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)
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Designing Safe and Accountable GenAI as a Learning Companion with Women Banned from Formal Education (PDF, opens in a new tab)
PDF Preprint DOI Details
Cite
@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 (PDF, opens in a new tab)
PDF DOI Details
Cite
@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 (PDF, opens in a new tab)
PDF Preprint DOI Details
Cite
@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 (PDF, opens in a new tab)
PDF DOI Details
Cite
@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 (PDF, opens in a new tab)
PDF DOI Details
Cite
@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 (PDF, opens in a new tab)
PDF Preprint DOI Details
Cite
@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 (PDF, opens in a new tab)
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Cite
@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 (PDF, opens in a new tab)
PDF DOI Details
Cite
@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 (PDF, opens in a new tab)
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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} } -
“We dream of climbing the ladder; to get there, we have to do our job better”: Designing for Teacher Aspirations in rural Côte d’Ivoire (PDF, opens in a new tab)
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@inproceedings{cannanure2022dream, title = {{``We dream of climbing the ladder; to get there, we have to do our job better''}: Designing for Teacher Aspirations in rural C{\^o}te d'Ivoire}, author = {Cannanure, Vikram Kamath and {\'A}vila-Uribe, Elo{\'i}sa and Ngoon, Tricia and Adji, Yves Thierry and Wolf, Sharon and Jasi{\'n}ska, Kaja and Brown, Timothy X. and Ogan, Amy}, booktitle = {ACM SIGCAS/SIGCHI Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies}, pages = {122--138}, year = {2022}, publisher = {ACM}, doi = {10.1145/3530190.3534794} } -
“I’m Fine Where I Am, but I Want to Do More”: Exploring Teacher Aspirations in Rural Côte d’Ivoire (PDF, opens in a new tab)
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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 (PDF, opens in a new tab)
PDF DOI Details
Cite
@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} } -
HCI Across Borders and Sustainable Development Goals
DOI Details
Cite
@inproceedings{kumar2020hcixb, title = {HCI Across Borders and Sustainable Development Goals}, author = {Kumar, Neha and Cannanure, Vikram Kamath and Gamage, Dilrukshi and Prabhakar, Annu Sible and Sturm, Christian and Rivera Loaiza, Cuauht{\'e}moc and Sabie, Dina and Bhuiyan, Md. Moinuddin and Moreno Rocha, Mario A.}, booktitle = {Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems}, pages = {1--8}, year = {2020}, publisher = {ACM}, doi = {10.1145/3334480.3375067} }
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
Thanks to Jekyll and Minimal Light theme.