4.9 KiB
IGF 2026 WS #314 Walk the talk: Practicing inclusive AI governance with AIDA
Description
While inclusive, human-centred AI governance is widely recognised as essential, many stakeholders. particularly civil society organisations, policy practitioners and emerging economies, still lack practical tools to meaningfully participate in governance processes. How can we move from discussing inclusive AI governance to actually practicing it?
This workshop aims to demonstrate how community-built AI tools can strengthen meaningful participation in AI governance and contribute to governing the Internet in the Age of Intelligence as a truly shared responsibility by combining capacity development, collaborative foresight and open knowledge sharing.
The interactive workshop introduces a new open and community-driven AI Governance and Digital Policy Assistant (AIDA) designed to strengthen AI governance capacity. AIDA helps users understand AI governance concepts, explore the technologies behind today's AI systems, examine potential futures, and identify concrete actions they can take to proactively shape trustworthy and inclusive AI governance. Built on an open-source foundation and powered by a carefully curated knowledge base, it enables the community to continuously contribute new resources and expertise, evolving into a shared digital commons rather than a closed knowledge system. Rather than presenting AIDA through demonstrations alone, participants will actively use the tool throughout the session. Together, participants will explore alternative futures, identify governance challenges and opportunities, and co-create practical governance responses using AIDA as a collaborative facilitator. This "walk the talk" approach illustrates how AI itself can support more inclusive, transparent and participatory governance processes.
Policy Question(s)
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How can open, community-driven AI tools strengthen meaningful participation in AI governance and help bridge capacity gaps among civil society, policymakers and underrepresented stakeholders?
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What governance models and incentives are needed to develop AI assistants as trusted digital commons that promote transparency, openness, accountability and collaborative knowledge creation?
Expected Outcomes
Participants will gain hands-on experience using AIDA to explore future AI governance scenarios and to co-create concrete, stakeholder-based governance actions, while deepening their shared understanding of AI technologies.
The workshop will produce practical recommendations for improving AIDA and expanding its use, with particular attention to youth, civil society, and small and developing states, including ideas for how the community can contribute resources to its knowledge base.
It will also provide insights on how open, co-created AI tools can be developed, governed, and sustained as a digital commons and inform both AIDA's further development and broader discussions on inclusive AI governance.
Reference Document
Reference Document
Format
Roundtable Duration (minutes): 90 Format description: An ideal layout would consist of several round tables spread across the room, each seating 8-10 participants, with enough space between them for breakout group work. A short plenary setup at the front for framing and report-back, then participants disperse to their tables for the co-creation phase. Each table needs at least one device/laptop to access AIDA live, and ideally a flip chart for mapping stakeholders and actions.
Suggested duration: 90 minutes, broken roughly into framing and live AIDA demo (15 min), group work exploring futures and co-creating governance actions (45–50 min), and report-back and joint recommendations (20 min).
Hybrid Format
Hybrid Format: The workshop is well suited to a hybrid setup. In addition to the in-person tables, one group will run as an online 'roundtable' on Zoom, where remote participants work through the same tasks with their own online moderator. That moderator reports the online group's findings during the plenary report-back, alongside the in-person groups. Online participants also join the introductory plenary session and the plenary wrap-up, so they are part of the shared framing and closing throughout.
Organizers
Organizer 1: Katarina Andelkovic, 🔒 Organizer 2: Arja Nunn, GIZ
Speakers
Speaker 1: Ana Toskic Cvetinovic, Civil Society, Eastern European Group Speaker 2: Cyprian Nyarige Nyamweno, Government, African Group Speaker 3: Gevorg Hayrapetyan, Technical Community, Eastern European Group
Moderator
Katarina Andelkovic, Civil Society, Eastern European Group
Online Moderator
Katarina Andelkovic, Civil Society, Eastern European Group
Rapporteur
Katarina Andelkovic, Civil Society, Eastern European Group
Participant Benefits
What will participants gain from attending this session?
SDGs
- Reduced Inequalities
- Partnerships for the Goals