Partially supported by a NULab Community Collaboration Grant.
Prof. Rahul Bhargava is working with the MIT Data + Feminism Lab on “Community-Based AI for Human Rights Monitoring.” The team is empowering global activists by co-designing innovative methods and technologies for data production and analysis that help them track human and civil rights violations based on reports in online news media sources. These tools alleviate the emotional toll of manually reviewing news articles while improving the accuracy and impact of documenting human rights violations. By leveraging feminist participatory methods, the project fosters collaborative relationships and develops digital solutions tailored to the needs of the participating groups.
This project specifically supports expanding beyond their existing partnerships with groups focused on documenting feminicide. They are forging partnerships with groups monitoring other types of rights violations, such as police killings and mass shootings. By scaling participatory approach and technical innovations, the project aims to catalyze broader social change and inspire collective action towards a more just and equitable world. Results will be shared via academic presentations, open-source software, and pro-social gatherings to contribute to a global dialogue on the ethical use of technology for human rights advocacy. The project aims to democratize the development of advanced data processing technologies, ensuring that they serve the interests of marginalized communities and promote social justice.
