promotes journalistic innovation and good governance across Africa through the effective use of information communication technologies (ICT). Under Kwami’s leadership, the Institute established the African Elections Project, which seeks to enhance the ability of mainstream media and citizen journalists to harness the power of ICT technologies to provide timely, relevant, and impartial election coverage and analysis. One of Ghana’s foremost experts on information technology and democracy, Kwami has conducted numerous ICT trainings for African journalists and has written extensively on the political uses of information technology, including mobile phones and development, micro-blogging, community radio, and social media. He is also involved in accountability projects aimed at strengthening the media’s monitoring role over the extractive sector in Liberia, Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda. Kwami has over 15 years of experience in Management, Marketing, New Media, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and Development. He previously served as Executive Director of AITEC Ghana, as a board member of Ghana Information Network for Knowledge Sharing (GINKS), and as a Key Committee Member for the WSIS African Regional Meeting 2005. Kwami is a Steve Biko and Foster Davies Fellow. He is co-chair of the African Media Forum on Geospatial Information Systems (AMFGIS) under the auspices of the United Nations Commission for Africa (UNECA), and a Governing Council Member of the African University College of Communications. Kwami is a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, D.C and holds an MBA degree. He currently writes a weekly column on technology and society for The Daily Graphic in Ghana.
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