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StateUp Adds Expert Affiliates in Digital Tech, Venture Capital & ESG

StateUp Adds Expert Affiliates in Digital Tech, Venture Capital & ESG

StateUp is pleased to welcome two new Expert Affiliates to the team, Dr. Stephanie Diepeveen and Dr. Johannes Lenhard, deepening the company’s expertise in digital technologies & governance, venture capital, and “ESG” (environmental, social, and governance issues). 

A researcher at the University of Cambridge and the Overseas Development Institute, Stephanie Diepeveen is an expert in digital technologies and governance both from a comparative perspective and with a regional specialism in Africa. She is the author of Searching for a New Kenya. Previously, Stephanie was Deputy Director and Research Associate at the Centre of Governance and Human Rights at Cambridge. Stephanie has also worked at RAND Europe, focusing on policy-oriented research in the areas of research evaluation, institution building and social policy. 

“What excites me about working with StateUp is the opportunity to take a global approach to digital transformation, and situate digital government within wider innovation ecosystems. There is a clear need to learn from global experiences of digital technology in public policy, to address diverse infrastructural, financial, technological and sociopolitical and cultural challenges. StateUp’s interdisciplinary and international expertise is positioned to help distill insights from different contexts, supporting multiple pathways to effective citizen-oriented digital governance.

Dr. Stephanie Diepeveen, Expert Affiliate

Johannes Lenhard is an ethnographer of venture capital and homelessness and currently teaches and researches at the University of Cambridge, where he is Centre Coordinator of the Max Planck Centre Cambridge for the Study of Ethics, the Economy and Social Change). Johannes has spent the last four years researching the ethics of venture capital investors. His monograph ‘Making Better Lives – Hope, Freedom and Home-Making among people sleeping rough in Paris’ will be published later this year and so will his co-authored book ‘Better Venture’ focused on DEI in tech and VC. He contributes regularly to journalistic outlets, including Techcrunch, Prospect, Sifted, and Crunchbase

“Technology, startups and venture capital have for too long been too far away – and sometimes outrightly hostile – to states, governments and policy. Working with StateUp to bring the two closer together to learn from each other is a really exciting prospect.”

Dr. Johannes Lenhard, Expert Affiliate

Dr. Tanya Filer, Founder and Director of StateUp, commented: “I am delighted to welcome Stephanie and Johannes to the StateUp team, and I welcome the unique and vital perspectives that they both bring to public-purpose technology.  These appointments reinforce StateUp’s commitment to developing the leading data, intelligence, and upskilling practice focused on public-purpose technology and its intersection with policy, and our belief in the need for multidisciplinary, context-driven approaches. I look forward to working with our new Expert Affiliates as we continue to support governments, international organisations, and technology companies and investors on innovative and responsible technology practices.”