Experience:

• Research Fellow (2024 - 2025) - University of Siegen
• Research Associate (2024) - „Meaningful Human Control: Between Regulation and Reflection“ (MEHUCO ​​https://meaningfulhumancontrol.de/en/home/) University of Paderborn, Germany
• Research Fellow (2024) - University of Paderborn
• Research Associate (2023 - 2024) - University of Portsmouth, UK
• Director (2017 - present) - Virtual Planet Africa, Southern Africa
• Project Coordinator (2019 - 2020) - Chatteris Educational Foundation, Hong Kong
• Project Coordinator (2018) - Ashinaga, Uganda
• Project Coordinator (2014 - 2015) - Primson Management Services, Zimbabwe

Educational Qualifications:

• MSc International Relations (2022) - Midlands State University, Zimbabwe
• PGCert International Development Studies (2017) - University of Portsmouth, UK
• BSc Honours Sociology (2016) - Great Zimbabwe University, Zimbabwe
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Memberships:

• Stop Killer Robots Campaign
• International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect (Steering Committee member)
• British International Studies Association (BISA)
• Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA)
• Encode Justice (signatory)

Ishmael's research is mainly focused on autonomy in weapons systems, looking specifically at the socio-technical imaginaries of in/equality in algorithmic warfare. The study looks at how forms of cooperation and collaboration in the discussions surrounding autonomous weapons systems play out, and how these impact on the frames through which we understand, or indeed fail to understand, certain marginalised, vulnerable, and subaltern lives. The study looks at different levels of cooperation; from the technical (at the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons [CCW] and other high level UN and non-UN forums), global publics and communities of practice (the media, social media public, academia, developers/defence contractors, civil society, tech companies, international lawyers, etc.), to civilians at the receiving end of algorithmic violence.

Ishmael's Doctoral research looks at in/equality and in/exclusion in the discussions on autonomous weapons systems, bringing out Global South perspectives on algorithmic warfare. His research is centred on understanding the impact of algorithmic warfare on those likely to be most affected by autonomy in weapons, those whose lives are deemed as ‘losable’, ‘injurable’ (Butler, 2009), ‘disposable’, ‘uninsured’, and ‘dispensable’ (Mbembe, 2019).  

Bhila, I. (2024). “Putting algorithmic bias on top of the agenda in the discussions on autonomous weapons systems”. Digital War . DOI: 10.1057/s42984-024-00094-z.

Bhila, I., Lee, P., & Wakefield, A. (2024). Autonomous Vehicles: Threats, Risks, and Opportunities . ASIS International. URL: https://www.asisonline.org/get-involved/asis-foundation/#autonomous-vehicles.

Bhila, I., Madzimure, E., & Kehinde, AA (2024). Submission to the United Nations Secretary-General's Report on the “Humanitarian, legal, security, technological, and ethical considerations for autonomous weapons systems”. URL: https://docs-library.unoda.org/General_Assembly_First_Committee_-Seventy-Ninth_session_(2024)/78-241-VPA_WILPF_Zim_CYFEM-EN.pdf.

Bhila, I. (2023). Submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council on the “Human Rights Implications of New and Emerging Technologies in the Military Domain”. URL: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/advisorycommittee/techmilitarydomain/submissions/5-ngo-virtual-planet-africa.pdf.

Bhila, I. & Chiwenga, E. (2023). “Informal Street Vending in Harare: How Postcolonial Policies have Confined the Vendor in a Precarious Subaltern State”. International Journal of Postcolonial Studies Vol. 25, No. 2. DOI: 10.1080/1369801X.2022.2099938.