<aside> ℹ️ This presentation at PAIRS 2026 Online on 17th February 2026 11:00 UTC. Registered participants will receive zoom links to join the session via e-mail.
🎙️ Thread on PAIRS Discussion Server (Discord) (register first)
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Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly shaping daily life across the globe, yet the experiences of women in the Global South remain largely absent from AI development and governance debates. Like many areas of STEM, the field of AI is still male-dominated, and this imbalance means systems often inherit the same biases that exist in society. These are not always deliberate, but they reflect whose voices and realities are prioritized in design. In Uganda, most women are engaging with AI not as coders or developers, but as mothers, entrepreneurs, farmers, educators, and community leaders who are finding creative ways to apply AI tools in everyday life. Their practices reveal both opportunities and risks that can inform more inclusive and participatory approaches to AI.
This presentation draws on community conversations and workshops convened by Ugandan Women in AI, a community that empowers women to embrace AI for everyday use. Through these participatory dialogues, we collected stories of how women are experimenting with AI tools, such as using generative AI to design business posters and manage online marketing, voice-to-text apps to support learning and community work, and mobile health tools to access information on maternal and child health. These stories highlight empowerment through access to knowledge and markets, but also surface concerns about misinformation, privacy, language barriers, and the fear of being left behind in the digital economy.
We argue that these lived experiences constitute a critical but overlooked source of insight for participatory AI development and governance. Rather than viewing women as passive users, our work positions them as co-creators of knowledge about AI adoption and its social impacts. We present lessons from our grassroots engagement, along with a proposed framework for integrating everyday practices into AI literacy initiatives, policy dialogues, and participatory governance models in low-resource contexts.
This proposal aligns with Track 2: Participatory AI Governance, by showing how women’s grassroots voices can shape the inclusion, safety, and trustworthiness of AI. It also contributes to global debates on AI and equity by foregrounding perspectives from the Global South, offering replicable insights for participatory engagement beyond Uganda.