Vikram Kamath Cannanure

Hello!

I’m a postdoctoral fellow at Saarland University, advised by Prof. Ingmar Weber. I work at the intersection of Human–Computer Interaction, ICTD, and Thoughtful AI—practical, low-cost AI that supports learning, reflection, and civic participation.

I am also a KCRC Fellow at the Kigali Collaborative Research Centre, a research community based at Carnegie Mellon University Africa in Kigali that supports practical research and innovation for Africa.

My current focus is thoughtful AI: building AI with people, adapting it to the realities of their lives, and asking what they remain able to do once the assistance ends.

I completed my Ph.D. in Human–Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon University, USA, advised by Prof. Amy Ogan and Prof. Tim Brown. My dissertation designed and evaluated low-cost, chat-based teacher learning systems that supported 400+ teachers and 10,000+ students in rural Côte d’Ivoire. Here is the draft of my thesis.

Research Interests

• ICTD – aspirations, asset-based design, local innovation
• Human-Centered AI – chatbots, IVR, microlearning, reflective practice
• Education & Health – teacher PD, community health information access

News

• 2026 – Serving as Papers Chair for ACM COMPASS 2026.
• 2026 – Paper at ACM FAccT 2026 on designing safe, accountable GenAI learning companions with women banned from formal education.
• Oct 2025 – Teaching: AI & the Global South (lead instructor).
• Feb 2025 – Papers accepted to CUI 2025 (LLM survey design; VAA reflection) and COMPASS 2025 (online learning & GenAI for Afghan women).
• Oct 2023 – Started postdoc in Saarbrücken.
• Aug 2023 – Defended PhD at CMU 🎓

Selected Publications

(see more on Google Scholar)

• Designing Safe and Accountable GenAI as a Learning Companion with Women Banned from Formal Education Hamayoon Behmanush, Freshta Akhtari, Ingmar Weber, and Vikram Kamath Cannanure. Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT), 6203-6225, 2026. Preprint DOI
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  @inproceedings{behmanush2026safe,
    title = {Designing Safe and Accountable GenAI as a Learning Companion with Women Banned from Formal Education},
    author = {Behmanush, Hamayoon and Akhtari, Freshta and Weber, Ingmar and Cannanure, Vikram Kamath},
    booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency},
    pages = {6203--6225},
    year = {2026},
    publisher = {ACM},
    doi = {10.1145/3805689.3806466}
  }

• Impacts of Targeted Instruction with Mobile-Based Support on Teachers and Students in Rural Côte d’Ivoire Sharon Wolf, Amy Ogan, Kaja K. Jasińska, Samuel Kembou, Vikram Kamath Cannanure, Hannah Whitehead, Julianna Corbett, Fabrice Tanoh, Brooke Wortsman, Joshua Lim, Hui Zhao, and Anahita Kumar. American Educational Research Journal, 2026. DOI
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  @article{wolf2026impacts,
    title = {Impacts of Targeted Instruction with Mobile-Based Support on Teachers and Students in Rural Côte d’Ivoire},
    author = {Wolf, Sharon and Ogan, Amy and Jasińska, Kaja K. and Kembou, Samuel and Cannanure, Vikram Kamath and Whitehead, Hannah and Corbett, Julianna and Tanoh, Fabrice and Wortsman, Brooke and Lim, Joshua and Zhao, Hui and Kumar, Anahita},
    journal = {American Educational Research Journal},
    year = {2026},
    doi = {10.3102/00028312261430679}
  }

• Teacher Professional Development on WhatsApp and LLMs: Early Lessons from Cameroon Vikram Kamath Cannanure, Bruno Yinkfu, Douglas Bryan, Mati Amin, and Ingmar Weber. Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED 2026), Communications in Computer and Information Science, 249-261, 2026. Preprint DOI
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  @inproceedings{cannanure2026whatsapp,
    title = {Teacher Professional Development on WhatsApp and LLMs: Early Lessons from Cameroon},
    author = {Cannanure, Vikram Kamath and Yinkfu, Bruno and Bryan, Douglas and Amin, Mati and Weber, Ingmar},
    booktitle = {Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED 2026)},
    series = {Communications in Computer and Information Science},
    pages = {249--261},
    year = {2026},
    publisher = {Springer Nature Switzerland},
    doi = {10.1007/978-3-032-29791-4_18}
  }

• A Design-Based Research Approach to Bridge Teacher Aspirations and Goal-Setting Vikram Kamath Cannanure, Tricia J. Ngoon, Sharon Wolf, Kaja K. Jasińska, Tim Brown, and Amy Ogan. ACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies, 3(4), 1-23, 2025. DOI
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  @article{cannanure2025designbased,
    title = {A Design-Based Research Approach to Bridge Teacher Aspirations and Goal-Setting},
    author = {Cannanure, Vikram Kamath and Ngoon, Tricia J. and Wolf, Sharon and Jasińska, Kaja K. and Brown, Tim and Ogan, Amy},
    journal = {ACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies},
    volume = {3},
    number = {4},
    pages = {1--23},
    year = {2025},
    doi = {10.1145/3736648}
  }

• Exploring AI in Education: Child-Computer Interaction in the Global South Riti Verma, Ingmar Weber, and Vikram Kamath Cannanure. ACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies, 3(3), Article 20, 1-23, 2025. DOI
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  @article{verma2025exploring,
    title = {Exploring AI in Education: Child-Computer Interaction in the Global South},
    author = {Verma, Riti and Weber, Ingmar and Cannanure, Vikram Kamath},
    journal = {ACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies},
    volume = {3},
    number = {3},
    articleno = {20},
    year = {2025},
    doi = {10.1145/3736645}
  }

• Exploring LLMs for Automated Generation and Adaptation of Questionnaires Divya Mani Adhikari, Alexander Hartland, Ingmar Weber, and Vikram Kamath Cannanure. Proceedings of the 7th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI), Article 70, 1-23, 2025. Preprint DOI
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  @inproceedings{adhikari2025exploring,
    title = {Exploring LLMs for Automated Generation and Adaptation of Questionnaires},
    author = {Adhikari, Divya Mani and Hartland, Alexander and Weber, Ingmar and Cannanure, Vikram Kamath},
    booktitle = {Proceedings of the 7th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces},
    year = {2025},
    articleno = {70},
    doi = {10.1145/3719160.3736606}
  }

• Learn, Explore and Reflect by Chatting: Understanding the Value of an LLM-Based Voting Advice Application Chatbot Jianlong Zhu, Manon Kempermann, Vikram Kamath Cannanure, Alexander Hartland, Rosa M. Navarrete, Giuseppe Carteny, Daniela Braun, and Ingmar Weber. Proceedings of the 7th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI), 2025. Preprint DOI
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  @inproceedings{zhu2025learn,
    title = {Learn, Explore and Reflect by Chatting: Understanding the Value of an LLM-Based Voting Advice Application Chatbot},
    author = {Zhu, Jianlong and Kempermann, Manon and Cannanure, Vikram Kamath and Hartland, Alexander and Navarrete, Rosa M. and Carteny, Giuseppe and Braun, Daniela and Weber, Ingmar},
    booktitle = {Proceedings of the 7th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces},
    year = {2025},
    doi = {10.1145/3719160.3736611}
  }

• Understanding the Longitudinal Impact of a Chatbot to Facilitate a Virtual Community of Practice for Teachers in Rural Côte d’Ivoire Vikram Kamath Cannanure, Tricia Ngoon, Sharon Wolf, Kaja Jasińska, Timothy X. Brown, and Amy Ogan. ACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies, 2(3), Article 37, 1-37, 2024. DOI
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  @article{cannanure2024longitudinal,
    title = {Understanding the Longitudinal Impact of a Chatbot to Facilitate a Virtual Community of Practice for Teachers in Rural C{\^o}te d'Ivoire},
    author = {Cannanure, Vikram Kamath and Ngoon, Tricia and Wolf, Sharon and Jasi{\'n}ska, Kaja and Brown, Timothy X. and Ogan, Amy},
    journal = {ACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies},
    volume = {2},
    number = {3},
    articleno = {37},
    year = {2024},
    doi = {10.1145/3675762}
  }

• “I Believe I Did Not Preach into the Desert”: Opportunities and Challenges in Scaling Teacher Mentorship through Mobile Technology in Rural Côte d’Ivoire Tricia J. Ngoon, Vikram Kamath Cannanure, Kaja Jasińska, Sharon Wolf, and Amy Ogan. Proceedings of the Eleventh ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale (L@S), 232-242, 2024. DOI
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  @inproceedings{ngoon2024believe,
    title = {{``I Believe I Did Not Preach into the Desert''}: Opportunities and Challenges in Scaling Teacher Mentorship through Mobile Technology in Rural C{\^o}te d'Ivoire},
    author = {Ngoon, Tricia J. and Cannanure, Vikram Kamath and Jasi{\'n}ska, Kaja and Wolf, Sharon and Ogan, Amy},
    booktitle = {Proceedings of the Eleventh ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale},
    pages = {232--242},
    year = {2024},
    doi = {10.1145/3657604.3662035}
  }

• “I’m Fine Where I Am, but I Want to Do More”: Exploring Teacher Aspirations in Rural Côte d’Ivoire Vikram Kamath Cannanure, Justin Souvenir Niweteto, Yves Thierry Adji, Akpe Yapo Hermann, Kaja K. Jasińska, Timothy X. Brown, and Amy Ogan. ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies (COMPASS), 1-12, 2020. DOI
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  @inproceedings{cannanure2020aspirations,
    title = {{``I'm Fine Where I Am, but I Want to Do More''}: Exploring Teacher Aspirations in Rural C{\^o}te d'Ivoire},
    author = {Cannanure, Vikram Kamath and Niweteto, Justin Souvenir and Adji, Yves Thierry and Hermann, Akpe Yapo and Jasi{\'n}ska, Kaja K. and Brown, Timothy X. and Ogan, Amy},
    booktitle = {ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies},
    pages = {1--12},
    year = {2020},
    doi = {10.1145/3378393.3403653}
  }

• DIA: A Human AI Hybrid Conversational Assistant for Developing Contexts Vikram Kamath Cannanure, Timothy X. Brown, and Amy Ogan. Proceedings of the 2020 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD), Article 24, 1-5, 2020. DOI
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  @inproceedings{cannanure2020dia,
    title = {DIA: A Human AI Hybrid Conversational Assistant for Developing Contexts},
    author = {Cannanure, Vikram Kamath and Brown, Timothy X. and Ogan, Amy},
    booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2020 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development},
    articleno = {24},
    year = {2020},
    doi = {10.1145/3392561.3397577}
  }

Service

• Co-Organizer & Community Lead, HCI Across Borders (CHI ’20–’25; COMPASS ’23/’24).
• Papers Chair, ACM COMPASS 2026.
• Program Committees: COMPASS 2025, AfriCHI 2025.
• Reviewer: CHI, CSCW, COMPASS, ICTD, CHI EA, CHI Case Studies.
• Fundraising: Raised ~$25,000 for social causes in India.
• Kannada language teacher (volunteer), SV Temple, Pittsburgh.

Swimming

I’m a long-distance swimmer and have raised funds for NGOs in India.
Stories on my blog.

Selected swims:

• Elephanta → Gateway of India
• Swim Miami 2016 & 2021
• Lake Muhazi, Rwanda

Software & Making Things

I’ve built systems for web, Android, desktop, iOS, and hardware.
Selected projects include scalable Flask APIs (4M+ users), a WebGL 3D viewer, Learn Kannada (10K+ downloads), and Jedi Mouse (gesture + EEG cursor control).

Contact

Email: vica001@teams.uni-saarland.de
Twitter: @kmarkiv
Blog: kmarkiv.wordpress.com

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