Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
I am a development economist, economic demographer, political scientist (and political cartoonist at heart) with 25 years experience on stats, data, tech and AI for human development and humanitarian action in about 40 countries in SSA, LAC, MENA and Asia. I work and teach on the intersections and interactions of data, tech, AI, official stats, and / with climate, poverty, inequality, conflict, fragility, resilience, crime, migration, gender, livelihoods, ethics, privacy, and politics. My goal is to improve the world with data and AI, at the nexus of research, policy, practice, activism, advocacy and art, with people who value humanism, humility, and (critically) humour. In 2013 I co-founded Data-Pop Alliance (DPA) with Patrick Vinck and Phuong Pham (Harvard), Alex 'Sandy' Pentland (MIT), Claire Melamed and Emma Samman (ODI). In 2016 I co-founded the OPAL 'V1' project to analyse sensitive data for public good ethically at scale, starting in Senegal and Colombia. In 2025 I co-founded and became CEO of the startup OPALimpact as a spinoff of DPA focusing on anticipatory climate action: www.opalimpact.tech. In 2011-12 I wrote the UN White Paper “Big Data for Development” and in 2013 and 2014 I wrote the OECD Fragiles States reports. In 2005-09 I worked as an Economist for UNDP in NY, on fiscal space and poverty/MDGs, post-conflict recovery, and migration (Human Dev Report 2010), and from 2000-04 as a Technical Assistant in official statistics for the French Ministry of Finance in Hanoi. In 2021-2023 I was a Marie Curie Fellow at U Pompeu Fabra. I am an MIT Connection Science Founding Fellow, a Visiting Scientist at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiativ. I am also an Adjunct Faculty at Columbia and Sciences Po Paris, where I teach MA courses on "Technology for Global Challenges" and "Gender and Data". I hold a BA in Political Science and Economics and an MA in Applied Economics-Economic Demography from Sciences Po Paris, an MA in Economic Development from Columbia on a Fulbright fellowship, a PhD in Demography from UC Berkeley (2016) with a dissertation on cell-phone data for demo-economic research, and did a post-doc at MIT (2016-17). As a political cartoonist as ‘Manu’, I published cartoons in France (Politis, Rue89, L’Union) and the US (“Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like”), am an invited member of The Cartoon Movement, held a solo exhibition at The Invisible Dog Art Center in NYC, and use cartoons in my work. I am from Brittany, and in my free time I like to draw, be with my 3 daughters and friends, and do open water swimming and spearfishing.
OPALimpact is a deeptech startup that aims to lower climate impacts on vulnerable populations, assets and activities by powering anticipatory action and adaptation. It’s a spinoff of the NGO Data-Pop Alliance, incorporated in Brittany, France. It provides products and services to help private and public sector clients lower climate impacts, anchored on an end-to-end digital infrastructure called OPAL, for Observe, Plan, Act and Learn. For more: https://opalimpact.tech
Directing and co-founded Data-Pop Alliance, a global coalition on data, AI, tech and human development created with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI), MIT Media Lab, and ODI. DPA is an NGO incorporated in the US, as well as as Mexican and Senegalese NGOs. I co-founded DPA in 2013 with colleagues at Harvard and MIT, but it has been its own separate entity since 2016 — although we have kept ties with both Harvard and MIT and I have visiting appointements at both universities. We work on the applications and implications of data, Big Data, technology and AI for human development and democracy in the "Global South”, especially LAC, sub-Saharan Africa and the MENA region. We have a budget go about $1.2-.1.4m a year, about 35-40 staff, the vast majority in countries where we have projects (e.g. Mexico, Colombia, Haiti, Senegal, Tunisia….)….Our work is organised as follows: We have 3 work pillars—this is what we do / how we work : 1) Diagnose: research, evaluations…. 2) Mobilize: awareness raising, trainings, convening.. 3) Transform: strategy advice, pilots, tools…. We deploy these in 6 thematic Programs—this is what we work on: P1: “Just Digital Transformations” (P stands for Program) https://datapopalliance.org/our-work/thematic-programms/program-just-digital-transformations/ P2: “AI and Statistics for the SDGs” https://datapopalliance.org/our-work/thematic-programms/program-ai-and-statistics-for-the-sdgs/ P3: “Resilient Livelihoods and Ecosystem” https://datapopalliance.org/our-work/thematic-programms/program-resilient-livelihoods-and-ecosystems/, which includes work on climate change, food security…. P4: “Data Feminism” https://datapopalliance.org/our-work/thematic-programms/program_data_feminism/ P5 “ Geographies of Inequalities” https://datapopalliance.org/our-work/thematic-programms/program-geographies-of-inequalities/ P6: "Technology and Democracy"https://datapopalliance.org/our-work/thematic-programms/program-technology-and-democracy/
Adjunct Associate Professor in International and Public Affairs. Teaching a course in the MA of International Affairs’s Data and Quantitative Analysis concentration at SIPA on « Gender Data for Gender Equality ». https://www.sipa.columbia.edu/communities-connections/faculty/emmanuel-letouze
Teaching on "Technology for Global Challenges" MA-level class, focusing on Data and AI and the SDGs (poverty, inequality, gender, migration, climate, violence...).