Mike Innes to speak at Leiden University Workshop on Network Entanglements
Research Event
The Power of Social Media Networks: Scientific Research on the Entanglement of Online and Offline Networks in Africa
November 18th, 2025 - CKS is pleased to announce that principal consultant Dr. Michael A. Innes has been invited to participate in a high-level workshop at Leiden University in the Netherlands, titled “The Power of Social Media Networks: Scientific Research on the Entanglement of Online and Offline Networks in Africa". The workshop is being hosted by Sahel Nomads in Networked Conflicts (NomadeSahel), a research team at the university led by Professor Mirjam de Bruin, on November 20th and 21st.
The workshop will bring together experts to discuss information networks, mobility and culture in Africa’s Sahel region. The aim of the event is to understand the entanglement between digital and physical networks, power dynamics, and social cohesion and mobilization, and to develop strategies for ensuring long-term data integrity under conditions of risk. Participants include political scientists, anthropologists, historians, data scientists and public health specialists, from Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK.
Innes will deliver a keynote address entitled “The Head of Orpheus: Tear-Line Forensics, Black Box Evidence, and the End of Provenance”, before leading a panel with Dr. Mirjam van Reisen of the Leiden University Medical Centre on safeguarding perishable and at-risk data. Innes, who founded CKS, is also a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London, a member of several research groups, and maintains an active academic profile focused on the geopolitics of information and emerging technology applications.
His keynote and panel comments will feature case studies of field assignments in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and new research for a book he is writing on the history and law of ICT in American, British, and NATO intelligence. “I’m honoured to have been invited to participate,” he says, “and I look forward to contributing. NomadeSahel does important work, and this is an excellent opportunity to exchange ideas and test out fresh research with academic colleagues doing fascinating research of their own.”
Full text of the workshop agenda and description is available online at the following URL: https://nomadesahel.org/workshop/.
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[Date of Publication: November 18th, 2025]