The Challenge

AI development in Africa has largely been shaped by external actors and commercial interests, leaving women’s rights organizations and local communities on the sidelines. Meanwhile, the communities who understand local problems best, and who are most affected by AI systems, lack the resources, technical capacity, and platforms to build solutions that truly serve their needs.

Our Approach

The A+ Alliance for Inclusive Algorithms
In partnership with Code for Africa and with support from IDRC and FCDO via the AI4D network, we’re launching a Gender & AI Innovation Collective that flips the script on AI development. Over 18 months, we’re working with 15 women’s rights organizations across Africa to drive community-built AI innovation using our f<a+i>r methodology—validated over three years in Latin America, MENA, and Asia.

This isn’t about teaching communities to adapt to existing AI tools. It’s about supporting them to articulate their own solutions, then prototype, localize, and pilot AI systems that actually solve problems they’ve identified, co-created by and with the community, owned and managed by those creators.

The Impact

Through this collective, we’re building feminist tech power from the ground up:

Amplifying indigenous capacity: Building inclusive and feminist expertise in technology and AI within women’s rights organizations, creating a new generation of feminist AI rooted in community needs.

Bridging knowledge gaps: Sharing methodologies, good practices, and lessons learned with policymakers and AI developers demonstrating what genuine inclusion looks like in practice, not theory.

Strengthening global networks: Consolidating the AI for gender equality ecosystem and enabling cross-regional learning, connecting African innovators with peers in Europe, North America, Latin America, MENA, and Asia.

We’re not just imagining a more equitable AI future, we’re building it from the ground up, one community at a time.