Adegboyega Ojo is the Canada Research Chair in Governance and Artificial Intelligence at the School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University, where he is also a Full Professor. His research is primarily in the area of digital government. He studies how digital and data technologies can be used to support innovation in government institutions and address societal challenges. Ojo is keen on understanding the conditions and technical design requirements for the beneficial and ethical use of data-driven innovation, advanced analytics, and artificial intelligence-based solutions in different public service and policy contexts.
Before joining Carleton University, he was a tenured faculty member at Maynooth University and earlier a Senior Research Fellow & Head of the E-Government Unit at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics, University of Galway, Republic of Ireland.
He also worked at the Centre for Electronic Governance, United Nations University in Macao SAR, China, where he supported governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America in developing digital government strategies. Adegboyega is Associate Editor of the Government Information Quarterly Journal (Elsevier), Digital Government: Research and Practice journal (ACM) and also the Information Polity Journal (IOS Press). He holds a PhD in Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) from the University of Lagos, Nigeria.
UNU-EGOV: Your career has taken you across academia, international organisations, and public-sector innovation. Could you share some of the experiences that have shaped your journey and led to your current role as Canada Research Chair in Governance and Artificial Intelligence at Carleton University?
Adegboyega Ojo (AO): I have been fortunate to work in academia and in intergovernmental and research organisations, in different parts of the world. Each experience built on the one before. My journey began as a young academic in the Department of Computer Sciences at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. Teaching loads were high and institutional resources were relatively limited, so I learnt to be resourceful and flexible in supporting students and doing research. At United Nations University - International Institute for Software Technology (now UNU Macau), I had the opportunity to work with policymakers and public servants, supporting the Macao SAR government and governments in other regions. That experience taught me the value of engaged scholarship and research-led practice.
At the University of Galway and Maynooth University, I was able to bring this back into academia. I led grant-funded research labs, trained research master's students, doctoral students and postdocs, and helped develop inclusive, student-centred postgraduate programmes. Looking back, each of these places helped shape me as an interdisciplinary and engaged researcher. I am grateful that this path led to my current role as Canada Research Chair in Governance and AI at Carleton University's School of Public Policy and Administration.
UNU-EGOV: Many governments are exploring the use of Artificial Intelligence in public administration. What opportunities are you more excited about, and what risks should policymakers pay close attention to?
AO: Indeed, recent reports (e.g. the OECD’s Digital Government Outlook 2026) show that governments are increasingly exploring AI for service delivery and internal administrative processes, although to a lesser extent in policymaking. The dominant orientation to AI adoption so far has been to target “low-risk, high-value” use cases that harness the technology’s considerable capacity for automation. While this is welcome, I would be more excited about at least two things.
The first is to use AI to strengthen the capacity of individual public servants across their different roles. This reverses the logic of putting AI capabilities at the forefront by putting the needs of public servants first. While these two approaches are not necessarily mutually exclusive, the focus is different. So, I would be very interested in applications of AI centred on frontline case officers or policymakers. For instance, I would love to see agentic AI used directly to help public servants make better or fairer decisions on cases, for example, by revealing blind spots, prompting them to consider overlooked information or evidence, identifying inconsistencies in decision patterns, or helping them verify that relevant rules have been correctly applied.
For policymakers, providing high-quality evidence to support or challenge the choice of specific policy instruments in specific contexts would be useful. When we focus primarily on technological capabilities, we risk placing AI in the role of the people it is meant to support in government and creating a range of ethical issues.
The other aspect of AI application that would really excite me is directly targeting AI to support the delivery of more inclusive services. This could strengthen governments’ ability to reach people at the margins whom traditional public service delivery struggles to serve because of resource constraints, for instance, by providing voice-based multilingual and accessible assistance to help people with language barriers, limited literacy, or disabilities understand their entitlements, navigate public services and complete applications, with human support available when needed.
UNU-EGOV: Having worked with governments across different regions, including many countries in the Global South, what digital governance challenges still need greater international attention?
AO: There are still several digital governance challenges shared across countries, although many are more pronounced in the Global South. Key among these is the widening gap between the pace of technological change, particularly in AI, and the legal and regulatory reforms needed to ensure trustworthy and beneficial outcomes.
Although cybersecurity and data privacy have always been digital governance challenges, increasingly powerful technologies such as AI have recently intensified them. The breach of an Australian government website and attempted intrusion into a US government website by “rogue” AI agents illustrate the risks of agents taking unauthorised actions, even without malicious human direction.
Yet another key challenge is maintaining digital sovereignty while delivering digital government programmes. Countries may have to rely on data centres located in other jurisdictions and managed by powerful private technology companies whose resources and influence may exceed those of many nation-states.
These challenges deserve greater international attention, particularly in the Global South, where constraints on resources, regulatory capacity and digital infrastructure can make them more difficult to address.
UNU-EGOV: Earlier in your career, you worked with the United Nations University in Macau. How did that experience influence your understanding of digital governance and your research?
AO: My time at UNU in Macau (2004 – 2012) was the most transformative experience of my career and has had the greatest influence on my development as a digital governance researcher. Working with my esteemed colleagues Tomasz Janowski, Elsa Estevez and Zamira Dzhusupova, and with the Macau SAR government, provided a unique platform for us to study and co-design digital government frameworks and programmes.
This included designing and building prototype middleware infrastructure for e-services, developing frameworks to align e-government with public administration reform, and working on standards, enterprise architecture, interoperability and smart city frameworks. The experience helped me understand digital governance through the practical challenges of connecting technology, public administration and institutional change. It also enabled us to share our findings and lessons and build capacity in the Global South. As I mentioned earlier, the UNU experience contributed in large measure to my continued orientation towards engaged scholarship.
UNU-EGOV: Your work often connects academic research to real-world public-sector challenges. How can institutions such as UNU-EGOV help bridge the gap between research, policy and practice?
AO: A key source of the gaps between research, policy and practice is that actors in these respective communities often work separately. Much of the work produced by digital governance researchers remains in academic publications and is not translated into white papers, policy briefs or practical toolkits for decision-makers and practitioners. There are also relatively few venues where researchers, policymakers and practitioners can exchange ideas.
I think UNU-EGOV’s ICEGOV conference series directly addresses this gap. Since its inception in 2007, the conference has provided an annual forum for these communities to deliberate on digital governance issues. This has been particularly valuable for government practitioners and decision-makers from the Global South who look to the conference as a source of rigorous evidence to support their work.
UNU-EGOV’s other activities, such as working with governments to address specific needs, also provide a direct way of linking research to policy and practice through collaborative problem-solving and capacity building. Facilitating similar arrangements between local universities and their governments, for instance, through tripartite partnerships involving UNU-EGOV, a local university and a government institution, would be a useful addition. Such partnerships could help sustain these connections and build local capacity to apply research to public sector challenges.
UNU-EGOV: Your connection with the International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV) goes back many years, and you have played an active role in shaping the event, including serving twice as Programme Committee Chair. What has kept you engaged with the conference, and how have you seen it evolve over time?
AO: I was part of the original team at the EGOV Centre of UNU Macau that conceptualised and launched ICEGOV in 2007. I have actually served three times as Programme Committee Co-Chair: in 2012 in Albany, USA; 2018 in Galway, Ireland; and 2025 in Abuja, Nigeria.
ICEGOV remains a unique conference in the digital governance field, bringing together scholars, government decision-makers and practitioners, with strong participation from the Global South. In my view, no other conference in this field has made a comparable contribution to building the capacity of researchers and practitioners from the Global South. As a researcher originally from the Global South, this is very dear to me. It was also central to our vision when we created the conference, and it is a major reason I have remained engaged and will continue to support the conference.
Over the years, I have seen that vision translate into lasting connections and opportunities for professional and academic development. I know two former government officials from Nigeria who have completed their PhDs partly because of the influence of their participation in ICEGOV over the years. For me, these examples show how the conference’s impact extends well beyond the event itself.
UNU-EGOV: As a Nigerian, how special was it to see the conference hosted in Abuja? What do you think ICEGOV 2025 highlighted about Africa's growing role in shaping digital governance innovation and conversations at the global level?
AO: It was, of course, special for me to finally see ICEGOV hosted in Nigeria. What many may not know is that Nigeria and its National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) have been engaged with ICEGOV since 2007. In fact, Dr Olu Agunloye, then Executive Vice-Chairman of Nigeria E-Government Strategy Limited (NeGST), delivered the first government keynote in Macao on the implementation of e-government in Nigeria. Since then, we have had strong participation from Nigeria in virtually every edition of the conference.
Despite the challenging conditions surrounding the conference's hosting in Abuja last year, it was one of my best ICEGOV experiences. Following ICEGOV 2024 in South Africa, the Abuja conference provided a platform to explore alternative models of digital governance more closely embedded in development contexts. It also highlighted the importance of regional cooperation and knowledge sharing. For me, these two consecutive editions in Africa demonstrated the continent’s growing contribution to global digital governance conversations, bringing its experiences, priorities and approaches to the discussion.
UNU-EGOV: What message would you like to share with researchers, practitioners, and policymakers who continue to strengthen the ICEGOV community worldwide?
AO: ICEGOV is the most inclusive and arguably the most impactful digital governance conference from a Global South perspective, with a truly global community. It is unique and a valuable complement to other leading digital government conferences that have shaped our field in different ways. My message is to continue nurturing this community, bringing diverse experiences into the conversation and strengthening the connections between research, policy and practice.
