Rishi Maharaj

Rishi is the holder of a BSc. and MSc. in Government from the University of the West Indies. His MSc Research focused on Curbing Corruption: A comparative examination of anticorruption agencies in Trinidad and Tobago; Hong Kong and Australia.

He is currently the Executive Director of EquiGov Institute a Social Enterprise organisation base in the twin-island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, specialising in consultancy, training and research across key areas such as Data Privacy/Protection, Data Governance, Information Access, Transparency and Monitoring & Evaluation.

He was formerly the CEO of Disclosure Today, an award-winning social governance initiative whose mission is to advance transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and promote citizen engagement in public sector decision-making and through the utilization of civic technology.

With over 15 years of experience within both the Public and Civil Society Sector Rishi has considerable knowledge and experience of the workings of government both from an operational and policy aspect as well as a unique insight into the challenges, faced by civil society organisations trying to impact civic change. During the period 2005 to 2012, he was the Senior Officer in charge of the Freedom of Information Unit. He also provided technical advice in the passage and partial proclamation of the Data Protection Act in 2011 and participated in the drafting of model legislation on Freedom of Information and Data Protection through the International Telecommunications Union HIPCAR Project.

Rishi is a certified member of the Canadian Institute of Access and Privacy Professionals and the International Association of Privacy Professionals and is a Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM)