News and Information Credibility LeadGoogle
Mevan Babakar is a social entrepreneur, and writer. She is the News and Information Credibility Lead at Google, working to tackle misinformation globally.
In 2023 Mevan was selected by the Obama Foundation as an Obama Leader for Europe.
Mevan was previously deputy CEO of Full Fact, the UK’s independent fact checking charity where she worked on the problems mis/disinformation for seven years. She founded Full Fact’s automated fact checking team which built AI technologies to help scale the work of fact checkers. This work went on to win the Google AI Impact Challenge. The tools that were developed are now being used by fact checkers around the world. Mevan also sat on the board of the International Fact Checking Network, which oversees 300 fact checking organisations worldwide.
Outside of Full Fact, Mevan was CEO at Democracy Club which empowers voters and everyday democracy in the UK. She also launched the UK’s first ever National Voter Registration Day which has since registered millions of young people to vote. In 2020 Mevan founded Level Up, a voluntary mentoring program that connects UK tech professionals with early career developers in Iraq and Syria.
Mevan serves as trustee for the UK for UNHCR, the UK arm of the UN refugee agency, which helps protect refugees around the world.