Research ICT Africa

Research ICT Africa (RIA) is running the Africa Just AI project with a three-year grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). Their intention is to serve as an AI Policy think tank in Africa using knowledge grounded in the historical and contemporary contexts of African countries; advocating for people-centred, beneficial AI innovation; and building local capacity and awareness – not only to develop AI systems, but also to govern them justly.

We are partnering with RIA to:

• collaborate on governance research geared to redressing the uneven distribution of opportunities and harms both between and within countries arising from the deployment of AI, Machine Learning and big data analytics
• provide technical and intellectual leadership in shaping the data justice and algorithmic governance theme of the Africa Just AI Project, particularly in relation to participatory data governance
• facilitate connections and comparative perspectives between work on participatory data governance and data justice in the UK and the European Union, and South Africa and the African Union
• develop capacity and provide mentorship to RIA researchers working on the Africa Just AI project and the Digital New Deal project

We are particularly interested in exploring and learning from ubuntu philosophy and African traditions in collective decision making, and seeing how they might apply to data.