About this Event
Building Feminist Decolonial AI in Latin America
Hopper Lecture with Paola Ricaurte (Tecnológico de Monterrey)
October 28, 2026, 4pm
Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto
Campbell Conference Facility (CCF), 1 Devonshire Place
Developing anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, and anti-patriarchal technologies in contexts marked by inequality and violence requires confronting some of the deepest structural problems of our societies. In an increasingly adverse geopolitical and regional landscape, this is not only a technical undertaking but also a challenge for feminist and decolonial praxis itself. Building alternative technological futures requires navigating political, financial, infrastructural, and human capacity constraints while, at times, recalibrating strategies and expectations. Drawing on six years of work by the Feminist AI Network in Latin America and the Caribbean, this talk examines efforts to advance feminist, decolonial AI across the region. It reflects on the key lessons, tensions, and insights that have emerged from this process, highlighting both the possibilities and the limits of building transformative AI within structures of exclusion and asymmetric power relations.
Paola Ricaurte is a full professor at Tecnológico de Monterrey and a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. She is the co-founder of Tierra Común, an academic and activist network committed to decolonizing data, and leads the Latin American and Caribbean Feminist AI Network. Her work bridges academia, activism, innovation and policymaking, with a central focus on human rights from decolonial and feminist perspectives. Paola serves on several international expert committees, including the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI), UNESCO’s AI Ethics Experts Without Borders (AIEB), and the Women for Ethical AI (W4EAI) platform. She was included in the 2025 TIME100 AI list of the most influential people in artificial intelligence.
Moderation: Rafael Grohmann and Kruskaya Hidalgo Cordero (DigiLabour, University of Toronto)
This Hopper Lecture is organized by DigiLabour Research Lab and sponsored by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in honour of its first president, David Hopper.
Event venue & nearby stays
1 Devonshire Pl, 1 Devonshire Place, Toronto, Canada
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.