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Anasuya Sengupta: AI, Colonising Knowledge, and Iran's Information War
The internet is a monocrop. A plantation of knowledge in English, owned by a handful of mega corporations, built on the bones of colonial infrastructure. And we are no longer just the consumers and as ever we are the product, the training set, the data points. So who gets to imagine the future?
A leadership podcast about people, power and possibilities.
This week on If You Were In Charge, Sanam and Kavita sit down with Anasuya Sengupta, co-founder of Whose Knowledge?, a global multilingual campaign to centre the knowledges of marginalised communities (the minoritised majority of the world) online. Anasuya traces a direct line from the telegraph networks of the British Empire to today’s Big Tech monopolies.
But this is not just a story of extraction. Anasuya shares what it looks like when voices from the margins reimagine technology. From building sovereign language models in Bangla, Urdu and Hindi, to transforming Wikipedia so that women are no longer invisible.
The episode opens with Sanam and Kavita reflecting on the Iran ceasefire, the extraordinary Lego memes coming out of Iran, and what it means when the world is surprised that Iranians have both sophisticated technology and a sense of humour.
Anasuya Sengupta — Co-founder of Whose Knowledge?
Enjoyed this episode? Follow If You Were In Charge wherever you listen and leave a rating to help more people find the show.
Get in touch and stay connected:
Email ICAN: [email protected]
Sign up to the ICAN newsletter: https://icanpeacework.org/2025/03/sign-up-to-icans-newsletter/
More from us: adapodcasts.com
If You Were In Charge is brought to you by ICAN, the International Civil Society Action Network. An ADA Production.
Original Music, Little Monster Media
Executive Producer: Pearse Lynch
This is an ADA Production
Timeline
00:00 — Cold open: Anasuya on “plantation tech”
00:26 — Intro with Sanam and Kavita
00:36 — Hosts discuss the Iran ceasefire, Lego memes, and Iranian political humour
07:15 — Transition to the possibilities theme and Arundhati Roy quote
07:35 — Reflection on the ceasefire moment and what comes next
10:30 — Discussion of Anthropic, AI containment, and Palantir
12:13 — Main interview begins: Anasuya Sengupta on the internet and search
14:30 — Tech solutionism and the polycrisis
16:34 — Colonial history of the internet: telegraph to Big Tech
20:30 — Infrastructure: who owns the message vs the messenger
23:12 — “We are the training set” — AI and data extraction
24:21 — Founding of Whose Knowledge? and feminist tech activism
28:16 — Women’s invisibility in knowledge systems and Wikipedia
33:12 — “If you were in charge” — reimagining tech from the margins
35:37 — Language, plantation tech, and multilingual futures
38:26 — Disability rights and imagining from the margins in
40:09 — Scaling across, not scaling up
43:30 — The right to refusal and feminist archives
47:24 — Representation: necessary but insufficient
49:38 — A growing coalition for change
50:15 — Radical idea: knowledge as a commons
52:59 — Outro
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
View all episodes
By A Leadership Podcast with Sanam Naraghi Anderlini & Kavita RamdasThe internet is a monocrop. A plantation of knowledge in English, owned by a handful of mega corporations, built on the bones of colonial infrastructure. And we are no longer just the consumers and as ever we are the product, the training set, the data points. So who gets to imagine the future?
A leadership podcast about people, power and possibilities.
This week on If You Were In Charge, Sanam and Kavita sit down with Anasuya Sengupta, co-founder of Whose Knowledge?, a global multilingual campaign to centre the knowledges of marginalised communities (the minoritised majority of the world) online. Anasuya traces a direct line from the telegraph networks of the British Empire to today’s Big Tech monopolies.
But this is not just a story of extraction. Anasuya shares what it looks like when voices from the margins reimagine technology. From building sovereign language models in Bangla, Urdu and Hindi, to transforming Wikipedia so that women are no longer invisible.
The episode opens with Sanam and Kavita reflecting on the Iran ceasefire, the extraordinary Lego memes coming out of Iran, and what it means when the world is surprised that Iranians have both sophisticated technology and a sense of humour.
Anasuya Sengupta — Co-founder of Whose Knowledge?
Enjoyed this episode? Follow If You Were In Charge wherever you listen and leave a rating to help more people find the show.
Get in touch and stay connected:
Email ICAN: [email protected]
Sign up to the ICAN newsletter: https://icanpeacework.org/2025/03/sign-up-to-icans-newsletter/
More from us: adapodcasts.com
If You Were In Charge is brought to you by ICAN, the International Civil Society Action Network. An ADA Production.
Original Music, Little Monster Media
Executive Producer: Pearse Lynch
This is an ADA Production
Timeline
00:00 — Cold open: Anasuya on “plantation tech”
00:26 — Intro with Sanam and Kavita
00:36 — Hosts discuss the Iran ceasefire, Lego memes, and Iranian political humour
07:15 — Transition to the possibilities theme and Arundhati Roy quote
07:35 — Reflection on the ceasefire moment and what comes next
10:30 — Discussion of Anthropic, AI containment, and Palantir
12:13 — Main interview begins: Anasuya Sengupta on the internet and search
14:30 — Tech solutionism and the polycrisis
16:34 — Colonial history of the internet: telegraph to Big Tech
20:30 — Infrastructure: who owns the message vs the messenger
23:12 — “We are the training set” — AI and data extraction
24:21 — Founding of Whose Knowledge? and feminist tech activism
28:16 — Women’s invisibility in knowledge systems and Wikipedia
33:12 — “If you were in charge” — reimagining tech from the margins
35:37 — Language, plantation tech, and multilingual futures
38:26 — Disability rights and imagining from the margins in
40:09 — Scaling across, not scaling up
43:30 — The right to refusal and feminist archives
47:24 — Representation: necessary but insufficient
49:38 — A growing coalition for change
50:15 — Radical idea: knowledge as a commons
52:59 — Outro
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices