Social Entrepreneur- CEO- Author - Tech Board Advisor

Pronounced Shay-Yee Aki-Wo-wo (not Shay, Shay-ee or Aki-woo-woo)

The previous local politician founded the award winning UK tech charity Glitch, a trailblazing organisation ending online abuse for good. Before leaving politics, Seyi served a four-year term on Newham Council as the youngest elected female council member in East London. Both Seyi’s pioneering leadership and passion for social justice is evident throughout her teenage years into her mid-20s, from running for the young Mayor of Newham to producing several community forums and events and consulting for the Borough of Waltham Forest for 6 years. 

Seyi’s unique facilitation skills has afforded her opportunities to deliver training for the British Council, Westminster Foundation for Democracy and UNESCO in countries like Jordan, Qatar, Dubai, Ghana and Uganda. 

Seyi’s election win in 2014 sent waves of inspiration worldwide and was featured in several publications including Black Ballad. In 2016 Seyi was invited to give a speech at the European Parliament where the video of that speech later went viral and subsequently faced horrendous online abuse. In the midst of dealing with the online violence, Seyi used her platform to call on tech companies to do more for women and girls online- “to fix the glitch”. This snowballed into a campaign, an international movement of Digital Citizens and a multi-award winning not-for-profit.

In 2019, Akiwowo was selected as the Amnesty International Human Rights Defender, as a Stylist magazine Woman of the Week and one of London's most influential people by the Evening Standard. Seyi ended that year with a Future Shaper award by Marie Claire and began 2020 writing for publications such as Huffington Post and The Telegraph. Akiwowo also ended 2020 on the front cover for Wired magazine. Seyi, the 2021 Knight Fellow of George Washington University, currently sits on TikTok’s European Trust and Safety Council.

Last year saw Akiwowo publish her first book How To Stay Safe Online with Penguin which is available in all good bookstores in the UK and now the US.