Vikram Kamath Cannanure
Monogram of Vikram Kamath Cannanure, a stylised letter K

Postdoctoral Fellow · Saarland University

AI and Society: learning, access, and participation.

I am a postdoctoral fellow at Saarland University, advised by Prof. Ingmar Weber. I study how AI shapes everyday life and design Thoughtful AI with the people who use it.

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.

Google Scholar DBLP ORCID CV

About

AI and Society: designing with communities

I work with communities to design and study AI for education, health, and civic learning. My AI and Society research asks who benefits, whose knowledge shapes these systems, and what people can do when AI assistance ends. I draw on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), HCI for development (HCI4D), and information and communication technologies for development (ICTD), with a particular interest in the Global South.

My work combines AI deployments across the globe with fieldwork and collaborations in India, Cameroon, Rwanda, Afghanistan, South Africa, Macau, Germany, and the United States. Current projects include health chatbots in rural India and research on generative AI learning support with women in Afghanistan.

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

Research

What I work on

Human–AI Interaction

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

AI in Community Life

Participation, access, and the local knowledge that shapes AI use, drawing on HCI4D and ICTD.

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
    Conversational AI

    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.

    Paper page PDF DOI Preprint
    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}
}
  2. 2026
    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.

    Paper page PDF DOI
    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}
}
  3. 2026
    Conversational AI

    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.

    Paper page PDF DOI Preprint
    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}
}

Highlighted Work

Top 7 publications

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

  1. 2026
    Conversational AI

    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.

    Paper page PDF DOI Preprint
    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}
}
  2. 2026
    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.

    Paper page PDF DOI
    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}
}
  3. 2026
    Conversational AI

    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.

    Paper page PDF DOI Preprint
    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}
}
  4. 2025
    Learning

    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.

    Paper page PDF DOI
    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}
}
  5. 2025
    Global South

    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.

    Paper page PDF DOI
    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}
}
  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.

    Paper page PDF DOI Preprint
    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}
}
  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).

    Paper page PDF DOI Preprint
    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}
}

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

GitLeaf is a free, lightweight offline LaTeX editor with Git history and a side-by-side PDF preview. It runs locally on Mac, Windows and Linux; offline compilation needs cached or installed packages.

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 over $20,000 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.