2025 Women in AI Expert Series: Solving the Digital Divide with Artificial Intelligence

WAI CONTENT TEAM
1 hour ago
4 min read

WAI Talks banner featuring "Expert Series: Session 8" on solving digital divide with AI. A woman in a suit is pictured, smiling confidently.

Principal author: Karen Jensen

In 2025, we continued our global initiatives in Education, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Research to make AI accessible and inclusive for everyone, with a special focus on women and girls.

Like the 2024 Speaker Series, this year's Expert Series aimed to boost opportunities for women and girls in AI. We featured global women experts sharing practical AI skills that could help you launch a new AI career or reskill for AI roles.

Throughout the World, women have been storytellers and the keepers of oral histories. We honor those traditions and welcome a new generation of storytellers, dedicated to the deployment of Ethical and Responsible AI.

In our first session, titled "Prompt Like a Pro: AI Skills for Students and Young Professionals," our expert, Charlotte Tao, offered practical guidance on the essential skill of prompt engineering.

In our second session, titled “Agentic AI: Navigating Autonomy, Accountability, and Ethics,” our expert, Dhivya Nagasubramanian, offered clear metrics and understanding of Agentic AI and how it differs from Generative AI and its uses.

In our third session, titled, “Responsible AI in Action: A Look Back at a Winning Hackathon Project”, our expert, Dr. Ja’Nya Jenoch, brought together members of some of the teams from our Global Hackathon from 2023 and discussed where they are now, some things they’ve learned, and their inspiring message for women and girls as they move into careers in emerging technologies.

In our fourth session, titled, “Generative AI, Explicit Content, and Organizational Solutions for Not Safe for Work (NSFW) images”, our expert, Bobbi Stattelman, discussed the impacts of the explosion of explicit images as Generative AI has evolved, how those images are overwhelming representative of women and children, and how emerging technologies offer solutions for organizations to prevent this content from being viewed and stored on work based devices and infrastructures.

In our fifth session, titled “How AI can help Humans learn Language”, our expert, Professor Elizabeth Wonnocutt, shared insights into how Humans learn Language, the overall decline in language learning in the UK, and how her platform, Omniloquent, optimizes the language learning process.

In our sixth session, titled “Managing Hallucinations in LLMs”, our expert, Emaan Siddiqui, shares her journey into the World of AI, defines hallucinations and their negative impact on outcomes, and defines solutions to address these challenges. In this session, we explored the use of digital avatars to “interview” Emaan, so we’re excited to integrate these technologies into our work!

In our seventh session, titled “Intersectional Bias: Localization challenges in AI and Solutions”, our expert, Ishween Kaur, discussed the importance of a multi-language strategy in designing and implementing both training models and application deliveries to ensure that bias is reduced and hopefully eliminated from these tools.

Our expert for today is Jacodia Fransman. Jacodia is the Chief Information Officer at Namibia Wildlife Resorts, and she will be talking about the Digital Divide in Namibia’s Higher Education ecosystem and how case studies from the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) demonstrated how integrating AI into curricula can be a transformative force for education in Namibia.

THE JOURNEY

Jacodia shared her journey towards an AI-driven future and her over 20-year career in Namibia’s IT sector. Throughout her career, there have been pervasive challenges – limited ICT infrastructure, inconsistent connectivity and significant policy gaps.

With a passion for data science and extensive experience as a tech leader, Jacodia has been on the frontline of the battle for digital resources and a visionary leader in eliminating constraints that limit opportunity for students in Namibia’s higher education.

THE PERSPECTIVE OF A DEVELOPING COUNTRY

Most research on AI in education comes from developed countries. Economic and social structures are different in Namibia, so they decided they must conduct their own independent studies. This is even more critical as Namibia currently has no dedicated national AI strategy or policy for education, making pioneer studies like the one we discuss in this session essential for informing future guidelines.

Many Namibian students lack access to advanced mobile devices or consistent, affordable internet access outside the university campus. This constraint is clearly seen by the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST).

THE SOLUTION: THE YYENI AI PLATFORM

This platform was built by students! Yyeni is a conversational agent designed for both educators and students to optimize learning materials and experiences, and to provide an interactive ecosystem to support student learning and provide educators with a platform that can help them provide personalized and customized feedback.

Some interesting study outcomes:

Of the three test criteria:

· A control group with no AI intervention or assistance

· An unguided group where the use of the AI tool was optional

· A guided group where the AI tool was integrated into the curriculum

When AI was integrated into the curriculum, students performed at the highest differential.

In the unguided group, results were higher than the control group, but not as high as the guided group. In the unguided group, it must be noted that the use of the tool itself wasn’t the cause of the lower result. As we talk about the Digital Divide, we must understand that delivering a tool alone is not sufficient. Users must have the ability, in this case internet access, to use the tool!

Summary

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a powerful tool that can facilitate learning and support within higher education ecosystems. But the tool itself is not the sole component of a successful educational journey. We must ensure that these tools do not continue to widen the Digital Divide by considering all the holistic aspects of the students these tools are designed to help.

Event recording: You can view the recording of the event using this link.

This Expert Series is presented by the Women in AI Ethics & Culture Office volunteer team, dedicated to A Global Vision for achieving gender parity in emerging technologies through increasing Opportunity, championing inclusive Policies, and fostering practical Action that delivers meaningful and measurable impact.