Ken Banks

Head of Social Purpose, Yoti

Ken Banks is a British award-winning social entrepreneur, mobile technology and global development expert with an undergraduate major in Social Anthropology with Development Studies. He is best known for developing FrontlineSMS, a mobile messaging platform used today by non-profits in over 190 countries around the world.

He is a PopTech Fellow, a Tech Awards Laureate, an Ashoka Fellow and a National Geographic Emerging Explorer. In 2013 he was nominated for the TED Prize. In recognition of his pioneering work, he was presented with the 2017 Eugene L. Lawler Award for Humanitarian Contributions within Computer Science by the Association for Computing Machinery in the USA, and in 2018 appointed Visiting Fellow at the prestigious Judge Business School in Cambridge.

Ken also has two published books to his name: The Rise of the Reluctant Innovator (2013), and Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation (2016).

In addition to his pioneering work with mobile technology, Ken is a keynote speaker, thought-leader, consultant, innovator and mentor.

In 2018 Ken closed down his company, kiwanja.net, to take on a full-time role as Head of Social Purpose at Yoti, a London-based startup developing innovative digital identity solutions.

Anthropology Meets Digital Identity in the Last Mile

In 2019, ahead of our inaugural conference at the Watershed in Bristol, we invited Ken Banks to write about the importance of anthropology to tech design and development, and his current work as Head of Social Purpose at Yoti. Read it here.

National biometric identity systems: The case of Aadhaar // Career Clinic #2: Social Scientists as Leaders in Tech

Ken is moderating a panel that will explore the pros and cons of national biometric identity systems, hosted by Yoti.

Ken is also on a panel in our Career Clinic stream, where panellists will discuss how social scientists who work in tech can have an impact in leadership roles.