Kira Allmann

Biography

Kira oversees public, private and charitable partnerships, policy-research collaborations, and the communications portfolio for the Global Research Institute.

Her background spans academic and policy worlds. As an academic, Kira’s research focuses on digital inequality -- the uneven impact of digital technologies on our societies and our everyday lives. Her current work explores alternative ownership models for internet and data infrastructure, such as community-owned ISPs, data cooperatives, and people's data charters.

Kira has also studied the way technological elites shape urban geographies and politics in the Middle East, the role of public libraries in closing the digital divide in the UK, and the planetary politics of telecoms infrastructure that unfold in global multistakeholder forums. Kira has often worked to influence digital inclusion policy, and she regularly does interviews, delivers formal submissions and briefings, and writes policy reports on digital exclusion, digital poverty, and data/digital rights. 

Previously, Kira was the Senior Digital Strategy Officer at Manchester City Council (UK), and she has also worked at the Ada Lovelace Institute in London and the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford. 

Kira is a proud graduate of W&M (Class of 2010), where she was a Monroe Scholar and also benefitted from opportunities and scholarships to study abroad, which sent her traveling outside the U.S. for the first time. These experiences sparked her interest in research and the world, and she went on to complete her PhD abroad as a Rhodes Scholar.

Outside of work, Kira represents the Roberts District as a Commissioner on the James City County Planning Commission, and you will often see her walking the sidewalks and roads of Williamsburg, as an "avid pedestrian." 

Education

The University of Oxford
DPhil in Oriental Studies of the Islamic World

The University of Oxford
MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies, with Distinction

The College of William & Mary
B.A. in Government and Linguistics, Summa Cum Laude

Publications

Allmann, K., 2022 UK Digital Poverty Evidence Review, The Digital Poverty Alliance, June 2022.

Allmann, K. & Radu, R. (2023) Digital footprints as barriers to accessing e-government services. Global Policy, 14, 84–94. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13140.

Allmann, K. (2021) "Social Media and the Automatic Production of Memory: Classification, Ranking, and Sorting of the Past by Ben Jacobsen and David Beer (book review)," Internet Histories, 6:1-2, pp. 253-256. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2021.1953885

Allmann, K. & Blank, G. (2021) “Rethinking Digital Skills in the Age of Compulsory Computing”, Information, Communication & Society, 24:5, pp. 633-648. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1874475

Allmann, K. (2021) “Digital Inequality and Covid-19,” in Living with Pandemics: People, Place and Policy, L Reardon, J R Bryson, L Andres, and A Ersoy (eds.), London: Edward Elgar. 

Allmann, K., Blank, G., and Wong. A. (2021) “Libraries on the Front Lines of the Digital Divide: The Oxfordshire Digital Inclusion Project Report." Available from: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3854877

Allmann, K. “The remote British village that built one of the fastest internet networks in the UK”, The Conversation, 2 July 2020.

Allmann, K. “Covid-19 is increasing digital inequality: We need human connectivity to close the digital divide,” Medium, 11 April 2020.

Allmann, K. and Hazas, M. (2019) "The Impact of New and Emerging Internet Technologies on Climate Change and Human Rights", Submission to the Advisory Committee to the UN Human Rights Council. Available from: https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/news/2019-10-29-impact-new-and-emerging-internet-technologies-climate-change-and-human-rights

 Allmann, K. & Sengupta, A. “Beyond Internet access: seeking knowledge justice online”, OpenGlobalRights, 22 January 2019. Available from: https://www.openglobalrights.org/beyond-internet-access-seeking-knowledge-justice-online/

Allmann, K. “Privileging the Social Over the Technical in Community Networks: An Interview with Sol Luca De Tena (Zenzeleni Net)”, GenderIT, 23 October 2019.

Sengupta, A., Bouterse, S. & Allmann, K. “Build an internet for, and from, us all,” 563 Nature S147, 2019. Available from: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07506-7

Allmann, K. “A Tourist in @DowntownCairo”, Stranger's Guide, 1 August 2018. 

Allmann, K. “Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Egypt’s Emergency State,” Oxford Human Rights Hub blog, 9 March 2017.

Hilly, L. & Allmann, K. “Revenge porn does not only try to shame women – it tries to silence them too”, The Guardian, 22 June 2015. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/22/revenge-porn-women-free-speech-abuse

Allmann, K. (2014) “Mobile Revolution: Toward a History of Technology, Telephony and Political Activism in Egypt,” CyberOrient 8:2, pp. 46-71.

Allmann, K. “Activism on the Move: Mediating Protest Space in Egypt with Mobile Technology,” Jadaliyya, 2014.

Allmann, K., Maliniak, D., Rapoport, R. & Atkeson, L. (2010) “The Internet-ilization of American Parties: the Implications of the Unity08 Effort,” in The State of the Parties: The Changing Role of Contemporary American Parties, John C. Green and Daniel J. Coffey (eds.), Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.