We are thrilled to celebrate Paola Ricaurte Quijano—co-founder of the Feminist AI Research Network and leader of our LAC Hub—for being named to the TIME100 AI list of 2025, recognizing the most influential voices shaping the future of artificial intelligence. Read the full TIME profile here
Paola’s inclusion in this prestigious list marks a significant milestone not only for her own work, but also for a global movement reimagining AI through feminist, decolonial, and justice-oriented lenses.
A professor of media and digital culture at Mexico’s Tecnológico de Monterrey, Paola has long been a critical voice challenging the extractive and colonial dynamics that underpin today’s AI industry. In 2020, as the pandemic accelerated digital dependence, she helped convene a collective that authored the AI Decolonial Manyfesto—a groundbreaking call to resist Western-centric cultural biases embedded in technology. She went on to co-found Tierra Común, an activist network advocating for the decolonization of data, and played a key role in establishing the Feminist AI Research Network, which supports projects designed to advance inclusion and equity in AI and core to the work of the A+ Alliance.
Paola describes herself as a “network-weaver,” and her approach has always emphasized collaboration and collective action. As she explained in TIME’s profile, “The Global South is providing land, labor, and resources to feed this system that is based on processing data, and then selling this data to create new services and products… in a way, nothing has changed in the international division of labor.” Her analysis brings into sharp relief the continuities between colonial histories and today’s digital economies.
Her recent work has reached global policy circles. In November, she co-authored a report with Mila, the Montreal-based AI research institute, for the OECD’s Global Partnership on AI. Drawing on more than 200 interviews conducted over two years, the report underscored a simple but powerful truth: policy must be developed with the communities most affected by AI systems.
Paola’s recognition in the TIME100 AI list is a testament to the growing visibility and urgency of feminist and decolonial perspectives in AI. For the Feminist AI Research Network, this honor highlights the importance of building infrastructures of knowledge and practice that challenge power, center marginalized voices, and imagine more just technological futures.
We extend our warmest congratulations to Paola and look forward to continuing this collective journey toward feminist and decolonial AI.