Launch of the SOAS Centre for AI Futures

The SOAS Centre for AI Futures will launch on 25 January 2023. The Centre is a partnership between SOAS, Quilt.AI and the Helsinki Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities.

The Centre for AI Futures is unique globally in its exclusive focus on the implications of AI in countries of Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Order of event

• 6:00pm: Introductory remarks from Somnath Batabyal, Co-Chair, Centre for AI Futures.
• 6:10pm - 6:20pm: Welcome address: Professor Laura Hammond, Pro Director Research.
• 6:20pm: Key Note Speech: Can AI and Anthropology work together in social science research?: Possibilities and problems - Dr Angad Chowdhry and Anurag Banerjee, Co-founders: Quilt.AI.
• 7:00pm: Q&A
• 7:30pm: Closing Address and vote of Thanks: Professor Adam Habib, SOAS Director.

We are delighted to have Dr Angad Chowdhry and Anurag Banerjee, co-founders of Quilt.AI, for the launch event and they will deliver the inaugural lecture: Can AI and Anthropology work together: the possibilities and the problems.

Event recording

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More about the SOAS Centre for AI Futures

The Centre for AI Futures at SOAS brings together a network of academic institutions, policy organisations and the industry centred around two overarching themes: first, to rethink the production of knowledge on AI in a distinctively comparative and global setting; and second, to rethink the purposes of such production.

We are strengthened in our mission by the theoretical, methodological and practical expertise of our global partners, the Helsinki Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Helsinki (HSSH) and industry expertise in data analysis and machine learning through Quilt.AI.

Our specific goals are to catalyse activities around:

1. Knowledge translations across disciplines and sectors, centred around building capacity and networks of AI scholars in the Global South.
2. Facilitating a critical dialogue between AI social sciences and humanities researchers and AI industry 
3. Direct integration into discussions on AI policy through involvement in high level policy debates with governments, tech companies, UN agencies and development actors.

The centre’s activities rest on three pillars:

1. The Cultural Effects of AI that looks at new research initiatives focused on the variegated impacts of AI in the Global South and the theoretical and philosophical questions raised by such.
2. Methodological Innovations which examines data-driven methodologies to facilitate research and interventions into policy and legal debates and also to work with and within the AI industry for purpose-driven applications.
3. Practice based Research that uses ethnography to focus on a critical framework to understand and study AI practitioners and their milieu and how this impacts output.

About Quilt.AI 

A technology firm aimed at enabling scale, understanding and empathy between organizations/ institutions and the billions of people on the planet. Companies including Amazon, Target, and DBS along with non-profits including the World Bank, UNICEF, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation leverage Quilt.AI to better connect with their customers.  

About the speakers

Anurag Banerjee is the co-founder and CEO of Quilt.AI – a technology firm aimed at enabling scale, understanding and empathy between organizations/ institutions and the billions of people on the planet. Companies including Amazon, Target, and DBS along with non-profits including the World Bank, UNICEF, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation leverage Quilt.AI to better connect with their customers. His entrepreneurial journey started in 2012 and now includes scaling multiple startups to double-digit millions in revenue.  This came after almost a decade at American Express in New York, in various global leadership positions across the business. Anurag is also a Member of the Technology Advisory Board at Children's Investment Fund Foundation and Venture Partner at NextGen Venture Partner. Anurag has a Master’s in Organizational Development from Bowling Green State University and is a Harvard Business School alumnus.

Dr Angad Chowdhry is the co-founder and head of product at Quilt.AI – a technology firm aimed at enabling scale understanding and empathy between organizations/ institutions and the billions of people on the planet. Companies including Amazon, Target, J&J and DBS along with Non-profits including the World Bank, UNICEF, Girl Effect and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation leverage Quilt.AI to better understand and connect with their customers. Angad has completed his PhD and MA from SOAS. His academic interests are critical anthropology, semiotics and psychoanalysis. He has co-edited a book on studying the media in India, published by Routledge. Post his PhD, he worked with policing and security research, finally finding his way into the formal Market Research industry. He started his entrepreneurial journey in 2011, focusing on building out India’s only digital cultural research and OSINT firm – using internet data to conduct cultural and corporate research. His AI area of focus is on fine-tuning language and image models to be anthropologically grounded and cross culturally sensitive. Quilt.AI has done research in almost every country and language.