Maha Jouini
Tunisian author, human rights defender, and an AI expert
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Maha Jouini is a Tunisian author and blogger, a human rights defender, and an Artificial Intelligence expert who lived in China.
- Center for AI and Digital Policy (AI governance program)
- University of Cape Town (African AI policy courses)
- Tianjin University of Education and Technology (Master’s in Artificial Intelligence and New Technologies)
- University of the Witwatersrand (Governance studies)
- Bachelor’s in French Language and Civilization
- Highest Diploma in Computer Science
- Master’s in Applied Technology
Maha Jouini | |
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| Born | Tunisia |
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| Occupations | Author, Blogger, Human Rights Defender, Artificial Intelligence Expert |
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| Known for | AI policy advocacy; Human rights activism; Sino–African research; AU child marriage campaign |
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| Website | https://mahajouini.tech/ |
Background and education
She has a Master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence and New Technologies from Tianjin University of Education and Technology (China).[1][2][3][4] She studied at the University of the Witwatersrand focusing on the institutional governance in Africa, particularly within the African Union Commission.[1][5][3]
Maha also holds a Bachelor’s degree in French Language and Civilization, a Highest Diploma in Computer Science, and a Master’s in Applied Technology.[6] She has also completed her academic programs at the Center for AI and Digital Policy and later on pursued courses on African AI policy at the University of Cape Town.[6]
Career
She is a researcher in Artificial Intelligence and art at Tianjin University of Science and Technology where she contributed to Sino-African relations.[7] She worked in the African Union campaign to end child marriage in Africa as the media coordinator where she wasbased in Ethiopia from late 2014 to 2017.[7] At that time, she was employed as the Digital Communication officer at the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD).[1] She is also a member of African Union's AI Task Force with the aim to advance the African Union’s strategy for the ethical use of artificial intelligence in Africa.[1] She is the vice-president of African & Francophone Agency for AI and former researcher at AI Global Index.[8][9][10][3][6][4] She was named the personality of the year in 2018 by the Maghreb Voices platform because her major role as a social media influencer.[7] She is widely known in the Arab region as the human rights defender which has made her to receive honours and participation in international conferences on women’s and indigenous people’s issues.[7] She was a research fellow at the Global Center on AI Governance.[11] She is the founder of the African Center for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technology.[2] She also served as the African Regional Coordinator at the Global responsible AI hackathon 2023 launched by Woman in AI Ethics Initiative.[2] She was the 2015 African School on Internet Governance (AfriSIG) fellow.[12][13]
Awards and honours
Publications
- AI and Data Policy in Africa: A Call for Sovereign Innovation[14]
- Context-Aware Africa-Led Designing of Responsible Artificial Intelligence Technologies.[15]
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13552074.2022.2136432
- Meha Jouini: The internet has allowed me to publicly express my identity as an Amazigh woman activist