pAYAL aRORA

Voted by The Times magazine as one of the Best Blogs in Tech
Voted Top 5 in the Technorati Top 100
The Next Billion Users won the Best Prose Award for Business Books

Payal Arora is a Professor of Inclusive AI Cultures at Utrecht University, and Co-Founder of FemLab, a feminist futures of work initiative. She is a digital anthropologist and author of award-winning books including ‘The Next Billion Users’ with Harvard Press. For the book Arora immersed herself in factory towns, slums, townships, and favelas, to assess first-hand the tech patterns of those that are usually ignored by Silicon Valley.

Her upcoming book with MIT Press & Harper Collins India, ‘From Pessimism to Promise: Lessons from the Global South on Designing Inclusive Tech” comes out in the summer 2024.

Forbes named her the “next billion champion” and “the right kind of person to reform tech.” She has been extensively covered in the media including by the BBC, Financial Times, The Economist, Quartz, 99% Invisible, Tech Crunch, The Boston Globe etc. She has consulted on inclusive innovation, feminist design, and AI ethics for diverse organizations such as IDEO, Adobe, Spotify, Google, UNESCO, KPMG, GE, UNHCR, and HP etc.

She has given more than 350 talks in 115 cities in 67 countries alongside figures like Jimmy Wales and Steve Wozniak on the future of AI, the internet and innovation. She has held Fellow positions at GE, ZEMKI, ITSRio, MICA, and NYU and is a Rockefeller Bellagio Resident Alumnus. She is Indian, American, and Irish, and is currently based in Amsterdam.

“The Next Billion Users is one of the most interesting, thought-provoking books on science & technology we can find.”
- Engadget -

“Payal is one of those rare speakers who is a great storyteller with knowledge that is backed up by comprehensive academic research”
- TechFestival Copenhagen -

Selected Press links: Tech Crunch, The Hindu, Your Story, Rising Voices