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The Global Technology for Social Justice Lab (GloTech) will welcome Amanda Haarman, a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Center for African Studies, for her presentation of “Enacting Afrotopia: African-language AI and Alternative Digital Futures,” Friday, Oct. 30 from 1-3 p.m. in ILC N345. 

Haarman’s presentation will examine what AI could look like with African languages and aspirations at its heart. Across the continent, initiatives are developing infrastructures for languages largely absent from dominant AI systems, raising questions not only about language inclusion but also about who participates in imagining and building technological futures. Drawing on Felwine Sarr’s concept of “Afrotopia,” the talk explores “what African-language AI might teach us about how alternative technological possibilities are imagined and brought into being.”

Haarman received her doctorate from Copenhagen Business School in 2025. Her research explores cultural entrepreneurship as a form of worldmaking, African-led language AI initiatives, and the implications of generative AI for creative work in Ghana.