Semafor April 2, 2025
Chinasa T. Okolo spoke to Semafor about the first-ever global AI summit on Africa, held in Rwanda last week with cabinet officials from 20 African countries.
Chinasa T. Okolo is a fellow in the Center for Technology Innovation in the Governance Studies program at Brookings and a recent computer science Ph.D. graduate from Cornell University. Her research examines how African governments can facilitate effective AI and data governance, investigates the socioeconomic impact of data work in the Majority World, and analyzes datafication and algorithmic marginalization in Africa.
Okolo has been recognized as one of the world’s most influential people in AI by TIME, honored in the inaugural Forbes “30 Under 30” AI list, and named one of 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics™. She also contributes to a number of global efforts on AI governance. Okolo serves as a consulting expert with the African Union, contributing to the development of the AU-AI Continental Strategy for Africa, an expert contributing writer to the International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI, and is a drafting member of the Nigerian Federal Government’s National AI Strategy.
At Cornell, Okolo’s dissertation research incorporated ethnographic methods to understand how frontline healthcare workers in rural India perceive and value AI. Her work also examined how explainability can be best leveraged in AI-enabled technologies deployed throughout the Majority World, with a focus on healthcare. Outside of her dissertation focus, Okolo also conducted research examining the effective adoption and successful implementation of AI in Africa, COVID-19 misinformation spread on social networks within African communities, and the impact of generative AI within Africa.
Okolo’s research has been published at top-tier venues in HCI and sociotechnical computing, including the Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) CHI, CSCW, COMPASS, and EAAMO conferences. Her work has been supported by funding from the Social Science Research Council, The National GEM Consortium, Oracle Corporation, the North American Network Operators’ Group (NANOG), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and Google and covered in venues like VICE, Bloomberg, Newsweek, The Washington Post, and VentureBeat, amongst others. She has also been featured in TechCrunch and provided commentary to leading outlets such as the MIT Technology Review, New York Times, VICE, Scientific American, Fast Company, Voice of America, Rest of World, and Devex.
Okolo holds a B.A. in computer science from Pomona College, a M.S. in computer science from Cornell University, and a Ph.D. in computer science from Cornell University. In addition to her work at Brookings, she is the editor-in-chief of ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society and serves as an ethics and policy advisor to the Equiano Institute, a research lab focused on steering safe and trustworthy AI in Africa. Okolo also participates in the IEEE Standards Association working group on algorithmic bias and is a member of the ACM U.S. Technology Policy Committee.
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Education
- Cornell University, Computer Science, Ph.D.
- Cornell University, Computer Science, M.S.
- Pomona College, Computer Science, BA
Media Coverage
Forbes March 7, 2025
Chinasa T. Okolo was honored in the inaugural Forbes “30 Under 30” AI list for her research on AI governance in the Global South.
RightsCon February 25, 2025
Chinasa T. Okolo presented the talk ,“Green Futures: AI, ecology, and policies for people and the planet,” at RightsCon 2025.
Tech Policy Press February 6, 2025
Chinasa T. Okolo co-authored an article on the risks of state-led AI governance in a federal policy vacuum with Katherine Grillaert and Matt Kennedy.
Voice of America Africa October 25, 2024
On “Straight Talk Africa,” Chinasa T. Okolo discussed how artificial intelligence can be a tool to enhance government accountability with Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the...
New York Times September 28, 2024
Large companies like Google, Apple, OpenAI, for example, have not necessarily trained their models for tools that serve these markets. They don’t provide enough market value for them to..."
BBC September 12, 2024
Chinasa T. Okolo appeared on BBC World’s “Focus on Africa” podcast. She spoke about her journey as a computer scientist, issues around gender equity in computing, risks from AI, and ways...
TIME September 5, 2024
Chinasa T. Okolo was named one of TIME’s top 100 most influential people in AI of 2024 for her efforts in ensuring those living in the Global South are not victims of biased systems and...
New York Times July 26, 2024
“Large companies like Google, Apple, OpenAI, for example, have not necessarily trained their models for tools that serve these markets”
Voice of America June 14, 2024
We don’t necessarily know its full capacity, and so it’s kind of hard to predict…by the time regulators or policymakers have drafted up some sort of legal framework, it could already be..."
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