Salwa Toko (born October 1975) is a diversity and digital literacy activist. She is President of the

Conseil National du Numérique The Conseil national du numérique (French Digital Council, abbreviated CNNum or less commonly CNN) is a French independent advisory commission created on 29 April 2011 by the French presidential decree n°2011-476. It was reorganized and expanded b ...

(CNNum).

Early life and education

Toko was born in the

5th arrondissement of Paris The 5th arrondissement of Paris (''Ve arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as ''le cinquième''. The arrondissement, also known as Panthéon, is s ...

. Her mother is of Moroccan and Syrian heritage and her father is from Nigeria and

Benin Benin ( , ; french: Bénin , ff, Benen), officially the Republic of Benin (french: République du Bénin), and formerly Dahomey, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the nort ...

. Her grandmother fought for women's rights in

Arab countries The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western As ...

. Toko grew up in

Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mal ...

and attended high school in France. Whilst she had initially intended on studying medicine at college, she switched to law and specialised in

international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

. Toko completed her specialist science training at Sciences Po.

Career

Toko was appointed Director of a television channel in

in 2000. Toko founded the Senegal the Africatic school which helped young people integrate internet in their work. Toko returned to France in 2009, where she joined the

Fondation Agir Contre l'Exclusion Fondation Agir Contre l'Exclusion (FACE) is a private foundation in France. The aim is to help young people from humble backgrounds to join the private sector. Overview It was founded by Martine Aubry in 1993.Élisabeth Laville, ''L'entreprise ver ...

(FACE). FACE looks to connect the business world with education. In 2014 Toko established WiFilles, a group within FACE that looks empower women in digital literacy. As part of WiFilles Toko trains teenage girls in digital skills including computer programming, web development and robotics. The girls are recruited from middle school. The organisation has been recognised by François Hollande, who awarded Toko the program ''La France s'engage'', a €200,000 prize, and supported by

Orange S.A. Orange S.A. (), formerly France Télécom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 59,000 elsewhere. In 2015, ...

In April 2018 Toko launched Becomtech, an EdTech organisation that supports women after their baccalauréat, Becomtech offers three to five week coding programmes across France and is funded by Total Foundation and Maïf. Toko was selected by

Mounir Mahjoubi Mounir Mahjoubi (born 1 March 1984) is a French entrepreneur and politician of La République En Marche! (LREM) who served as a member of the National Assembly from June to July 2017 and from 2019 to 2022. From 2017 until 2019 was the Secretary ...

as the President of the

(CNNum) in 2018. Her role is to reflect on major issues facing the French tech sector. She has called for people to consider laws to protect workers on zero-hours contracts, and has said that

Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), packa ...

and

Deliveroo Deliveroo is a British online food delivery company founded by Will Shu and Greg Orlowski in 2013 in London, England. It operates in the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait ...

workers can be considered the precursors to robots under current employment law. She was inducted into L'Académie des Sciences Techniques Comptables in 2019. She was selected by

E-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain managem ...

magazine as one of the top women in technology in 2019. In France only 10% of engineering students are women and only 3% of cyber security specialists are women. In her capacity as President of CNNum Toko advocates for more diversity in technology.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Toko, Salwa 1975 births Living people French computer scientists French computer programmers French activists Sciences Po alumni