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In the Spotlight - Meet Payal Arora
At Women in AI we’d like to inspire others by featuring female role models that are making a difference in AI. We aim to empower women who are working in AI by highlighting their success stories. This way we hope to inspire other women and girls to get into STEM-related fields. In our series ‘In the Spotlight’ we shine a light on an expert in the field and today we’d like you to meet Payal Arora.
Author: Ingrid van Heuven van Staereling.
About Payal
Dr. Payal Arora (PhD, Columbia Univ. NYC), is a Professor of Inclusive AI Cultures at Utrecht University and co-founder of FemLab, a feminist futures of work initiative and Inclusive AI Lab, a stakeholder initiative to build inclusive tech with the Global South. She is a leading digital anthropologist with two decades of user experiences in the Global South and is the author of 100+ journal articles and award-winning books including “The Next Billion Users” with Harvard Press. Forbes named her the ‘next billion champion’ and the ‘right kind of person to reform tech.’ Her new book with MIT Press “From Pessimism to Promise: Lessons from the Global South on Designing Inclusive Tech” has gained traction in the international media, covered by the Financial Times, BBC Tech Decoded, and the UX magazine, among others.
About 150 international media outlets have covered her work including The Economist, 99% Invisible, Tech Crunch, and The Boston Globe. She has consulted for the public and the private sector including UNHCR, Spotify, KPMG, Adobe, IDEO, Google, and GE and sits on several boards including for the Affect Lab, AI Film Fest, and LIRNE-Asia. She has given more than 350 keynotes and invited talks in 67 countries for events such as ACM Facct, Copenhagen Tech Festival, Swedish Internet Foundation, alongside figures like Jimmy Wales and Steve Wozniak, and TEDx talks on the future of the internet and innovation.
Currently Payal directs the AI ethics section for the EU H2020 project FINDR – Fairness and Intersectional Non-Discrimination in Human Recommendation and is a Rockefeller Bellagio Resident Fellow Alumnus. Payal is Indian and has lived in the United States and currently calls Amsterdam her home.
Working in a Complicated Global Political Climate
“In the last decade, my research expertise in debiasing and diversifying datasets and localizing tech designs to build inclusive user-experiences with the Global South has become urgently sought after by almost every major tech company and several policy organizations.” – Payal tells us. This earned her the Forbes title as the ‘next billion champion’ and ‘the right kind of person to reform tech.’ Her work has a big impact, with global effects: “I am able to reach across the aisle and engage with different stakeholders to address major issues around AI bias and discrimination at a global level.” Payal is convinced that this effort is urgently needed, “since 90 percent of the world’s youths live outside the West and have fast become the majority of users in the world, and existing geopolitics in the AI economy poses enormous challenges, risks and harms as well as opportunities for global innovations.” Payal has cultivated a rare liaison position among the private and public sector entities- for instance as a consultant for product equity teams to diversify cultural representation and authenticity in their AI driven products. “I also serve as an advisory board member for several UN entities to help shape responsible data governance policies.”
Needless to say, she has established a unique public platform as a thought leader in addressing misconceptions around AI and the Majority World. She did this by keynoting at influential events such as the re:publica, COP26, and World Economic Forum. “I have also crossed disciplinary and sectoral boundaries by giving keynotes to different groups including computer scientists at ACM and CHI, digital entrepreneurs at My Data, marketeers at MarTech Festival, non-profit folks at RedCross and RNW Media, journalists at ABU Digital Malaysia, and diversity approaches at the INTERPOL and Amsterdam Municipality.” Few academics and women of color have been able to serve as such a liaison in today’s complicated global political climate and advocate for social approaches to today’s most challenging technical problems that undermine the Majority World. So we are very happy to know that someone like Payal has been able to make her mark. As Women in AI, we know these types of role models really can make a difference.
“Regulations by itself will not create sustainable change.”
Reforming Tech from Within
Payal’s work creates impact in many ways. From global policymaking to advocacy and changing the tech industry from within. For example, she worked on institute change by teaming up with critical changemakers within the tech industry in which she has contributed to diversifying AI based products that disproportionately impacts those already marginalized. “Regulations by itself will not create sustainable change.” -Payal tell us. She took reforming tech to the next level by also serving on several advisory boards to help shape policies in the digital economy in Brazil and India and with several UN agencies. “This way I can advocate from within these power brokers and ensure the interests of Global South users are at the center when reforming tech.”
At the same time, she was able to start an inspiring entrepreneurship within academia. “I cofounded femlab, a feminist futures of work initiative that brings diverse stakeholders in the Global South to influence the design and policies of gig platforms for fairer work conditions in the AI driven era.” In the last weeks, she partnered with Dr Laura Herman, the Head of AI research at Adobe to launch the Inclusive AI Lab, where she says, “our mission is to help build inclusive and sustainable AI data, tools, services, and platforms that prioritize the needs, concerns, experiences, and aspirations of chronically neglected user communities and their environments, with a special focus on the Global South.” It is her way to serve as an example of how a humanities scholar can lead the way in how to bring public and private sector entities to take seriously the Global South when reforming tech.
In all of that, Payal also devotes significant time to public platform advocacy. “I leverage on my public platform as a speaker at high profile events and festivals worldwide to shift public perceptions especially in the West towards the Global South that potentially can revert the inward looking trend that is rife among European policymakers, innovators, and the lay public.” – she explains. Overall, she strives to be a role model for women of color. “Having been brought up as a woman in a patriarchal context in India, I bring my lived experiences to the table to ensure diversity is not an abstract ideal but core to my leadership.”
Being Part of the WAI Awards
Due to her amazing efforts Payal has become a part of the top 5 Nominees of AI Diversity Leaders of the Women in AI Benelux Awards. The Women in AI Awards celebrates remarkable women who are making an impact on shaping the future of AI. Their expertise and unique perspectives are driving innovation. Women like Payal are committed to leading the future of AI. Would you like to learn more about the Award nominees and what they have done? Join us on November 15 from 13:30 to 20:00 at the Women in AI Summit, where our Top 5 nominees will be officially presented. The event will celebrate 30 outstanding women in AI who are making a significant impact across the Benelux region.