Community-Owned AI
Building AI systems that communities own, govern, and benefit from economically. Developing technological sovereignty that serves community power, cultural preservation, and collective liberation.
Applied Research Areas
Our research focuses on developing AI systems that communities own, govern, and benefit from economically while building sustainable infrastructure for technological sovereignty.
Algorithmic Oversight & Legal Defense
Building tools, frameworks, and legal strategies for communities to audit, challenge, and control algorithmic systems that affect their housing, employment, healthcare, and daily services.
Distributed AI Infrastructure
Building federated AI architectures that enable communities to develop, train, and deploy their own AI systems without dependence on corporate platforms or extractive data relationships.
Cultural Knowledge Protection & Indigenous Data Sovereignty
Developing AI systems that preserve and amplify cultural knowledge while ensuring communities maintain complete control over their linguistic, spiritual, and traditional assets.
Cooperative AI Economics & Local Value Creation
Creating AI systems that generate local economic value, supporting worker cooperatives and community-controlled resource allocation while building sustainable alternatives to extractive corporate platforms.
Algorithmic Defense & Anti-Surveillance
Developing early warning systems, protective tools, and defensive technologies that help communities resist algorithmic discrimination, corporate surveillance, and state technological control.
Participatory AI Design & Youth Technology Leadership
Advancing methodologies that put community members—especially youth and next-generation leaders—in the driver's seat of AI development, ensuring technology serves their values.
Data Sovereignty & Benefit-Sharing
Researching technical and governance frameworks that ensure communities control their own data, participate in AI development as equals, and receive direct economic benefits.
Environmental Justice & Crisis Response AI
Developing AI systems that support community-led environmental monitoring, climate adaptation, disaster response, and resistance to environmental racism while centering frontline community knowledge.
Worker-Owned Platform Cooperatives & Democratic Algorithms
Researching AI architectures and economic models that enable workers to build their own platforms, compete with extractive corporate systems, and maintain democratic control over algorithmic management.
Inclusive AI Safety & Disability Justice
Developing AI safety frameworks that prioritize the real-world safety of marginalized communities—especially disabled communities—rather than abstract alignment with corporate or researcher values.
Economic Impact & Evaluation
Researching economic models, measurement frameworks, and evaluation methods that enable AI to generate and retain wealth in communities while tracking community power rather than corporate metrics.
Solidarity Technology Networks & Movement Coordination
Developing technical and social frameworks for AI systems that connect communities and movements while preserving local autonomy, supporting crisis response, and resisting corporate platform control.