AI for Equity

In this episode of AI for Equity, Jenny Garrett OBE and Leah Garrett sit down with Julia Stamm, founder of C-Shapes AI and a leading voice on responsible AI innovation in Europe. Julia came to AI through social science, not engineering, and that lens shapes everything about how she works: from her years funding innovation across European institutions to her current mission of amplifying the women pioneering responsible AI.

We talk about why AI is a human capability challenge before it's a technical one, why the same handful of names keep dominating the AI conversation, and what it actually takes to build a more inclusive ecosystem. Julia shares the thinking behind C-Shapes AI, the role of education and regulation in responsible AI use, and the practical work of equipping female leaders with the strategic fluency to engage confidently with AI in their organisations.

If you're interested in where technology meets power, diversity, and social impact, this conversation is for you.

In this episode:

• Julia's path from social science to AI leadership
• Why technology doesn't exist in a vacuum
• The visibility problem for women in AI
• Responsible AI as a collective responsibility
• Building diverse AI ecosystems that deliver real outcomes
• The Responsible AI Use Act and what it signals for Europe

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#AIforEquity #WomenInAI #ResponsibleAI #DiversityInTech

Inkar Kenzhessarina didn't set out to build a mental health startup. With a background in international relations and law, founding a company was never the plan, until burnout and clinical depression during her master's in Sweden made it impossible to ignore the gap between people who need mental health support and people who can actually access it.

Daisy, the AI platform she went on to build, is an attempt to close that gap. It runs on transparency, so users know they're talking to a chatbot. Anonymity, so there's no human waiting on the other end and no judgement. And clear ethical guardrails, including automatic redirection to crisis services when a user shows signs of being in danger.

In this episode of AI for Equity, Inkar joins Jenny Garrett OBE and Leah Garrett to talk about:

• The pivot from law to founder, and why personal pain became professional purpose
• How she taught herself to code and built an MVP from scratch
• What early users are actually doing with Daisy, versus what she expected
• The cultural stigma around mental health in Kazakhstan, and how AI shifts the equation
• The ethical complexities of building AI that holds people in their hardest moments
• What transparency and safeguarding look like when the user on the other end is vulnerable

If you're interested in AI applied to wellbeing, in founder stories that begin in personal crisis, or in what ethical design looks like in mental health tech, this one is for you.

Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

#AIForEquity #MentalHealth #EthicalAI #FoundersStory #MentalHealthTech #Daisy #FemaleFounders #AIForGood #Wellbeing

Ideja Bajra was on track for a PhD in cell biology when ChatGPT landed and rerouted everything.

In this episode, Leah Garrett sits down with Ideja, founder of her own AI consultancy, to talk about the nonlinear path that took her from St Andrews labs to running a business demystifying AI for companies. They cover the random accelerator email that gave her two weeks to invent a business, why a science communication background turned out to be the perfect foundation for working in AI, and what a genuinely human-centred approach to the technology looks like in practice.

This one's for anyone whose CV doesn't match the career they actually want, anyone mid-pivot, and anyone tired of being told AI belongs only to computer scientists.

In this episode:

• Why Ideja's name means "idea" in Albanian, and how it shaped her
• Pivoting from cell biology to AI without a roadmap
• The two-week sprint that became a consultancy
• Human-centred AI, beyond the buzzword
• How science communication and teaching feed into tech
• AI in education, and the authenticity question
• Following intuition when the linear path falls apart

Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

AI partners are here. Apps that remember your birthday, mirror your moods, and never argue. For a generation already battling record loneliness, the appeal is obvious. But who is this product really designed for, and who pays the price?

In this episode, Leah and Jenny Garrett OBE unpack the rise of AI companionship: the WHO data linking 871,000 annual deaths to loneliness, the apps cashing in on that grief, and the equity cost of selling frictionless intimacy to the people least equipped to question it.

We get into the politics of love as a subscription, who's most at risk, and why frictionless love is a contradiction in terms.

Listen now on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube.

Dr Keshav Malhotra's great-grandfather started practising medicine in India. Four generations later, Keshav is sitting at the intersection of embryology and artificial intelligence, chairing the embryology wing of the Indian Society of Assisted Reproduction and working with the Alpha Scientists board to push reproductive science forward globally.

In this episode, we trace that lineage, not just as a family story but as a lens on how medicine evolves. Each generation inherited the questions the last one couldn't answer. Now, the question on the table is this: what happens when AI enters the fertility clinic?

We get into the real stuff. Time-lapse systems grading embryos while clinicians sleep. Digital chatbots triaging patients before they ever see a specialist. The genuine promise of making IVF faster, smarter, and more accessible, particularly in regions where reproductive healthcare is stretched thin.

But we also get honest about the gaps. Most patients going through IVF have no idea an algorithm played a role in their treatment. The datasets powering these tools skew heavily towards European and American populations. And the conversation around informed consent in AI-assisted fertility is still catching up with the technology itself.

If you work in health, tech, policy, or you've ever navigated the fertility system yourself, this one matters.

Turning the Tables: Normalcy Bias and the Case for Context traces the arc from Youth Parliament at 11, to teaching herself to code on Tumblr, through finance jobs and several countries, to the moment that set Dawn Intelligence in motion. It's an origin episode, but it's also an argument. Normalcy bias is quietly shaping how institutions respond to gender-based violence, and Leah makes the case that the data to see patterns earlier is already sitting in public, it just isn't being read in context.

Expect honest talk about founder life, mental health, and the ethics line Dawn refuses to cross. No individual risk scores. No surveillance. No reducing people to rows.

New episodes of AI for Equity weekly, hosted by Leah Garrett and Jenny Garrett OBE.

What does education look like when there are no schools and no teachers?

In this episode, we speak to Chandrima, a physicist who earned their PhD at Cambridge and held positions at Dartmouth and Harvard before making a radical career shift. During the pandemic, they stepped back from academia and into community organising, eventually founding DARS, an AI assisted tutoring platform designed for marginalised learners in West Bengal, India.

DARS operates at just 10 cents per student per month, runs on basic smartphones with limited connectivity, and is built around a peer mentoring model where every learner is also a teacher. It's not just an EdTech product. It's a community driven approach to closing an education gap that policy alone hasn't solved.

In this conversation we explore Chandrima's journey from research to real world impact, the disconnect between scientists and the communities they aim to serve, why gender justice and education are inseparable, and what it takes to build responsible AI for people who are usually excluded from the conversation entirely.

If you care about AI, education, equity or community led change, this one's for you.

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Season 3 of AI for Equity is here. Leah Garrett and Jenny Garrett OBE are back and diving straight into the deep end.

In this episode, they take on the biggest AI story of 2026 so far: jobs. Tech layoffs have surged, companies are openly citing AI as the reason for mass redundancies, and entry-level workers are bearing the brunt. But is this genuine displacement or are some companies using AI as cover? Sam Altman thinks it's both.

They also tackle the UK's ongoing lack of AI legislation, why the gap between the EU's approach and the UK's "pro-innovation" stance matters, and what responsible leadership looks like when the pressure to automate is coming from every direction.

One's a tech founder. The other's an executive coach. They're mother and daughter. Season 3 starts now.

In this special Christmas episode of AI for Equity, Jenny Garrett OBE reflects on what it really means to make AI fair, inclusive, and equitable.
If the AI industry had a Christmas dinner, who would be missing from the table?

We explore the digital divide, the absence of indigenous and minoritized voices, and why representation isn’t just a moral issue, but a practical necessity for building technology that works for everyone.

This episode is a gentle reminder that equity starts with listening, and progress begins when every voice is invited in.

🎄 Join us as we close 2025 with reflection, hope, and a call to action for the AI community.

How do you design technology that truly represents everyone?

Maisa Bennati joins AI for Equity to discuss the intersection of diversity, design, and innovation. From fashion tech to AI ethics, we explore how bias finds its way into the products we build and how inclusive design can change that story.

#AIforEquity #InclusiveTech #DesignForAll #DiversityInAI #AIethics