Chinasa T. Okolo

With so much AI development emerging from Silicon Valley, communities in the Global South risk getting left behind technologically, victimized by biased systems, or exploited for their data. Chinasa T. Okolo, a Nigerian-American computer scientist and a Brookings Institution fellow, is trying to mitigate those risks through policy advocacy, public speaking and releasing research papers. Okolo has recently contributed passages to the International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI, led by Yoshua Bengio; the African Union’s strategy for responsible AI adoption; and Nigeria’s national AI strategy.

Through these endeavors and her own research, she is raising awareness about the benefits using AI could bring to countries across Africa—including detection of floods and crop diseases—as well as its potential harms, such as digitally-enabled harassment on microlending platforms. “I’m optimistic that AI could help fuel socioeconomic development that has been much needed in Africa for the last half-century,” she tells TIME. “But I’m also concerned that this competition could limit the autonomy of African countries and perpetuate neo-colonial practices that have negatively impacted their economies.”