AI for Equity

Jenny and Leah Garrett
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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 challenge Contact : AiForEquity@outlook.com

  1. 3d ago

    AI Isn't New, You Are: 30 Years Inside the Machine with Dr Salim Sheikh

    AI didn't arrive three years ago. It's been decades in the making, and Dr Salim Sheikh has been there for most of it. Salim has worked in AI and software engineering for over 30 years, starting in the 1990s when the field was still largely academic. In this episode he joins Jenny Garrett OBE and Leah Garrett to unpack the real history behind today's AI boom, why the pandemic accelerated adoption faster than anyone expected, and why AI literacy is the skill we all need now. We also get into the balancing act at the heart of it all: keeping technology as the facilitator and human creativity, wellbeing and decision-making as the driving force. As Salim puts it, AI should amplify human potential, not replace it. 📚 Our book AI for Equity (Emerald Publishing) is out 27 October 2026. Pre-order now:Bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/ai-for-equity-creating-a-more-equitable-society-for-all-jenny-obe-garrett/586c7c50e50b5e55?ean=9781837428571Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/AI-Equity-Creating-Equitable-Society/dp/1837428573Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/book/ai-for-equity/jenny-garrett/leah-sunshine-garrett/9781837428571 Want to be a guest or partner with us? Email aiforequity@outlook.co.uk Follow us: @leahsrg and @coachjennygarrett

    AI Isn't New, You Are: 30 Years Inside the Machine with Dr Salim Sheikh

  2. Sep 9

    When AI saves you time, where does it go? (with Rachel Seftel)

    When AI saves you time, where does that time actually go? In this episode, Leah and Jenny talk to Rachel Seftel, Head of Research and Impact at the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women. Rachel is the first to admit she's no tech enthusiast. She got into AI for one reason: she hates wasted time. That led to the RachelBot, her personal experiment in automating everything from scheduling appointments to checking her son's homework. But this conversation goes far beyond personal productivity. Rachel shares findings from the Foundation's research with over 3,000 women entrepreneurs, almost all of whom were balancing their businesses with caregiving. The headline finding: when AI saves women time, that time doesn't automatically become free time or growth time. It gets reabsorbed into everything that was already waiting for them. We also dig into why adoption numbers can be misleading. AI use among women entrepreneurs jumped from 38% to 82% in a year, but Rachel argues the more important question is whether that use is meaningful, sustained and actually changes the fundamentals of a business. 📚 Our book, AI for Equity (Emerald Publishing), is out on 27 October 2026. Pre-order your copy now:Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/AI-Equity-Creating-Equitable-Society/dp/1837428573Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/book/ai-for-equity/jenny-garrett/leah-sunshine-garrett/9781837428571Bookshop.org: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/ai-for-equity-creating-a-more-equitable-society-for-all-jenny-obe-garrett/586c7c50e50b5e55?ean=9781837428571 Want to be a guest on the podcast? Apply here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScDrKnarbBmYZFUueLBsPlpRGArBwOA5pxUeENCtrKnMYbS2g/viewform?usp=headerGet in touch: aiforequity@outlook.co.uk

    When AI saves you time, where does it go? (with Rachel Seftel)

  3. Aug 5

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

    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 mattersHow innovation ecosystems bring governments, industry and civil society together for conflict preventionThe dual use dilemma: the same drone that surveils can deliver vaccinesAI's role in post conflict reconstruction, coordinating housing, healthcare and law enforcement dataThe ethical trade offs: privacy, surveillance, and how much we're willing to give up for securityMelanie 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

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

  4. Jul 29

    AI Is Not Biased. Our Data Is.

    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 youBeing the only woman in the room for twenty five yearsWhat happened when diversity commitments met commercial pressureSarah Weier's experiment and what the training data revealedUsing AI to sharpen judgement instead of replacing it The AI for Equity podcast, hosted by Jenny Garrett OBE and Leah Garrett.

    AI Is Not Biased. Our Data Is.

  5. Jul 22

    Loneliness isn't a tech issue

    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.

    Loneliness isn't a tech issue

  6. Jul 15

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

    "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.

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

  7. Jul 8

    Can AI Understand Beauty?

    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.

    Can AI Understand Beauty?

  8. Jul 1

    More Visible as a Man: It Was Never a Glitch

    Swap a woman's name for a man's on the same profile, and the visibility climbs. Amazon's hiring algorithm learned to filter out the word "women's" without anyone telling it to. None of this is a fault in an otherwise fair system. It is the system, running on exactly what it was trained on. This week Leah Garrett and Jenny Garrett OBE are joined by Cecilia Jastrzembska, a senior policy advisor and one of the clearest voices on algorithmic accountability in the UK. Cecilia has campaigned to make misogyny a hate crime and works where political journalism, public policy and advocacy meet. Her argument runs against the comfortable version of this conversation: bias in AI is structural, not a series of unlucky accidents, and designing for accountability has become a strategic necessity rather than a moral footnote. We get into the recruitment tools quietly deciding who gets hired, the LinkedIn experiment that exposed how visibility shifts with gender, and why so many government consultations fail the people they are meant to serve. Underneath all of it sits one idea: legibility. Making these systems readable enough that the people they fail can challenge them. AI for Equity is hosted by Leah Garrett and Jenny Garrett OBE, exploring how technology deepens inequality and how it can be built to do the opposite. Cecilia Jastrzembska is a UK Government Senior Policy Advisor at Director Level. She founded European Movement Women and is a Co-Founding member of of Women In AI, UKAI, an Advocate for 50:50 Parliament, and nominee for the Outstanding Award for Tech Regulation by CogX as well as the UN Women UK Campaigner of the Year Award. A longstanding gender equality campaigner, Cecilia is an award winning global speaker and political journalist (LinkTree) published in over 25 international newspapers. Through these positions as well as central government, she has worked with, spoken alongside, organised and chaired panel events and roundtables with over 200 MPs, MEPs, diplomats, NGO representatives and international legal experts on ending (M)VAWG, mitigating the climate crisis and ethical AI.

    More Visible as a Man: It Was Never a Glitch
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About

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 challenge Contact : AiForEquity@outlook.com

Information

  • Creator
    Jenny and Leah Garrett
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    45
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Jenny and Leah Garrett
  • Show Website
    AI for Equity