Join me (and AI) on the road to #ShiftThePower in Kathmandu

In December, I will be joining hundreds from the global #ShiftThePower community in Kathmandu for the #PossibleNow Summit. AI will inevitably be a part of that conversation and I would like kick things off with interesting and diverse reflections, not just the usual “there are opportunities but also risks of harm” or “it’s complicated”… 🙂

• Please complete this form to register interest in joining the conversation!

I also hope we can leave with something truly useful. A lot of advice exists on using AI tools effectively (and almost as much warning against AI’s potentially devastating impacts on society), there is comparatively little that is nuanced about harnessing AI for good while minimising or mitigating the negative impacts as far as possible. Add in an explicit power-dynamics lens and a focus on locally-led development, and the existing advice dwindles further.

Help address that gap! 😊

Join us for a series of conversations on the road to Kathmandu

I am very pleased that GFCF have appointed me one of their Possible Now Stitching Fellows. The fellowships are designed to build bridges, to dissolve boundaries and siloes, and to build something bigger. It is a licence to go beyond my own research and exploration of AI, and to connect my conversations with those happening in other rooms – around the power of local communities, defining new narratives, the future of democracy, solidarity in philanthropy and many more.

Facundo Ibarlucía (another Stitching Fellow, of Red Comunidades Rurales, Argentina) and I will be hosting a series of conversations in the run up to the summit in Kathmandu. We hope to stitch this together with many other topics and communities, but the core will revolve around two questions I have been circling for some time now while developing my ‘Adapt-Govern-Shape‘ framing for AI4Good:

1. How can the #ShiftThePower community take advantage of the opportunities of AI to further its goals? (i.e. maximising its use in furthering the mission, while minimising associated harms and avoiding exacerbating power inequalities inherent to AI)
2. Is there a role for the #ShiftThePower community in directly addressing AI’s own power inequalities? (for example, by influencing global debates or by supporting development and use of alternative AI solutions to those provided by ‘big tech’)

If power, ownership and agency are going to be a part of shaping the role of AI in global development, these conversations must start now.

What is planned between now and December

• A series of conversations. Facundo and I have started already, beginning with a session bringing together funds from Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia, with more planned through the autumn and in more than one language. We want to listen to the experiences, needs, concerns, promising practices and failures of diverse practitioners and particularly from the people living with the consequences of our choices related to AI.
• An AI Lab in Kathmandu. We will be sharing a synthesis of the conversations at the summit in Kathmandu, which will lead on to a co-designed interactive AI Lab to give some participants a chance to engage with or build things they’ve not done before, and space to consider the power-shifting and localisation impacts of their work.
• Focused research spikes. Short deep dives into critical topics that fall out of and/or need to feed into these conversations. I’ve already started some exploration of the promise and practicalities of using “local AI” (smaller models, locally hosted and/or locally developed). The reality is far less clear-cut than I had expected. For example, while local hosting may (partially) enable a move away from Big Tech, it does not equate to local control or local data, and none of these actually guarantee better locally relevant results for users in the global South (more on this to be published soon!. Facundo is also already thinking about the AI “arms race” in grantmaking (what is the impact on philanthropy and trust when AI is both writing and scoring proposals).
• Peer learning. Part of connecting people is being honest about what people actually need – a standard AI literacy course is rarely the answer, but we will see whether we can develop something with a sharper risk/harm and power lens to help develop AI capabilities across the community.

Half of the point of these fellowships is to collaborate, so we have intentionally not designed it all – that is kinda the point – please bring more ideas and suggestions to the conversations!

Join us in Kathmandu? Or join a conversation on the road there?

We would love to speak to people working on locally-led development and shifting power with an interest in discussing the impact of AI. In particular:

• anyone from regions and languages badly served by mainstream AI
• technologists building or deploying local and/or open AI models or tools
• anyone deliberately refusing to engage with AI (and who can clearly articulate their reasons)
• people from adjacent domains (digital rights, data governance etc)

Experiments, failures and strong opinions are particularly welcome!

You do not need to be an AI expert. You do need to bring something to the debate around AI, power and locally-led development – but bringing healthy curiosity and asking hard questions can be as useful as direct experience or expertise.

If you understand AI but have never had to think hard about power, join in. If you have spent your career on power shifting and localisation but feel the AI conversation is moving too fast to get into, join in. And if like me, you are somewhere in the awkward overlap, definitely come along!

How to join the conversations

The series will run from now until the end of November. Dates are not yet finalised and will flex as far as possible to accommodate those who want to take part.

• Please complete this form to register interest in joining the conversation!
• And if you are thinking of joining us in Kathmandu? The Possible Now Summit runs 2 to 4 December 2026. Register here!