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Dr Morgan Freeman
The Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) has announced that the 2025 Annual Dissertation Award was given to Dr. Tomas Walker-Borsa of the University of Oxford, who did outstanding doctoral research in the area of rural broadband infrastructure and community digital networks.
The most prestigious awards in the study of the internet include the AoIR Annual Dissertation Award, where every year the award goes to a person who has completed their PhD thesis work with originality in study, rigor in academia, and the capacity to influence the study of the internet. The award therefore now reflects the growing importance of the study of digital infrastructure, the agency of the indigenous in particular in community-driven tech initiatives.
The thesis by Dr. Walker-Borsa is entitled Future Proof: The Meanings and Makings of The Fibre Project on Haida Gwaii and discusses the construction of a complete fibre broadband network in Haida Gwaii, a remote archipelago in British Columbia, Canada. His work is unique, critically ethnographic and infrastructure-based, merging surveys, media analysis, interviews, participation, and photography to map the complex social interactions of internet access and community connectivity.
The analysis of the research extends beyond technical explanations to look at the intersections of digital infrastructure with culture, community demands, and digital sovereignty, particularly when Indigenous individuals are involved where technological initiatives have the potential to restructure a new social participation and self-separation. By making the local voices and community interests the focus of the research, Dr. Walker-Borsa tends to provide the impact that is going to echo through both academic and policy discourses in the field of internet and communication studies.
The AoIR Annual Dissertation Award is awarded every year at the conference of the Association and comes with formalization and with additional publicity of the research of the awarded. The award focuses on the organisations efforts to encourage emerging scholars whose work stretches the boundaries of knowledge with reference to digital culture, technology and society.
Besides the success of Dr. Walker-Borsa, the committee also honoured Dr. Louisa Bartolo of Queensland University of Technology with an Honourable Mention of her work on algorithmic recommendation systems which also served to highlight the variety and success of new scholarship in the area.
The achievement of Dr. Walker-Borsa does not just celebrate the excellence of individuals, but it also points at the larger change of research to connect the technological development with community empowerment and cultural context. With the internet infrastructure continuing to define societal interactions throughout the world, such work such as Future Proof will continue to be at the forefront of the digital inequity and opportunities of inclusive innovation.
