Speaker details

Biography

Steven De Backer is the Founder and CEO of Afriwise, a legal intelligence platform providing legal and regulatory information, monitoring and AI-assisted research across Africa. A lawyer by training, Steven has more than 20 years of experience working with businesses and law firms across the continent. Before founding Afriwise, he practised corporate law and worked with leading international and African law firms, including Freshfields, Webber Wentzel and the Dentons Africa alliance. Having lectured at the Centre of Law and Computing of the University of Gent as far back as the nineties and having worked in the legal field across Africa, Steven has spent much of his career focused on making African legal and regulatory information more accessible and usable. Today, he works at the intersection of law, technology and artificial intelligence, with a particular focus on how trusted legal data and AI are changing legal research and regulatory intelligence in Africa.