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Payal Arora, professor of inclusive AI cultures at Utrecht University, will deliver the Department of Communication Annual Lecture on Monday, March 31 at noon in the Communication Hub, located on the third floor of the Integrative Learning Center.

This year’s lecture, “Designing Inclusive Tech: Building Hopeful AI Futures with the Global Majority,” will highlight Arora’s groundbreaking work in digital anthropology and inclusive AI design. With over two decades of experience exploring user experiences with digital technologies in low-income communities in the Global South, Arora brings a critical global perspective to AI innovation and digital media studies.

“The Communication Annual Lecture at UMass Amherst welcomes distinguished scholars from across the nation and around the world to engage in meaningful discussions with the campus and the Western Massachusetts community,” said Claudio Moreira, communication department chair. “These scholars share their exceptional research and contributions to the field of communication, particularly in analyzing contemporary social issues. We are honored to host Dr. Payal Arora, a renowned digital media anthropologist, for this year’s lecture.”

Arora is an author of more than 100 journal articles and award-winning books, including “The Next Billion Users” (Harvard Press). Forbes named her the “next billion champion” and the “right kind of person to reform tech.” She has also been listed in the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics 2025 and won the 2025 Women in AI Benelux Award for her work on Diversifying AI.

She is a Harvard University, Columbia University and Rockefeller Bellagio Resident Fellow alumna and currently lives in Amsterdam. Her new book with MIT Press “From Pessimism to Promise: Lessons from the Global South on Designing Inclusive Tech” has been longlisted for the 2024 Porchlight Business Book Awards.

More than 200 international media outlets have covered her work including the Financial Times, Fast Company, Wired, BBC, The Economist, and Tech Crunch. She has consulted for the public and the private sector including UNHCR, Spotify, KPMG, Adobe, IDEO, Google, and GE and sits on several boards including for UN EGOV, and LIRNE-Asia.

She has given over 350 keynotes and invited talks in 85 countries for events such as ACM Facct, Copenhagen Tech Festival, re:publica, COP26, World Economic Forum and the Swedish Internet Foundation and TEDx talks on the future of the internet and innovation.

The questions and approaches that Arora explores and sponsors in her work will be of interest to department faculty and graduate students working on critical internet studies, global digital media, feminist media futures and engaged scholarship in communication. Arora’s work brings a global perspective that makes important provocations and disruptions in tech studies, including concepts advanced by previous annual lecture guests Safiya U. Noble and Charlton McIlwain.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Cardinal O’Leary fund. Speakers are nominated and selected by faculty members and graduate students of the Department of Communication.

To RSVP to attend the lecture, visit the online registration form.

For more information about the Communication Annual Lecture or Arora’s visit, the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences events website or email Alison Butler at [email protected], or Martha Fuentes-Bautista at [email protected].