Anita Gurumurthy

Anita Gurumurthy is a founding member and the executive director of IT for Change, the Bengaluru organisation that works on the social and political consequences of digital technology. Her subject is what she and her colleagues call digital justice: who owns and governs data, how digital platforms should be regulated, and how women in particular are affected by the way information technology is being built into public life.

At IT for Change she leads research and advocacy on data and artificial-intelligence governance, platform regulation and feminist frameworks for the digital economy. The organisation combines that research with field work — its centre Prakriye runs training for women's rights groups on using digital tools in their practice and education-for-empowerment work with rural adolescent girls — so that the policy argument is anchored in what happens in villages as well as in conference rooms.

Much of her influence has been through international policy bodies. She is a member of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development's Working Group on Data Governance and a visiting fellow at the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health, has served on the UN Secretary-General's group on the Technology Facilitation Mechanism and on the high-level committee of NetMundial+10, and co-led the T20 digital transformation track during the Brazilian and South African G20 presidencies. She sits on the board of the ETC Group and advises the Communication and Social Change Hub at Loughborough University, which awarded her an honorary doctorate on 9 July 2026 for her contribution to digital justice.[2][3]