Varaidzo Matimba

Executive Postgraduate Diploma, Geneva Graduate Institute

Varaidzo Faith Magodo-Matimba is the AI in Africa Lead at The MERL Tech Initiative and a pan-African feminist lawyer working at the intersection of emerging technology policy, data governance, human rights, and digital inclusion. Her work focuses on responsible and contextually grounded AI for Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning (MERL), with particular attention to African practitioner perspectives, feminist technology policy, decolonial approaches to data and AI, and the inclusion of African languages and knowledge systems. She led the Made in Africa Artificial Intelligence Approaches in MERL Landscape Study, a practitioner-focused research initiative examining how AI is shaping MERL across Africa. She has supported movement building, strategy, governance, compliance, and resource mobilization across West, Southern, and Eastern Africa, including through program and grants leadership roles at Pollicy.

She is also a decolonial funding advocate, curator of the inaugural Afrofeminist Data Museum, Chair of the UN Women A.C.T. Fund Civil Society Regional Network for East and Southern Africa, and a board member of Gender Rights in Tech (GRIT). Through research, convening, training, and board leadership, she advances community-centered, feminist, and African-led approaches to technology, evidence, and social impact.