The launch of the Inclusive AI Lab brought our consortium members in the industry, civic and academic sectors together from across 30+ countries to explore collaboration pathways and shape strategy for the year. The meeting inputs helped us consolidate on our focus on sustainable AI in Africa, diversifying creative AI, cross-cultural ethics, localizing responsible AI, and feminist AI—through the creation of the Data CARE workshop series.

This initiative addresses the urgent need to tackle AI-enabled harms, particularly non- consensual intimate content (deepfake pornography), which disproportionately impacts women, girls, and marginalized communities globally. Our co-founder Payal Arora in partnership with our consortium member Marta Zarzycka, Senior User Experience Researcher at Google led a team to conduct ethnographic research in India led by the  Responsible AI lead Kiran Bhatia  and in Mexico, led by Dr. Ana Maria Miranda Mora, Weijie Huang from the FemAI cluster focusing on policy work to build a Gen(der) AI Safety Framework.

The Lab applied and was awarded multiple grants for The Data CARE Workshop Series from the Center for Global Challenges, Institutions for Open Societies, Human-centered AI, and Culture, Heritage & Arts Impact Network. This series aims to serve as a dynamic forum for interdisciplinary and cross-sector dialogue, designed to address the barriers to equitable AI development and deployment by embracing the CARE principles: Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics.

This workshop convened global experts from organisations and institutions such as Columbia University, Fudan University, Justice Adda, RNW MEdia, Pleasure Project, IIEP-UNESCO, Google, IKEA and others representing industry leaders, entrepreneurs, and academics across sectors and countries to generate actionable insights on gender and AI and explored how interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approaches can address AI-enabled harms and foster more inclusive digital futures.

The Inclusive AI Lab formed a globally diverse Advisory Board to guide its future work: Preeti Shroff-Mehta (leadership and global change management), Monique van Dusseldorp (public engagement and outreach), Charles Hayes (human-centered design and entrepreneurship), Jeff Ubois (responsible data archives), and Cat Bohannon (gender data and innovation). Together, they are helping translate our mission into impactful global action.

Held at Utrecht University Hall and streamed globally, this hybrid gathering brought together artists, researchers, technologists, and policymakers from organisations such as Futur2, British Council, University of Groningen, University of Edinburgh, Aika, Telemagic, Deakin University and others from around the world to reimagine the cultural and creative futures of AI through collaboration, dialogue, and performance. Key themes included the role of language, trust, diversity, and reciprocity in shaping AI that uplifts cultural value and centres people over platforms. With 100+ global registrations of participants who attended and offline, the audience included representatives from Pranava Institute, Royal College of Art, Oxfam, UNDP, V2_Lab amongst others.

Backed by CHAIN and FINDR grant and hosted by Eduardo Briceño Florez, Season 1 brings global artists, technologists, and policymakers from organisations such as Adobe, Madhatter Foundation, Futur2, Grab Maps, MICA, British Council and other global experts, into conversation. Diving deep into the cultural heart of AI — asking how we can recognise, remix, resist, repair, regenerate and reimagine creativity in ways that truly reflect global diversity.

The half-day, invite-only Inclusive Design Leadership Summit convened a high-profile, diverse group of leaders to position inclusion as common sense in design and leadership. The event was curated by prominent workshop leaders, who were a mix of our consortium members and Advisory board members from IDEO, Flickr foundation, IKEA, Northwestern University and Adobe. Through workshops and case studies on AI, circularity, and empathy, participants explored how to turn inclusive principles into practice, highlighting AI as a stakeholder, the need for cross-sector action, and reflective leadership. The pilot proved the value of global leaders co-creating strategies for more inclusive futures.