Afro-Indigenous Technological Innovation Academy

Current context

Digital technologies and artificial intelligence systems increasingly intervene in decisions that determine the exercise of rights: access to education and health care, employability, access to financial and public services, and participation in civic and cultural life. When these systems are designed without considering the diversity of the populations they serve, they can reproduce and widen historical inequalities, particularly those affecting Afro-descendant and Indigenous peoples.

In this context, the international community has reaffirmed its commitment to Afro-descendant people and to Indigenous peoples. The IDB has documented that the effects of connectivity are not uniform across population groups, and ECLAC monitors the adoption of artificial intelligence and human capital in the region. The following sources describe this scenario.

Within the Institute framework

The Afro-Indigenous Technological Innovation Academy is developed within the project Ethnocoding the Future of the Institute for Research in Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Racial Equity. It is the next implementation phase of that project and of the Ethnocoding Agenda 2030.

Background and purpose of the project

The Afro-Indigenous Technological Innovation Academy arises as a response to the structural challenge of digital exclusion faced by Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities in the region. Through this initiative, we seek to strengthen their capacities to understand, use and transform technology from a perspective of racial justice, cultural relevance and social equity. In a global context marked by the disruptive expansion of artificial intelligence and automation, the project presents a strategic opportunity to close gaps, democratize technological knowledge and ensure that digital transformation is also an ethical, inclusive and representative transformation.

Nature of the proposal

The Academy is conceived as a regional hybrid training program aimed at Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities and organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean. Its pedagogical structure is based on the methodological framework of ethnocoding, a concept developed by the Institute for Research in Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Racial Equity, which proposes designing, auditing and applying technological systems from racial equity and cultural relevance. Through a ten-point training framework that integrates artificial intelligence, disaggregated data, cybersecurity, digital rights and digital territory, the Academy supports participants in updating their technical knowledge and in critical reflection, linking technological innovation with the defense of rights, civic participation and Afro-Indigenous sovereignty, which is underrepresented in those digital spaces.

Projected results

The project aims to train a first regional cohort of Afro-Indigenous leaders able to apply knowledge of new technologies to strengthen their communities and organizations. The main objective is that, through the Academy, this cohort acquires technical and ethical competencies in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and digital rights, driving the first Afro-Indigenous Technological Innovation Network, through which we will seek not only to document technology gaps but also to reduce them. In the medium term, the initiative will promote the creation of community microprojects through digital rights observatories that incorporate the ethnocoding approach, contributing to the protection of digital territory and to strengthening Afro-Indigenous participation in regional technology governance, laying the foundations for an annual and sustainable training program.

Main deliverables and expected impact