AI Applications for Human Rights

How analysis of videos from conflict zones can be used to better document human rights violations.

WEBINAR DESCRIPTION

Shabnam Mojtahedi discusses her experience working at Benetech, a technology company whose basic premise is ‘software for social good,’ and whose focus is using technology and artificial intelligence to support human rights. Mojtahedi goes into detail about the software she and the team at Benetech created to compile and identify videos in conflict zones in order to better understand what human rights violations may have been carried out in war.

AUTHORS

Shabnam Mojtahedi is a Sr. Program Manager in Benetech’s Human Rights Program, where she leads the effort to apply AI to support justice and accountability efforts in Syria and beyond. Shabnam is a lawyer specializing in legal reform and transitional justice in the Middle East and North Africa region. Prior to joining Benetech, Shabnam was the Legal and Strategy Analyst for the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre (SJAC) where she developed policies, reports, and methodologies for SJAC’s documentation, data analysis, and transitional justice work. At SJAC, she led efforts to ethically document cases of sexual and gender-based violence and assessed how new technologies and social media can assist in the documentation and analysis of human rights violations. Previously, Shabnam was an adjunct professor at Yeditepe University in Istanbul, teaching courses on international business law, US constitutional law, and legal writing, and for two years, Shabnam also worked for the Public International Law & Policy Group on issues of legal reform in post-conflict and transitional states, including Kenya, Syria, Egypt, and Libya. She holds a J.D. from American University’s Washington College of Law.

Languages: English

PRODUCED AS PART OF
DATAFEST TBILISI 2020

SUPPORTED BY IWPR