A+ Alliance

The Tech We Need & Global Roundtable
2022-12-15 15:30 - 17:00 (Europe/Paris)
The Tech We Need is the <A+> Alliance commitment to the Generation Equality Forum UN Women Action Coalition for Technology & Innovation for Gender Equality. A small pilot has begun in Erizo Santamaria near Tec Costa Rica’s Alajuela campus. Guests to be announced.

Incubating Feminist AI: MENA f<a+i>r Hub’s First Network Meeting
2022-12-14
Speakers: Soraj Hongladarom, Caitlin Kraft-Buchman, Nadine Moawad, Nagla Rizk and Amira Salah-
Ahmed.
Moderator: Nadine Weheba
Date: Wednesday, Dec 14th 2022
The first Middle East and North Africa (MENA) f<a+i>r Hub’s network meeting was held on Wednesday
14th Dec 2022 at 3.30pm Cairo local time via Zoom. The Access to Knowledge for Development Center
(A2K4D) at the American University in Cairo, School of Business introduced the f<a+i>r Hubs Network
and brought together key stakeholders in MENA in an action-oriented conversation on how new
technologies such as AI can be harnessed to address MENA’s most pressing developmental problems
with focus on gender inclusion.

Key issues discussed:

Digital and analogue divides are intertwined and can be exacerbated by AI.

Feminists need to invest their efforts in proactively creating the future that we want to live in rather than just reacting.

AI can play a role in promoting awareness of the way technology can be intertwined with socioeconomic problems and can be utilized for achieving equality and justice.

What is coming for humanity is impossible to predict, but it is necessary to try all approaches to ensure the future is fair for women.

There are high level plans on investing in AI for smart cities, pensions, healthcare etc. in the region and in Egypt in particular however there are not enough women or youth present at these tables. No one is currently looking at AI with a feminist lens.

There is a huge disconnect between those working in feminist spaces and those working in tech. We need to bring both groups together to share knowledge and have discussions. We also need to include major stakeholders involved in decision and policy making

There is an urgent need to build an open data platform that hosts data sets from the MENA region to produce AI models for the MENA region instead of relying on tech produced by the West.

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g5mNxb2wsY&t=3s

Day Zero: Global Tour of Feminist AI: One Year On
2022-11-28 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Paris)
<A+> Alliance for Inclusive Algorithms:
One year into our Global project on Feminist AI where are we ? What have we accomplished?
Join our <A+> Alliance global group as we discuss where we have been and new paths forward.
Caitlin Kraft-Buchman, Women At The Table/
Jaime Gutérriez Alfaro, Tecnológico de Costa Rica
Paola Ricaurte Quijano, Tecnológico de Monterrey
Nagla Rizk, American University Cairo/
Soraj Hongladoram, Chulalongkorn University
Supavadee Aramwith, Chulalongkorn University
Laure Tall, IPAR & GRAIN
Ernest Mwebaze, Sunbird AI & GRAIN
Feminist AI‘s goal is AI and Algorithmic Decision-Making that transforms – harnessed to deliver equality outcomes; designed with inclusion at the core; creating new opportunities; focussed on proactive, innovative correction of inequities.
Our Alliance seeks to catalyze a global conversation on algorithms that includes gender, race, class and region at the core of the code. It looks beyond the important privacy and surveillance conversation to a restructuring of power dynamics.
It takes a life cycle approach to data and ML regarding creation, collection, deployment and evolution of emerging tech that keeps rights-based approaches firmly at their center. These rights include economic and social rights often less explored in traditional libertarian models of digital rights which have excluded the most marginalized from the conversation and control of their data and destiny.

Inclusive Algorithms (<A+>) that challenge old models and create new interdisciplinary avenues for systems change in data, technology and AI practices are needed in order to correct real-life bias and barriers that prevent individuals, especially women and youth of the Global South, Black, Indigenous and People of Color from creation, development + deployment of AI systems. This exclusion exacerbates and enables digital colonialism.
There are critical connections between Feminist AI, Decolonial AI, Indigenous AI and data rights movements.
This global, multidisciplinary panel is meant to inspire and nurture new and old movements who must now work together with the potential to positively transform lives at scale. What is Feminist AI? Why do we need it, and how is it an integral yet missing part of the global internet conversation? How can it create fundamental change in economic + social systems and human rights? How can we catalyze this global movement from the global south to incorporate those who have been traditionally excluded.
<A+ > Alliance leaders + AI4D Africa will share research, policy and technology innovation that can help us leave no one behind, and to thrive.
We launched at IGF 2021 and now have papers & prototypes to share. Where are we at Year One in this journey across the Global South?
SDG 5 is the core of our work, although we believe Gender Equality is a transversal goal and with Climate Change (with which we work closely) are the two SDGs to truly cut across all the 17 SDGs. In particular we are involved in partnership SDG 17; working to integrate Climate Change AI with transformative gender equality AI SDG 13; Inclusive transportation in mega-cities and urban settlements. SDG 11; policy work on gender responsive AI at the national, regional, and international level SDG 9, etc.

Beyond the Concept: Feminist Foreign Policy in Action
2022-11-12 16:15 - 17:00 (Europe/Paris)
Plans for a feminist foreign policy have been put in place by several countries over the past decade. However, international statistics tell us that the inclusion of women in international decision-making and negotiation mechanisms is often insufficient: in 2022, women ambassadors average only 21.6% in the world’s 40 largest economies (AGDA Women in Diplomacy Index 2022). Ensuring that women play a key role in discussions and decision-making processes in the different fields of diplomacy could truly take into account women’s voices and rights and make international governance more inclusive. The speakers in this session will present the assets and outcomes that a sustainable feminist foreign policy could ensure, while making diplomacy more effective and legitimate. In this spirit, they will explore strategies to move from theory to practical realization of feminist foreign policies and to promote their articulation, promotion, and implementation, through examples of good practices from different regions of the world.
This roundtable is an interactive format gathering around 25 high-level and expert participants to exchange on a topic of common interest. After initial contributions from designated speakers (see below) to frame the issues to be discussed and challenges to be tackled, participants are invited to take the floor on a voluntary basis to share ideas, inputs, and lead the discussion towards common understandings and solutions.
Moderator:

Meredith Preston McGhie, Secretary General, Global Center for Pluralism
Ms. Anisha Chugh, Executive Director, Women’s Fund Asia
Ms. Eunice Musiime, Executive Director, Akina Mama wa Afrika
Ms. Hannah Neumann, Initiator, Member of the European Parliament, #SHEcurity
Ms. Lyric Thompson, Vice President of Policy, Advocacy and Strategy, International Center for Research on Women (ICRW)
Ms. Ambika Vishwanath, Founder Director, Kubernein Initiative
Ms. Caitlin Kraft-Buchman, CEO Founder, Women At The Table

Making AI Work for International Development Roundtable
2022-11-11 14:45 - 15:45 (Europe/Paris)
AI tools stand to reshape the field of international development, raising questions regarding the appropriateness, efficacy, and ethics of such systems and applications. The introduction of AI into the already complex ecosystem requires serious consideration of fairness and equity, explainability and accountability, and the limitations of the data sets upon which AI platforms will rely. What ethical principles and regulatory standards should be applied to maximize positive impact while holding development agencies, corporate vendors, and foreign governments accountable? What is AI’s potential to contribute to addressing top development challenges? During this roundtable, representatives of civil society and governments will engage with international development experts and leaders to discuss the applications and limitations of AI in their field, to help identify best practices and future policy priorities in ethically and equitably applying AI in development.
Moderator:
Dr. Aubra Anthony, Senior Fellow, Technology and International Affairs Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Speakers:

Jeremy Springman, Senior Research Associate, DevLab@Penn, University of Pennsylvania
Fabrizio Scrollini, Director Ejecutivo, Iniciativa Latinoamericana por los Datos Abiertos (ILDA)
Gianluca Misuraca, Team Leader and Senior Expert in Technology Diplomacy, International Outreach for Human-centric AI
Marielza Oliviera, Director for Partnerships, UNESCO
Rajamanohar Somasundaram, Founder & CEO, Aqua Connect Blue
Jun-E Tan, Senior Research Associate, Khazanah Research Institute
Dr. William Wasswa, Technical Member, African Union High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies
Urvashi Aneja, Director, Digital Futures Lab
Other participants :
Hilde Hardeman, Director-General of the Publications Office of the EU
Jean Quérait, CEO, The IO Foundation
Merih Angin, Assistant Professor, Koç University
Shmyla Khan, Policy Director, Digital Rights Foundation
Rachel Adams, Principal Researcher, Research, ICT Africa
Rachel Gong, Deputy Director, Khazanah Research Institute
Caitlin Kraft-Buchman, CEO and Founder, Women at the Table
Dave Lewis, Associate Professor, Trinity College Dublin

Managing AI Risk: Perspectives from Around the World
2022-11-11 11:15 - 12:15 (Europe/Paris)
This session is co-organized with the OECD.AI
Format
Interactive discussion of speakers and other participants, facilitated by the moderator, concluding with questions from the audience.
Topic
Many potential risks associated with artificial intelligence have been identified and as capabilities mature, risks will grow in scale and scope. The EU AI Act proposes to address this through a proportionate system of regulation, with flexible mechanisms to enable dynamic adaptability to changing situations. The US administration, at the same time, just proposed an AI Bill of Rights and is also developing a voluntary risk management framework. Does the understanding of the risks posed by AI converge or diverge across these jurisdictions? Furthermore, what is the conception of AI risk as seen from the Global South, and how are Global South actors’ interests and concerns reflected in these emerging norms? With AI risk assessments tied deeply to societies’ values, policy makers and AI experts from across the world will explore what level of global consensus can be achieved to effectively govern AI risk. Is global interoperability an achievable goal, and, if not, what will be the implications?
Moderator:
Ms. Elina Noor, Director, Political-Security Affairs, Asia Society Policy Institute
Speakers:

Ms. Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director-General for the Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO
Ms. Karine Perset, Head of OECD.AI, OECD
Mr. Vilas Dhar, President and Trustee, McGovern Foundation
Ms. Elham Tabassi, Chief of Staff, NIST, Department of Commerce
Ms. Lucilla Sioli, Director of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Industry, European Commission
Dr. Rachel Adams, Principal Researcher, Research ICT Africa
Ms. Nighat Dad, Founder and Executive Director, Digital Rights Foundation
Ms. María Paz Canales, International Affairs Coordinator, Derechos Digitales
Ms. Peggy Hicks, Director of Thematic Engagement, Special Procedures and Right to Development Division, UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR)
Nicolas Miailhe, Co-Founder and President, The Future Society
Stephanie Ifayemi, Head of Policy, Partnership on AI
Lourdes Montenegro, Director of Research and Digitisation, World Benchmarking Alliance,
Gry Hasselbalch, Key Expert in AI Ethics, InTouchAI.eu
Caitlin Kraft-Buchman, CEO and Founder, Women at the Table
Cecilie Waagner Falkenstrøm, Founder, Artificial Mind

Who Gets to Speak? Who Gets Heard? The Deadly Data Gap: Gender, Age, Region
2022-10-31
Who Gets to Speak on behalf of a changing world in crisis? At this critical moment in history we see the stark divisions on who helps make the decisions that will affect the generations to come. *Register here*: https://whova.com/portal/registration/ecoso_202202 **Date: 2 February 2022 @ 8:00-8:50 EST** Why is it important to be quantitative about ‘Who gets to speak & heard?’ We will discuss this issue, and share a newly developed open source app – The G-app – that does just that, and is **designed to measure the active participation of women and youth in international conferences capturing the proportion of time, the topics, the capacity and delegated authority women and youth speak in the conference chamber** to provide concrete metrics to evaluate representation, participation and influence. We believe it is critical to **highlight these figures in order to catalyze the outcome of more women and youth in leading positions corresponding to their proportion in the population.** The open source G-app premiered at the Paris Peace Forum 2021 and could be used throughout the UN System and beyond. #### Speakers: – Hon. Patricia Torsney, Permanent Observer of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) to the United Nations – Satish Viswanathan, Thoughtworks, Head of Social Impact, India #### Moderator: – Caitlin Kraft-Buchman, Women@theTable, CEO/Founder* * The <A+> Alliance for Inclusive Algorithms led by Women@theTable and Tecnologico de Costa Rica are leaders of UN Women’s Generation Equality Forum **Action Coalition for Technology & Innovation for Gender Equality.** The 2022 ECOSOC Partnership Forum will be fully virtual and hosted on the Whova Event Platform, which provides all-in-one access to all sessions of the Forum (opening and closing, plenary sessions, spotlight sessions, partnership exchanges, and side events) as well as networking opportunities. Registered attendees will be able to: * Browse latest event programme, speaker profiles and add to personal schedule; * Access live streaming of sessions and utilize the session Q&A to share comments; * Set up virtual meet-ups with other attendees to connect and network; * Create and converse through various discussion topics in the Community Board; * Receive updates such as last-minute session changes from organizers. *Register here*: https://whova.com/portal/registration/ecoso_202202 To access the virtual forum, log in with the registered email address either from web (https://2022partnershipforum.events.whova.com) or through Whova’s free mobile app (Download from here or search “Whova” in the App Store on iPhones or in Google Play on Android phones.).

Encuentro equipo A+
2022-10-19 08:00 - 17:00 UTC
Todos cordialmente invitados.

Lanzamiento website
2022-10-10 08:00 - 2022-10-12 17:00 UTC
Finalemente nuestro nuevo sitio estará listo.

Incubating Feminist AI: Call for Proposals
2022-08-20
Incubating Feminist AI: Call for Proposals
Overview
This decade there is a unique opportunity to not only mitigate, but correct for historic inequities buried in the data, put in the algorithm, implicit in the model, embedded in machine learning, then wired intricately in neural networks. The opportunity, as new systems proliferate and are being designed, is to revisit old assumptions and conceive of social services with ideas of efficacy and equity at the core–to go beyond only digitizing old programs for ‘efficiency’, which enable a more effective Patriarchy 4.0. Feminist AI‘s goal is AI harnessed to deliver equality outcomes; designed with inclusion at the core; creating new opportunities & proactive, innovative correction of inequities.
The f<a+i>r network focuses on bringing social programs in line with 21st research and values, dedicated to finding ways to make AI technology more effective, inclusive and transformational, not only more ‘efficient’. <A+> Alliance seeks to collaborate with communities, practitioners, researchers, scholars and innovators working to springboard from the established ‘what’ of describing harm and ‘why’ harms exist socially or technically, to research focused on ‘how’ course-correcting future harms can happen, and most urgently ‘how’ new data, algorithms, models, policies + systems could be created, then prototyped, and piloted.
The 2021 call for proposals from multi-disciplinary, global south teams of feminist thinkers is intended to create opportunities for new research engagement. Novel approaches and new models, with a focus on practical application in prototype and pilot phases will be prioritized.
Papers will focus on multi-disciplinary work researching, creating, or iterating new AI framework models and designs for new or current social policy allocations in order to re-engineer system thinking and algorithmic solving for proxy problems and old assumptions buried in the data and now active in the new technology. This may include research on the efficacy of including or hiding protected characteristics, or finding social and economic models of allocation/distribution now made more possible and equitable through the creation or innovative use of new or big data in Algorithmic Decision-Making (ADM).
Some indicative areas: Social Policy & Protection Design (p.ex., Social insurance, social assistance and safety nets: from Subsidy, Digital ID, Land Tenure/Use, Pensions, Conditional Cash Transfer, Lotteries), Health, Housing and Education services, Labour activation policies, Social Welfare, Justice, new algorithmic applications of Indigenous, Decolonial, Traditional models, etc, Geospatial Mapping, and Climate Change.
Papers, Models, Prototypes, Pilots

9 proposals will be selected to be developed into papers each year of the three-year project, with 9 papers focused on the regions of eligible low-and middle-income countries in South and Southeast Asia, Central and South America, and the Middle East and North Africa.
Out of the 9 papers delivered each year, 3 will be selected to go to Prototype.
One of those 3 prototypes will go to an official pilot. The process will be repeated each year through 2024.

F<a+i>r is dedicated to helping untraditional academic teams or community groups find partners and will support teams with capacity-building where appropriate. Principal Investigators from each selected paper team will be required to attend bi-weekly meetings to discuss their approaches, insights and research progress throughout the duration of the project (including prototyping and pilot phases if selected). In addition to this South-South network knowledge sharing, teams (and selected applicants) will be invited to attend f<a+i>r regional and/or global meetings happening bi-monthly.
Link to Criteria
Link to Research Directions
Submission Deadlines Round One

Opens: 15 September 2021.
Closes: 31 October 2021 (Anywhere on Earth).
Determination: 15 November 2021.
Bi-Weekly Meetings throughout the process
Delivery: 15 May 2022

Successful papers chosen for Round One Prototypes: 30 May 2022 Prototyping Workshops: week of 6 June 2022 Prototype delivery: 6 January 2023.
Grants

CAD 8,000 per paper to the team with 2 Principal Investigators from 2 different disciplines, both based in the Global South.
Prototype if selected: CAD 75,000 per prototype plus partner funding.
Pilot if selected: CAD 50,000 to seed each partnered pilot.

The f<a+i>r Global Launch on January 26, 2022.
2022-01-26
What do benchmark datasets mean for Feminist AI, and where do we go from here in our collective work? At our Global Launch, Emily Denton, Research Scientist at Google and co-author of NeuroIPS 2021 paper Reduced, Reused and Recycled: The Life of a Dataset in Machine Learning Research presented their work, and engaged in conversation with Raejetse Sefala of DAIR (whose talk on Spatial Apartheid is posted separately). Paper Abstract: “Benchmark datasets play a central role in the organization of machine learning research. They coordinate researchers around shared research problems and serve as a measure of progress towards shared goals. Despite the foundational role of benchmarking practices in this field, relatively little attention has been paid to the dynamics of benchmark dataset use and reuse, within or across machine learning subcommunities. In this paper, we dig into these dynamics. We study how dataset usage patterns differ across machine learning subcommunities and across time from 2015-2020. We find increasing concentration on fewer and fewer datasets within task communities, significant adoption of datasets from other tasks, and concentration across the field on datasets that have been introduced by researchers situated within a small number of elite institutions. Our results have implications for scientific evaluation, AI ethics, and equity/access within the field.”
