Join researchers from the Cornell University’s Global AI Initiative and University of Cape Town’s AI Initiative for a virtual symposium exploring responsible AI for the Global South. The symposium will focus on opportunities for collaboration across AI safety, African language technologies, governance, and measurable societal impact, with the goal of developing joint research projects that move quickly from discussion to action.

The Cornell–UCT Responsible AI Research Symposium brings together researchers from Cornell University’s Global AI Initiative and the University of Cape Town’s AI Initiative to explore responsible AI for the Global South.

Talks will focus on opportunities for collaboration across AI safety, African language technologies, governance, and societal impact, with the goal of developing joint research projects that can move quickly from discussion to action.

Event: Cornell–UCT Responsible AI Research Symposium 
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2026 
Time: 09h00–11h00 EDT | 15h00–17h00 SAST 
Venue: Online, Zoom (meeting link)

Talk highlights include: 

  • AI & Safety – Aditya Vashistha will discuss how communities, cultures, and identities in the Global South are represented in AI systems, and what culturally aligned AI could mean in these contexts.
  • AI & Governance – Annette Hübschle will examine AI-related harms and risks, including technology-facilitated gender-based violence, digital forgeries, surveillance, privacy erosion, environmental degradation, and the overpolicing of marginalised communities. Drawing on the harmscapes framework, she will consider how these intersecting harms call for new approaches to AI governance in Global South contexts.
  • AI & Fairness – Allison Koenecke will discuss linguistic disparities in speech and language models.
  • AI & Agriculture – Paul Amayo will explore how AI could support African agriculture while safeguarding natural environments, focusing on collaborative approaches that combine robots, models, and agents for agricultural development and environmental monitoring. 

Additional talks from UCT and Cornell researchers will be included in the final programme.