During his virtual research internship at UNU-CRIS, Bate Tabenyang Alaine will primarily work on the governance of space-based/satellite connectivity during natural disasters, under the supervision of Dr. Berna Akcali Gur within the Digital Governance Cluster.
Bate Tabenyang Alaine is a Virtual Research Intern at UNU-CRIS within the Digital Governance Cluster and a Mastercard Foundation Scholar at Arizona State University, where he is completing a Master of Science in Global Technology and Development. He is Program Director, Head of Technology and Democratic Governance Development Unit at the International Governance Institute, Cameroon: a UK-registered charity where he has led technology-driven governance and anti-corruption programmes across Sub-Saharan Africa for nearly a decade. He has served as facilitator and panellist for the Generation Democracy programme of the International Republican Institute (IRI-USA) across multiple African countries, and as a Field Monitoring Specialist for the Global Emergency Group under the USAID/BHA funded projects, conducting humanitarian monitoring for global agencies like UN-World Food Program, CARITAS, The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and International Medical Corps (IMC) across conflict-affected regions of Cameroon.
Bate brings to this internship over a decade of applied field experience at the intersection of digital governance, development frameworks, humanitarian response, and civic technology across Sub-Saharan Africa. He was field coordinator at DEDI-Cameroon, supporting humanitarian monitoring systems for UNHCR partners like Research and Advocacy for Gender Justice (RAGJ), INTERSORS, PLAN INTERNATIONAL, and African Initiatives For Relief And Development (AIRD) across displaced and crisis-affected populations in seven regions of Cameroon, providing a grounded African field perspective on how connectivity gaps manifest during humanitarian emergencies the core concern of his UNU-CRIS internship research. He is the designer of IGI-Cameroon flagship projects called BIPROMAP: an AI and open data platform for corruption reporting and public service accountability deployed at national level in Cameroon and co-authored the 2025 UNCAC Civil Society Peer Review Report on Cameroon. Drawing on his forthcoming capstone research on digital exclusion among vulnerable maternal populations in Kigali, Rwanda, he brings to UNU-CRIS a multi-scalar understanding of how digital systems serve or fail to serve the most vulnerable.
Bate is a 2023 YALI Climate Technology and Leadership Fellow sponsored by USAID, a World Food Forum Education Programme Advisory Group Member representing West and Central Africa, a multi-global award winner including the 2025 World Liberty Congress Justice Advocate Award for Sub-Saharan Africa in Berlin, Germany and a speaker on technology and development at the 2024 Summit for Democracy in Seoul, South Korea. He has engaged communities across Sub-Saharan African countries through climate technology, development and democratic governance programmes.