Inclusive participation
Whose knowledge, goals, and aspirations shape the system? We begin with local strengths and make absences visible.
Human–Computer Interaction · ICTD · AI
Useful now.
Capable later.
The Thoughtful AI Lab studies and builds AI with people, adapts it to the realities of their lives, and asks what they remain able to do after the answer is gone.
01 / Our orientation
The immediate answer is only the beginning.
We evaluate AI by what it leaves people able to do.
A direct answer can be useful. But useful assistance should also make room for people to consider options, navigate their own context, and act with greater understanding and agency the next time.
02 / Design principles
Before, during, and after the interaction.
We work across the full lifecycle of AI assistance: who shapes it, how it responds in context, and what capabilities remain.
Context-aware care
How should support change as needs, risks, language, and infrastructure change? We design for care, uncertainty, and human handoffs.
Lasting capabilities
What can people still do after AI assistance ends? We look beyond task completion to learning, confidence, agency, and solidarity.
03 / Research in practice
We study AI where its consequences are real.
Our work spans commercial AI, sensitive health and wellness support, and teacher learning in low-infrastructure settings. These are not just test beds: they reveal who current systems serve, where they break down, and how they can strengthen people over time.
Explore related publications
3,961
app reviews examined to understand expectations of commercial AI
108
people onboarded to a private wellness-support pilot
313 teachers
followed across a year to examine what peer support and agency can endure beyond an AI interaction.
Before / Commercial AI
What do current systems assume?
App reviews make visible what answer-first assistants promise, and the context, reliability, and safety gaps people encounter in practice.
After / Teacher learning
What remains after assistance?
A chatbot can scaffold connection, reflection, and peer support—but the lasting outcome is teachers’ capacity to help one another.
04 / Publications
Building the evidence for more thoughtful AI.
Selected work on conversational AI, learning, reflection, and technology in the Global South. The full record is on Google Scholar.
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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.
Cite this paper
Copy the BibTeX below, or find this record in Google Scholar.
@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} } -
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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.
Cite this paper
Copy the BibTeX below, or find this record in Google Scholar.
@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} } -
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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.
Cite this paper
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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} } -
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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.
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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} } -
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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.
Cite this paper
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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} }
05 / Join the conversation
Make AI more useful without making people smaller.
The lab is led by Vikram Kamath Cannanure, a postdoctoral fellow at Saarland University and a KCRC Fellow at the Kigali Collaborative Research Centre. KCRC is a research community based at Carnegie Mellon University Africa in Kigali. The lab connects Human-Computer Interaction, ICTD, and Thoughtful AI through collaborations with communities, researchers, practitioners, and public-interest organizations.
We welcome collaborators who care about participatory AI, learning, health and wellbeing, civic participation, multilingual systems, and technology that works in low-resource contexts. If that sounds like your work, get in touch.