Big Data and AI in the Global South

About the Workshop

Recently Big Data and AI, among other data-driven applications, are becoming increasingly popular in the Global South. Research works have shown that the challenges of developing and deploying Big Data- and AI- based systems in the Global South are different from those in the North due to sociocultural norms, infrastructural limits, colonial histories, and continuing oppressions and social stratification based on race/caste/tribe, among others. In this workshop, we invite researchers across the world who investigate and contend with these challenges. The objectives of this workshop are to identify the challenges of AI and Big Data in the Global South, come up with designs, policies, and methods to develop a decolonizing praxis in this area, connect with existing scholarship in HCI4D and AI4SG, and develop an active HCI community to advance these goals.

Goals of the Workshop:

We build on the AI4SG and HCI4D literature, along with our lived experiences in the Global South and set two major goals for the workshop:

• Bringing together a community of HCI researchers and practitioners from different domains and interested in AI, Big Data, and marginalized populations in the Global South to make connections, share ideas and experiences, and redefine the scope of AI and Big Data research by identifying further gaps in these fields from Global South perspectives.

• Coming up with designs, policies, and other ways to address AI coloniality in the Global South and unpacking the validity and relevance of the current methods and techniques used in AI- and Big Data-related practices in the Global South and how they can possibly jeopardize real-world impact.

Call for Participation

We invite researchers to submit papers that (a) identify unique challenges of AI and Big Data in the Global South, (b) discuss designs, policies, and strategies to decolonize AI, and/or (c) connect with existing scholarship in HCI4D and AI4SG. In this interactive virtual workshop, the participants will work in thematic clusters to create a collective vision for future Big Data, AI and HCI4D research, identify how to overcome research challenges, and establish the infrastructures for further progress. We call for abstracts under the following or closely related themes:

• Missing history: Discuss the problems of the missing histories of many communities in the Global South and develop strategies to support them against AI biases.

• Whose ethics: Identify the limitations of western metaphysical ethics in AI, and develop strategies to integrate local ethics in it.

• Infrastructural Politics, Big Data and AI: Identify infrastructural challenges and politics in implementing big data services in the Global South.

Important Dates:

• First round submission deadline: J̶u̶n̶e̶ ̶5̶,̶ ̶2̶0̶2̶2̶,̶ ̶(̶1̶1̶:̶5̶9̶ ̶A̶o̶E̶)̶, June 12, 2022, (11:59 AoE)

• First round decision notification: J̶u̶n̶e̶ ̶1̶0̶,̶ ̶2̶0̶2̶2̶, June 19, 2022

Submission Details:

Submit to: bigdataai.craft.facct2022@gmail.com by email

Subject line: bd&ai - {First author’s last name}

Suggested Formatting:

• Word limit: 500 words (maximum, excluding references).

• Template: ACM Master Article Submission Templates, single column. Please follow the guideline here: https://chi2022.acm.org/for-authors/presenting/papers/chi-publication-formats/. Submit in PDF file.

• We are flexible about formatting.

NB: Upon acceptance, at least one author must attend the workshop, prepare a three-minute long video presentation, and register for the workshop and at least one day of the conference. We will send the participants the instructions regarding the online platforms and related details. Accepted papers will be archived on the workshop’s website.

Workshop Schedule (in KST)

Keynotes

Organizers

Sharifa Sultana is a PhD Candidate at Cornell University, USA and Facebook Fellow. She conducts research in the intersection of HCI, ICTD, wellbeing, and feminist-HCI. She aims to design computational tools and systems to address the challenges for the rural low-education population while accessing information. She is actively engaged with local NGOs and traditional healthcare support providers in rural Bangladesh.

Mohammad Rashidujjaman Rifat is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. His research is at the intersection of HCI, ICTD, and faith. Rifat conducts qualitative studies and computational analysis to explore faith-based values, rationality, and politics; and designs technologies to mitigate faith-based intolerance and make technologies more faith inclusive.

Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at University of Toronto. He conducts research in the intersection between Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Information and Communication Technology and Development (ICTD). He received his PhD in Information Science from Cornell University in 2017. He established the first HCI research lab in Bangladesh in 2009, and still maintains it. His research work is built around the concept of ‘voice’ that connects various branches of political philosophy to technology intervention. His current research focuses on the politics of faith and justification in computing.

Ranjit Singh is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the AI on the Ground Initiative of Data & Society Research Institute and has a doctorate in Science and Technology Studies from Cornell University. He is currently leading a research project on and collaborating on building a research community around mapping the concepts, keywords, and everyday stories centered on data-driven interventions and AI in/from the Global South.

Julian Posada is a PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information and a Fellow of Massey College and the Schwartz Reisman Institute. His research, supported by the International Development Research Centre, investigates the experiences of workers in Latin America who annotate data for artificial intelligence through digital labour platforms and questions the current sustainability of AI systems.

Azra Ismail is a PhD Candidate in Human-Centered Computing at Georgia Tech, USA, and is a recipient of the Work in the Age of Intelligent Machines (WAIM) Doctoral Fellowship. Her research examines the role of automated and data-driven systems in frontline health, particularly for women health workers in low-level and precarious roles in India.

Yousif Hassan is a Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School program on Science, Technology, and Society and PhD (ABD) with the Science and Technology Studies (STS) program at York University. His areas of interest are human-computer interactions, critical algorithm studies, the political economy of technoscience, critical innovation studies, communication studies, and intersectional and decolonial STS. His current research focuses on the social, economic, and political implications of digital technologies such as AI, blockchain, and the digital platform economy examining the relationship between race, digital technology, and technoscientific capitalism.

Seyram Avle is Assistant Professor of Global Digital Media in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research focuses on digital technology cultures and innovation across parts of Africa, China, and the United States. This work primarily takes a critical approach towards understanding how digital technologies are made and used, as well as their implications for issues of labor, identity, and futures.

Nithya Sambasivan is a Staff Research Scientist at PAIR, Google Research and leads the human-computer interaction (HCI) group at the India lab. Her current research focuses on designing responsible AI systems by focusing on the humans of the AI/ML pipeline, specifically in the non-West. Her research is a core contributor to Google’s products and strategy for the Global South, and has won numerous best paper awards and nominations at top-tier computing conferences. Nithya has a PhD. in Information and Computer Sciences from UC Irvine.

Rajesh Veeraraghavan is an Assistant Professor of Science Technology and International Affairs (STIA) Program at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. His work focuses on the intersection of data, technology and governance. He is interested in the politics of data and technology, inequality and the role of data and technology to improve lives of the marginalized. He has a Ph.D from University of California, Berkeley from the School of Information.

Priyank Chandra is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. His research studies the sociotechnical practices of communities living at the margins of society. Specifically, he focuses on how informality shapes technology use, sustains collaboration, and creates resilient practices. He received his PhD in Information from University of Michigan.

Rafael Grohmann is an Assistant Professor of Communication at the Unisinos University, Brazil. Coordinator of DigiLabour Research Lab. Principal Investigator for the Fairwork project in Brazil. Member of Scholars Council, Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2), UCLA. Founding Board Member of Labor Tech Research Network. Coordinator of Platform Cooperativism Observatory in Brazil. Editor of the book Os Laboratórios do Trabalho Digital (Laboratories of Digital Labor). His research interests include platform cooperativism and worker-owned platforms, work & AI, datafication, workers’ organization, platform labor, communication and work