Masters Researcher, Cyber & Privacy | Digital Transformation Leader | Lecturer, academyEX | Speaker on AI Ethics & Online Safety | Lived & Worked Across 10 Countries
Paula Gair has spent 15 years inside some of the world's most complex digital transformations, working for large international NGOs and global businesses across 10 countries in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. That kind of experience accumulates something most experts never get: an understanding of how digital transformation actually plays out in organisations that are vastly different from each other in culture, resources, and risk tolerance.
Back in Aotearoa, she channelled that experience into research on cyber, privacy, and online risk, with a focus on a question that most technical experts overlook: how can people who are not engineers actually protect themselves in a world built by engineers? Her Masters research and her work as a Lecturer at academyEX are both oriented toward that practical gap.
She teaches the dimensions of AI and security that most courses skip: what actually goes wrong, how to think about risk when you're not a specialist, and what to do about it when things go sideways. Both as a speaker for Disruptive Technologies and an advisor for the Master of Technological Futures, she brings that rare combination of global experience and practical clarity.