Our partners
Educate Ventures Research – Shape the future leaders coalition, United Kingdom
Educate Ventures Research (EVR) leads the Shape the Future Leaders Coalition, which brings together school leaders, researchers, and innovators to co-create ethical, inclusive AI for education.
Its focus includes data-led innovation, equitable implementation, and personalised learning pathways particularly for underrepresented learners, including those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
The Coalition is currently pursuing seven key themes of inquiry and research:
- AI & Digital Pedagogy
- Leveraging Data and Generating Insights
- Business
- Operations Systems and AI
- Addressing Inequity and the Digital Divide
- Implementing Innovative AI
- SEND & Personalised Learning & Early Years
The Clinic's student team is working with two schools, part of the coalition, in the UK to explore what genuine participation looks like in practice and how schools can meaningfully involve students, parents, and staff in shaping decisions about data.
Meet our students
Alya Rezk Sharaf
Alya is an LLM student (2025–2026) specialising in IP and Information Law, with a strong interest in ethical data governance and digital identity. Her academic focus explores how legal frameworks can balance innovation with the protection of individual rights in an increasingly data-driven world.
Alya is joining the Clinic because its interdisciplinary approach reflects her belief that effective data governance must extend beyond purely legal or technical perspectives.
As the co-founder of a digital identity verification startup (AuthentID), Alya has worked directly with challenges around privacy, data protection, and user empowerment, which has strengthened her desire to explore how law can serve as a tool for empowerment rather than control.
With experience in regulatory compliance through internships at international law firms, such as Hogan Lovells, alongside a global outlook shaped by living across eight countries, Alya brings both legal rigour and cross-cultural insights to the Clinic’s work with community and industry partners.
Now, she is particularly interested in questions of data ownership in the digital age, shaped by her research on identity technologies and her belief that “before we digitise identity, we must humanise its protection, because ownership over one’s data is ultimately ownership over one’s self.”
Aman Govani
Aman is an LLM student focused on the intersection of law, technology, and ethics.
Aman brings experience through their coursework modules including Law and Financial Technology and The Fundamentals of Law and Technology. Aman has developed strong technological literacy and a critical perspective on how data-driven systems affect individuals and broader communities.
Aman is joining the Clinic because it aligns closely with their academic focus on law and technology, and because its mission to support grassroots organisations resonates with their previous experience in socially impactful tech.
They are especially interested in exploring how data governance frameworks can be used to advance justice and accountability rather than exclusion and control.
Drawing from their experience as Director of Research at ESG Gaming, leading data-driven research into the effects of dementia, Aman also brings strong analytical, organisational, and compliance skills to the team.
Through the Clinic, Aman hopes to gain hands-on experience collaborating with experts and community organisations to translate legal and technical insight into socially meaningful data governance.
Hadi Doha
Hadi is a Law LLB (Year 2) student building expertise at the intersection of data governance, privacy, and cybersecurity. Alongside his legal studies, Hadi is pursuing technical and cloud security certifications, including CompTIA Security+, with training underway in advanced cybersecurity and cloud security, bringing a critical legal–technical perspective to data protection challenges.
Hadi is joining the Clinic because it aligns with his goal of bridging legal and technical dimensions of data governance and privacy, and to help individuals and organisations translate legal requirements into actionable steps that strengthen security, transparency, and informed control over personal data.
With prior experience in cyber and data privacy law through an internship at Pinsent Masons, Hadi has seen first-hand how organisations struggle to implement functional data protection. He is particularly concerned with the lack of transparency and community participation in how public-service providers collect and share citizen data and how automated systems risk weakening people’s ability to exercise their data rights.
Through the Clinic, Hadi hopes to apply both legal training and cybersecurity knowledge to support community-centred, technically sound data governance. He is also keen to explore how solutions such as data trusts and community led oversight frameworks can be leveraged to grant communities more agency over the digital infrastructure that governs the usage of their data.
Haleema Ayub
Haleema is a PGDip Law & Professional Practice student with a background in psychology and expertise around Human Computer Interaction (HCI).
She is interested in cultivating expertise on ethical innovation, data governance, and participatory systems. With prior experience leading research on the ethical implications of AI in the workplace (through their work at UCL’s Behavioral Innovations Society), Haleema is keen to build on these learnings by contributing to shaping data empowerment structures and putting principles into practice.
At the clinic, Haleema is excited to explore the relationship between data and law within a global, collaborative community. She hopes to leverage her learnings from working as a learning support assistant, where she engaged with individuals with special educational needs to help design technology that is more accessible and transparent for vulnerable users.
In parallel, Haleema is attentive to the need to align multiple incentives, both corporate and community. She sees a need and opportunity to balance innovation and accountability to ensure that companies develop technology that respects user rights and fosters trust.
Sophia Lieuw-Kie-Song
Sophia is enrolled in the Law and Technology LLM programme and is passionate about media literacy, education and reclaiming our agency in online spaces. Their academic work includes a technology law–focused dissertation on online safety and user protections, alongside research into online misinformation and user polarisation.
Sophia is joining the Clinic because it offers a rare opportunity to combine legal and technical perspectives to address some of the most pressing challenges around data governance.
They are particularly invested in the domain of education, where they hope to explore how data systems can be redesigned to promote transparency, fairness, and participation. As Sophia shared, “education generates vast amounts of personal and institutional data, yet students, teachers, and communities often have limited insight into how that data is used or shared.”
Through the Clinic, they aim to help close this information asymmetry by connecting legal, ethical, and technical perspectives to support more equitable data practices.
With an international background, collaborative mindset, and strong critical analysis skills, Sophia is excited to work with her team of innovative, mission-driven experts who share their commitment to harnessing technology and data for real-world impact.
Tamara Judith Yedlin
Tamara, a student pursuing their MA in Digital Humanities, is motivated by using data for social good, with a particular interest driving inclusive digital practices in public history. Their work sits at the intersection of humanities, data ethics, and community engagement, focusing on how critical thinking and data literacy can foster more transparent and participatory digital environments.
Tamara is joining the Clinic because they are interested in translating critical reflections on data ethics into concrete, community-oriented projects.
With a background in History and education, Tamara brings strong communication and research skills, alongside a commitment to social justice. They are particularly concerned with how “digital technologies shape public memory and the representation of marginalized voices and hope to contribute to projects that ensure technology supports participation and empowerment rather than exclusion."
Meet our supervisor
Haris Yusof
Haris has a background in law and development economics, with research experience in technology policy, data governance and the rights-based regulation of AI systems.
He is currrently pursuing an LLM at UCL, with a particular focus on data protection, privacy and digital platform regulation. His ongoing thesis examines the regulation of recommender systems and disinformation under the EU’s Digital Services Act, with a focus on systemic risk and platform accountability.
Before joining the Data Empowerment Clinic, he worked as a research assistant at the University of Western Australia's Tech & Policy Lab, where he co-developed comparative research into AI regulation, the EU AI Act and gene technology.
He is passionate about reimagining mechanisms for user participation in technology and platform design, as well as governance frameworks for AI systems that respond to public concerns surrounding safe and equitable deployment.
Through his work at the Data Empowerment Clinic he hopes to address power asymmetries in data generation and extraction practices within schools, to help students and teachers participate in more accountable and inclusive models of technology governance.