Nwabundo Dike, ICT Specialist, Digital Centre of Excellence, UNICEF, Kenya

1. How do you use technology/policy to improve citizens’ lives? Tell us about your role or organisation. 

I am an ICT Specialist at UNICEF ICT Division’s Digital Centre of Excellence based in Nairobi Kenya.

UNICEF’s Digital Centre of Excellence is dedicated to harnessing digital technology for every child, both within UNICEF and beyond.

​We engage in collaborative efforts with both public and private sector partners to maximize the impact of digital technology and innovations in achieving results for children. ​

In my role as an ICT specialist, I am the global focal point and product manager for RapidPro, a Digital Public Good and GovStack building block for messaging and notifications that allows users build out messaging flows and chatbots through an easy-to-use user interface.

 RapidPro powers the way governments and development partners connect, engage and collaborate with people on their own mobile phones.  This allows governments and development partners to quickly and efficiently reach and receive feedback/information from the people they serve.

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2. What was the most impactful project you worked on this year?

This year gave us an opportunity to look back on the last 10 years of RapidPro as we celebrated our anniversary.

It was a perfect moment to reflect on the last 10 years and the results delivered for children through the over 6 billion messages that have been exchanged at UNICEF alone. 

From initiatives that amplify the voices and opinions of young people to driving the increase immunisation rates through messaging reminders and providing informational chatbots to new parents, RapidPro has played a part in improving the lives of children in 130+  countries and it was an honour to share these stories and create fora to learn from them so as to ensure that the next 10 years are just as impactful.

3. What was one unexpected learning from 2024? 

My unexpected learning of 2024 is that I can still play the bass guitar.

I was in a band in high school and hadn’t played since then, but I recently picked up the instrument again and it’s been a lot of fun playing in a band with colleagues at the UN. 

4. What’s a tool or technique you’re excited to explore in 2025? 

I might be pre-empting the next question a little but I’m excited to explore how to responsibly integrate AI into the RapidPro platform. 

We have already started exploring AI classification of messages received through RapidPro as well as AI powered informational chatbots and I’m looking forward to seeing what changes we can make to improve the platform in 2025.

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5. Everybody’s talking about AI today – give us your hot take on AI and what it means for the public sector.

Not quite a hot take, but I think there are great opportunities to transform public sector services, however, it’s important to keep the risks in mind as well.  

As someone who works at a Child Right’s organisation, I think it’s extremely important for us to pay close attention to how AI will affect children and their rights.

6. What are your priorities for 2025? 

Working on strengthening the community of practice and knowledge sharing around using digital technologies for data collection, messaging and notifications at UNICEF.

Looking at what ways of evaluating impact of digital technologies on the goal of improving lives, given that they are usually just one part of a complex intervention. 

In addition, I want to continue to collaborate with governments, organisations and initiatives interested in using RapidPro and other UNICEF tools to ensure that the benefits of using these solutions extend as far as possible to improve the lives of children and people all over the world.

7. What advice do you have for public sector innovators? 

Always design with the user in mind and validate your assumptions.  

Think of who will benefit from your innovation but also who might not because of societal and structural inequalities.

8. Who inspires you today? 

Everyone at UNICEF working to protect the rights of children everywhere.

This feature was made possible in partnership with the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA).