AI for Equity

AI for Equity is the intergenerational podcast where technology meets justice. Co-hosted by Leah-Sunshine Garrett and Jenny Garrett OBE, we explore how artificial intelligence can be used to drive equity and inclusion - rather than deepen existing inequalities.Each episode features thought-provoking conversations with innovators, researchers, and change-makers working at the intersection of AI and social justice. Whether we're unpacking algorithmic bias, discussing inclusive design, or spotlighting grassroots solutions, AI for Equity challengeContact : AiForEquity@outlook.com

AI for Equity is a technology podcast hosted by Jenny and Leah Garrett, with 13 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Jenny and Leah Garrett hosts AI for Equity, a technology show with 13 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  AI for Equity

  From Drones to Doves: AI's Other Defence Story with Melanie Garson

  Aug 4, 202648 minS3

  What if AI's most powerful defence application isn't fighting wars, but preventing them? In this episode of AI for Equity, Jenny Garrett OBE and Leah Garrett are joined by Melanie Garson, Associate Professor at University College London and expert in international security and conflict resolution. Melanie challenges the dominant narrative around AI and defence, making the case for "peace tech": technology designed to stabilise societies, forecast conflict, and rebuild after war. In this episode: Peace tech vs defence tech, and why the distinction matters How innovation ecosystems bring governments, industry and civil society together for conflict prevention The dual use dilemma: the same drone that surveils can deliver vaccines AI's role in post conflict reconstruction, coordinating housing, healthcare and law enforcement data The ethical trade offs: privacy, surveillance, and how much we're willing to give up for security Melanie Garson brings extensive experience in international security and conflict resolution to a conversation that will change how you think about technology's role in peace. Subscribe to AI for Equity for conversations at the intersection of AI, ethics and social impact. Pre-order AI for Equity, the book by Jenny Garrett OBE and Leah Garrett, is out 27 October 2026! #AIforEquity #PeaceTech #ArtificialIntelligence #ConflictResolution

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  AI for Equity

  AI Is Not Biased. Our Data Is.

  Jul 28, 202649 minS3

  Claire Roberts has spent twenty five years in technology strategy and transformation, most of it as one of the only women in the room. She got in without a degree, on the strength of being more useful than anyone else in the building. In this conversation with Jenny Garrett OBE and Leah Garrett, she talks about what she saw when a major AI engineering company quietly let its diversity commitments slide once the external pressure changed direction, why researcher Sarah Weier's experiment on how models answer questions about women should worry us more than it does, and why the uncomfortable finding is not about the technology at all. The bias is not programmed in. It is in the record we left behind, and the model is reading it back to us. She also makes the case for AI as a thought partner rather than a replacement, in healthcare, in engineering, and in the ordinary work most of us do every day. Her instruction is simple and harder than it sounds: don't outsource your thinking, use it to improve your thinking. In this episode: Getting into tech without a degree, and what usefulness actually buys you Being the only woman in the room for twenty five years What happened when diversity commitments met commercial pressure Sarah Weier's experiment and what the training data revealed Using AI to sharpen judgement instead of replacing it The AI for Equity podcast, hosted by Jenny Garrett OBE and Leah Garrett.

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  AI for Equity

  Loneliness isn't a tech issue

  Jul 21, 202641 minS3

  What does it mean when an elderly woman calls a plastic device her best friend? This week, Tracy Fischer and Mary Linberg from the Aging and Disability Resource Center in Dunn County, Wisconsin, join us to talk about their pilot with Ellie Q, an AI companion sitting in the homes of people the care system has quietly left behind. It's a genuinely warm conversation, and an uncomfortable one, because the device works. Users feel less alone. Annie found a friend. But warmth and indictment can live in the same story. We get into the ethics of putting AI into elder care, the difference between complementing carers and replacing them, and the systemic failure that makes any of this necessary in the first place. The technology isn't the villain here. The gap it's filling is the point. Loneliness was never a tech problem, and no lamp, however clever, is going to fix a society that stopped showing up. Listen now.

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  AI for Equity

  Hard to Reach: A Failure of Research, Not People.

  Jul 14, 202653 minS3

  "Hard to reach" gets treated as a fact about disabled people, when the real story is a research industry that never built the relationships needed to include them properly. Christine Hemphill joins Leah and Jenny Garrett to unpick that phrase and the industry built around it. She talks through her move out of traditional design roles into disability-inclusive research, why touchscreens and voice interfaces both started as disability-led design before anyone called them mainstream, and why the choice between "innovative" and "inclusive" was never a real one. The conversation also covers positionality, the bias every designer carries into a room without noticing, and what it takes to build genuine empathy with the people research is meant to serve. AI for Equity is hosted by Leah Garrett and Jenny Garrett OBE.

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  AI for Equity

  Can AI Understand Beauty?

  Jul 7, 202650 minS3

  Can an algorithm tell you what is beautiful? And if it can, whose idea of beauty is it working from? This week's guest is Hugo, founder of London's first AI consultancy. He has trained foundation models, audited machine vision systems for The Times and Vogue Business, and taught over 5,000 teenagers to build and ship real products through his company Sherpas. He now runs AI Night School, helping leaders understand what this technology actually does. The conversation runs from his first business at six years old, selling potpourri to golfers, to the project that tried to teach a machine to recognise beauty, and what that project quietly exposed. AI does not fix our instincts. It amplifies them. Every bias we have not questioned gets handed back to us, faster and with a confidence it has not earned. We also get into creativity, the discipline of protecting your focus, and the ethics of building technology that shapes how people see themselves and their own worth. Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

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