OUR APPROACH
Humanities-led
Toughest questions around AI demand a social, not just tech lens
* Steering the humanities from critical to constructive leadership.
Bridging North-South
Global South focus: It is where the world’s majority lives!
* Co-designing with the Global South as not mere data sources but leaders in building AI.
Empirical & solution driven
With feet on the ground to build ‘Contextual Intelligence’
* Our success is reflected in global networks & working relations with local actors to institute change.
Engage with Difference
Our Fellow members are critical changemakers
* We need all hands on deck from civic, industry, creative, and policy sectors & North-South collaborations to make a difference.
Optimistic mindset
Hope-oriented
* Optimism is not denial. It’s a commitment to build better; that we can come together across contexts to shape technologies that align with human and planetary wellbeing. Hope is a moral imperative.
FOCUS AREAS
This research cluster bridges responsible, sustainable AI with local entrepreneurship through pilot projects that integrate digital services and data impacts, aligning with both people and planet. By adapting existing frameworks like the UN’s ‘AI in Humanity,’ it translates policy into actionable, context-specific models, driving ethical, impactful AI adoption on the ground.
Team Member Wakanyi Hoffman speaks about Mothering AI systems with Ecosystemic Values and Indigenous Ways of Knowing
The Diversifying Creative AI cluster works across three layers: Data (addressing bias and self-representation through ethnographic research and diverse datasets), System (ensuring inclusive UX design by involving users to foster equitable, creative experiences), and Output (exploring quality, aesthetics, and cross-cultural value definitions with Global South creatives).
Team member and meme expert Lucie Chateau interviewed
Taste from the field from our project working with creative groups for equitable tool design
This cluster maps ethical AI campaigns to media gaps and focuses on identifying narrative gaps in different regions to tailor AI ethics outreach. By applying a cross-cultural lens to labeling and prompting, it fosters intercultural dialogue on AI ethics, aiming to define actionable design criteria that respect diverse values and needs across communities.
Team member Marianna Capasso presenting the module on Ethics of discrimination for the FINDHR Project funded by the European Union
This cluster focuses on enhancing data literacy to highlight both the opportunities and limits of data capture. It emphasizes the importance of the Global South as co-designers in AI, leveraging local knowledge to reduce risks and optimize relevance. The cluster also advocates for AI models that are both locally responsive and globally scalable.
Team member Kiran Bhatia presenting at the Living
Heritage in a Digital Environment Conference
This cluster works alongside FemLab—a researcher-activist cooperative co-founded by Prof. Arora—focuses on building inclusive, gender-sensitive AI systems. FemLab applies a worker-centered, feminist approach to digital platforms, aiming to enhance self-actualization, representation, and collective empowerment while ensuring technology aligns with human dignity and creativity.
Co-founder Payal Arora presents Feminist Approaches to Labour Collectives
