Amélie-Sophie Vavrovsky is the Founder of Formally, a legal tech startup that uses accessible design to simplify and streamline immigration applications. Amélie and her team built Formally to solve two problems in the immigration space: The lack of legal representation on one hand, and the low rates of success of pro se applications on the other. Formally’s innovative software has been celebrated for its accessibility, security, and thoughtful data privacy practices.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Amélie leveraged her expertise in remote legal assistance to provide legal counsel to refugees and asylum seekers at the US-Mexican border. In January 2021, she organized a conference in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Civil Society Lab on this very topic (remotelegalaid.com). The conference brought together over 200 experts in the field including legal technologists, activists, nonprofit leaders, and security experts to reimagine access to legal services. As the lead graduate researcher at the Stanford Digital Civil Society Lab, she manages projects on the right to Freedom of Assembly and Association in digital spaces, anti-surveillance, and digital capacity building for nonprofit organizations. Amélie’s research focuses on digital human rights in both international and domestic jurisdictions and seeks to bridge the gap between public and private sectors. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University with degrees in International Relations and Middle East Studies. She is a dual degree graduate student at Stanford in Tech and Cyber Policy and Sustainable design at Stanford.