Announcement by Leslie Salgado: “Happy to announce that my book chapter “Tackling AI Transparency Concerns in Biomedical Research: Bringing a Communication-Participatory Approach to the Conversation” is now published as part of the book “Artificial Intelligence in Biobanking. Ethical, Legal and Societal Challenges.” In my chapter, I address questions concerning transparency, explainability and interpretability from a communication-participatory stance. ” Congratulations, Leslie, and thanks for your work!
Category: 4/ Fellow”s Projects
Aula Fellow Project
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Shaping AI Justice Together: Join Canada’s First Black Consultation on Responsible AI Governance
Announcement by Jake Okechukwu Effoduh: “I’m convening 40 brilliant minds at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law to ensure Canada’s new AI governance framework centers racial equity, accountability, and justice.
Shaping AI Justice Together: Join Canada’s First Black Consultation on Responsible AI Governance
Calling all Black and racial justice experts working at the forefront of algorithmic fairness: this is your invitation to help define Canada’s AI future.
If you or someone you know is doing this critical work, step forward. Share widely, and be part of this historic conversation.
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The EU AI Act – Enabling the Next Generation Internet (NGI).
How the pioneering AI law enables the NGI’s aim of establishing key technological building blocks of tomorrow’s Internet and shaping the future Internet as an interoperable platform ecosystem that embodies the values that Europe holds dear: openness, inclusivity, transparency, privacy, cooperation, and protection of data.
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The Architecture of Responsible AI: Balancing Innovation and Accountability
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a key factor driving change in industries, organizations, and society. While technological capabilities advance rapidly, the mechanisms guiding AI implementation reveal critical structural flaws (Closing the AI accountability gap). There lies an opportunity to architect a future where we can collaboratively design systems that leverage AI to augment human capabilities while upholding ethical integrity.
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Democracy Dialogues Lead Boldly, Inspire Globally: Meet the 2025-2026 Obama Foundation Scholars
Quoting from the organizers: “In a moment that former President Barack Obama describes as a “political crisis of the sort that we haven’t seen before,” we are proud to welcome the 2025–2026 Obama Foundation Scholars to the TMU campus for a special in-person episode of our Democracy Dialogues series. With three Canadians among this year’s global cohort—Victoria Kuketz (TMU’s own), Khalid Hashi, and Michelle Cartier—this is a rare chance to meet inspiring leaders working across disciplines, borders, and systems to develop solutions to some of the most pressing challenges of our times.
Open to students, community members, and leaders from across all sectors, this event is an opportunity to engage with the Obama Scholars, and reflect on how each of us can respond to the crisis we are experiencing. Engage in meaningful discussion, connect with the next generation of global leaders, and consider the kind of world we want to build – now.
Be part of a conversation on transforming trust into action and participation into impact.
Learn more about the Obama Foundation Scholars here and the Democratic Engagement Exchange here.
About Democracy Dialogues:
Democracy Dialogues is a public conversation series hosted by the Democratic Engagement Exchange at TMU. Each episode brings together thought leaders and community voices to explore the challenges and possibilities of building a more inclusive and resilient democracy.”
See the event recording here: https://www.torontomu.ca/arts/news-events/2025/10/democracy-dialogues-lead-boldly–inspire-globally–meet-the-2025/
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Beyond mere automation: A techno-functional framework for reimagining gen-AI in supply chain operations
As Generative AI (Gen-AI) continues to evolve rapidly, its potential to transform supply chain operations remains largely unexplored. Narrowing in on retail supply chain, this paper presents a taxonomy diagram that categorizes trends in Gen-AI adoption across various functions thereby mapping current Gen-AI capabilities and identifying immediate opportunities and potential challenges. We identify several key patterns in Gen-AI integration, including the automation of routine cognitive tasks, and enhancement of human decision-making capabilities. We posit that while Gen-AI shows immense promise in improving supply chain efficiency and resilience, successful implementation requires careful consideration of existing workflows, user capabilities, and organizational readiness. Finally, we present a cohesive vision for scaling Gen-AI in Supply Chain operations. Ultimately, this position paper provides insights for both practitioners looking to implement Gen-AI solutions and researchers exploring the future of AI in and for supply chain management.
Read the full workshop report here.
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Dis/Misinformation, WhatsApp Groups, and Informal Fact-Checking Practices in Namibia
This chapter contributes to our understanding of organic and informal user correction practices emerging in WhatsApp groups in Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. This is important in a context where formal infrastructures of correcting and debunking dis/misinformation have been dominated by top-down initiatives. These formal infrastructures include platform-centric content moderation practices and professional fact-checking processes. Unlike social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, which can perform content moderation and hence take down offending content, the end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) infrastructure of WhatsApp creates a very different scenario where the same approach is not possible. This is because only the users involved in the conversation have access to the content shared, shielding false and abusive content from being detected or removed. As Kuru et al.(2022) opine, the privacy of end-to-end encryption provides a highly closed communication space, posing a different set of challenges for misinformation detection and intervention than with more open social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. In this regard, false and misleading information on WhatsApp constitutes” a distinctive problem”(Kuru et al. 2022; Melo et al. 2020). As Reis et al.(2020, 2) observe,“the end-to-end en-crypted (E2EE) structure of WhatsApp creates a very different scenario” where content moderation and fact checking at scale is not possible. Fact-checking WhatsApp groups, which have been flagged as the major distributors of mis-and disinformation is equally difficult.
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Developing the Permanent Symposium on AI (poster): Presented at Engineering and Public Policy Division (EPP) Poster Session
A multidisciplinary, reflective autoethnography by some of the people who are building the Permanent Symposium on AI. Includes the history of the project.
RQ 1: Challenges that unite AI policy & tech
RQ 2: How to design the PSAI?
RQ 3: What factors influence the adoption and scalability of the PSAI?
This is the Flagship project of the Aula Fellowship.
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The philanthrocapitalism of google news initiative in Africa, Latin America, and the middle east–empirical reflections
In recent years, media organizations globally have increasingly benefited from financial support from digital platforms. In 2018, Google launched the Google News Initiative (GNI) Innovation Challenge aimed at bolstering journalism by encouraging innovation in media organizations. This study, conducted through 36 in-depth interviews with GNI beneficiaries in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, reveals that despite its narrative of enhancing technological innovation for the media’s future, this scheme inadvertently fosters dependence and extends the philanthrocapitalism concept to the media industry on a global scale. Employing a theory-building approach, our research underscores the emergence of a new form of ‘philanthrocapitalism’ that prompts critical questions about the dependency of media organizations on big tech and the motives of these tech giants in their evolving relationship with such institutions. We also demonstrate that the GNI Innovative Challenge, while ostensibly promoting sustainable business models through technological innovation, poses challenges for organizations striving to sustain and develop these projects. The proposed path to sustainability by the GNI is found to be indirect and difficult for organizations to navigate, hindering their adoption of new technologies. Additionally, the study highlights the creation of a dependency syndrome among news organizations, driven by the perception that embracing GNI initiatives is crucial for survival in the digital age. Ultimately, the research contributes valuable insights to the understanding of these issues, aiming to raise awareness among relevant stakeholders and conceptualize philanthrocapitalism through a new lens.
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Nature Opinion: The path for AI in poor nations does not need to be paved with billions
NATURE
Researchers in low- and middle-income countries show that home-grown artificial-intelligence technologies can be developed, even without large external investments.