Portrait of Vikram Kamath Cannanure

Postdoctoral Fellow · Saarland University

Human-centered AI for learning and participation in low-infrastructure contexts.

I am a postdoctoral fellow at Saarland University, advised by Prof. Ingmar Weber. I work at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction, ICTD, and Thoughtful AI.

I am also a KCRC Fellow at the Kigali Collaborative Research Centre, a research community based at Carnegie Mellon University Africa in Kigali that helps researchers build practical solutions for Africa.

About

Practical AI for learning, reflection, and participation

I design and study practical, low-cost AI systems that support learning, reflection, and civic participation. My work is particularly concerned with settings where infrastructure, connectivity, and resources shape what useful technology can look like.

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

Research

What I work on

Human-Centered AI

Conversational agents, LLM-supported research methods, and systems designed around human judgment.

ICTD

Aspirations, asset-based design, and locally meaningful innovation in low-infrastructure contexts.

Education & Health

Teacher professional development, learning communities, and access to health information.

Publications

Recent papers

For the complete, current publication record and citation counts, visit Google Scholar or DBLP. Selected metadata verified with indexed/publisher records in May 2026.

Browse all paper pages · Download BibTeX
  1. 2026
    Learning & Safety

    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.

  2. 2026
    Teacher Learning

    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.

  3. 2026
    Teacher Learning

    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.

Highlighted Work

Top 7 publications

Seven representative publications spanning human-centered AI, education, and technology for development.

  1. 2026
    Learning & Safety

    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.

  2. 2026
    Teacher Learning

    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.

  3. 2026
    Teacher Learning

    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.

  4. 2025
    ICTD

    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.

  5. 2025
    AI & Education

    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.

  6. 2025
    Conversational AI

    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.

  7. 2025
    Conversational AI

    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).

More

Community, making, and life beyond papers

Service

Research community

  • Co-organizer & Community Lead, HCI Across Borders, CHI 2020-2025 and COMPASS 2023-2024.
  • Program Committees, COMPASS 2025 and AfriCHI 2025.
  • Reviewer, CHI, CSCW, COMPASS, ICTD, CHI EA, and CHI Case Studies.
  • Volunteer Kannada language teacher, SV Temple, Pittsburgh.

Software & Making

Systems I have built

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

Explore Akka, a Kannada-supported alphabet learning tool.

Swimming

Distance and fundraising

I am a long-distance swimmer and have raised approximately $25,000 for social causes in India. Selected swims include Elephanta Island to Gateway of India, Swim Miami in 2016 and 2021, and Lake Muhazi in Rwanda.

Read a swimming story on my blog.