The UNESCO Chair in Digital Technology Design with Indigenous people at the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit in Paris

Mr Naftali Indongo from the UNESCO Chair in Digital Technology Design with Indigenous People at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) attended the AI Action Summit at the Grand Palais on February 10–11, 2025, an event that convened heads of state and government, international organisations, corporate leaders, and academics to deliberate on the future of AI governance, innovation, and societal impact.

As part of the event, Mr. Indongo participated in a panel discussion titled “What Africa Wants: Conversation with Researchers” at the Africa AI Village, an event hosted as part of the Summit to bring together African leaders, researchers, academics, & members of civil societies to discuss the AI landscape in Africa, where he shared insights on Africa’s AI priorities, the integration of Indigenous knowledge into AI systems, and the need for equitable, community-driven AI solutions as well as digitising the low-resource African languages for training NLP systems.

Ahead of the summit, on February 8, 2025, Mr. Indongo also participated in the Participatory AI Research & Practice Symposium (PAIRS) hosted by Connected by Data at SciencesPo Paris. He delivered a talk titled “Co-designing Artificial Intelligence Systems with Indigenous People: A Participatory Approach with the Ovahimba and San Communities in Namibia,” highlighting the work of the UNESCO Chair in Digital Technology Design with Indigenous People at NUST in co-designing AI-powered systems with indigenous communities as part of the research collaboration between NUST and Donkerbos and Otjisa communities. His presentation highlighted the importance of participatory AI methodologies for ensuring ethical, culturally aligned, and community-driven technology development.