Global South AI
Rethinking AI for and from the Global South
NeurIPS 2026 Affinity Event
📍 Sydney, Australia 🇦🇺 | 🗓 7 December, 2026 | ⏰ 08:00 – 17:00
📍 Paris, France 🇫🇷 | 🗓 9 December, 2026 | ⏰ 13:00 – 17:00
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Why GlobalSouthAI?
Why GlobalSouthAI?
Artificial Intelligence is transforming science, economies, societies, and everyday life. Yet the development, evaluation, and deployment of AI remain disproportionately shaped by the needs, resources, and perspectives of a relatively small number of regions.
The Global South is home to the majority of the world's population and encompasses an extraordinary diversity of languages, cultures, socioeconomic contexts, infrastructures, and societal challenges. Most AI systems, however, are developed and evaluated in settings with abundant compute, extensive datasets, and mature digital infrastructure.
GlobalSouthAI @ NeurIPS 2026 brings together researchers, students, practitioners, policymakers, and communities to ask:
How can AI systems work effectively under resource and infrastructure constraints?
How can AI better reflect local languages, cultures, values, and contexts?
How can researchers in the Global South participate not only as users of AI, but as creators and contributors?
How can AI be made more accessible, efficient, responsible, and sustainable?
What new research directions emerge when AI is built around the realities of the Global South?
What can the broader AI community learn from research, innovation, and deployment experiences across the Global South?
Call for Contributions
Call for Contributions
We invite contributions from students, researchers, educators, practitioners, community leaders, and policymakers.
We particularly encourage work that combines technical innovation with real-world relevance and demonstrates how AI can be developed, evaluated, or deployed in diverse and resource-constrained environments.
We welcome:
We welcome:
Technical research contributions
Emerging ideas and early-stage research
Position papers
Demo papers
Experience reports
Case studies
Deployment experiences
Community initiatives
Educational and mentorship programs
Responsible AI perspectives
AI policy and governance perspectives
Contributions may be theoretical, empirical, applied, interdisciplinary, or community-driven.
Registration Details
Registration Details
Registration details will be announced following the release of the official NeurIPS 2026 participation information.
Invited Keynote Speakers
Invited Keynote Speakers
Patrick Le Callet
Professor
Nantes Université, France
Sunayana Sitaram
Principal Researcher
Microsoft Research, India
Maria G. Martini
Professor
Kingston University London, UK
Monojit Choudhury
Professor
MBZUAI, UAE
Jianfei Cai
Professor
Monash University, Australia
Jacki O'Neill
Director of Microsoft Research Africa, Nairobi, Kenya
Joëlle Barral
Senior Director of Research & Engineering Google DeepMind,
Paris, France
Balaraman Ravindran
Professor
IIT Madras, India
Organizing Team
Organizing Team
Saurabh Deshpande
Head of AI Research
Birla AI Labs, India
Sandareka Wickramanayake
Senior Lecturer
Uni. of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
Kumar Rahul
Senior Research Scientist
Amazon Prime Video, USA
Akila Hewa Thondilege
Postdoc, Queensland Uni. of Tech., Australia
Jonathan Shock
Associate Professor
Uni. of Cape Town, South Africa
Divya Sharma
Assistant Professor
York University, Canada
Chaker Larabi
Professor
Université de Poitiers, France
NeurIPS Bridging the Future – Efficient AI Training Program Ambassadors
NeurIPS Bridging the Future – Efficient AI Training Program Ambassadors
Sudhanshu Gaurhar
IIT Jodhpur
India
Ahmed Silima Vuai
IIT Madras MTech 2025 Zanzibar, Tanzania
Shivam Bhardwaj
IIT Madras MTech 2025 Zanzibar, Tanzania
Aisha Hamad Hassan
IIT Madras MTech 2026 Zanzibar, Tanzania
Patrick Vincent Ndowo
IIT Madras MTech 2026 Zanzibar, Tanzania
Nimalesh Elangovan
IIT Madras MTech 2026 Zanzibar, Tanzania
3MT Mentorship Initiative Team
3MT Mentorship Initiative Team
Cheng-Yaw Low
3MT People’s Choice Award
AAAI 2026 Singapore
Avinash Kumar Sharma
3MT Competition Moderator
AAAI 2026 Singapore
Program Schedule
Program Schedule
TBD
The program will include keynote talks, contributed presentations, lightning talks, a poster session, 3MT Competition, awards, and community-building activities.
Accepted Works
Accepted Works
3-Minute Presentation (3MT) Contest Finalists
Lightning Talks Schedule
Poster Session Schedule
About GlobalSouthAI
About GlobalSouthAI
GlobalSouthAI is a growing international community dedicated to advancing AI research, education, and collaboration across underrepresented regions of the world.
Our mission is to create sustainable pathways for participation in global AI research while promoting innovations that address local and regional challenges.
We aim to build an AI ecosystem that is:
Inclusive. Accessible. Responsible. Efficient. Globally representative.
GlobalSouthAI @ NeurIPS 2026 builds on previous community activities, including:
🚀 GlobalSouthAI @ AAAI 2026, Singapore 🇸🇬 100+ submissions
🚀 GlobalSouthML @ ICML 2026, Seoul 🇰🇷 150+ submissions
🚀 GlobalSouthAI @ IJCAI-ECAI 2026, Bremen 🇩🇪
Together, these activities are helping establish a sustained community around AI for and from the Global South.
About NeurIPS Bridging the Future - Efficient AI Training Program
About NeurIPS Bridging the Future - Efficient AI Training Program
GlobalSouthAI @ NeurIPS 2026 is supported by the NeurIPS Bridging the Future Grant, enabling initiatives focused on expanding access to efficient AI research, training, mentorship, and participation.
Efficient AI Training Program Ambassadors
Efficient AI Training Program Ambassadors
Our ambassadors help expand access to practical knowledge and opportunities in efficient and resource-aware AI, particularly for researchers and learners working in resource-constrained environments.
About 3MT Mentorship Initiative
About 3MT Mentorship Initiative
The 3MT Mentorship Initiative connects selected participants with experienced researchers and previous 3MT presenters to help them transform complex research into clear, compelling three-minute presentations.
Join GlobalSouthAI Community via LinkedIn:
Join GlobalSouthAI Community via LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/global-south-ai/
Contact Email
Contact Email
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us: globalsouthai-neurips-26@googlegroups.com
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