Payal Arora

Payal Arora is a Professor at Utrecht University and founder of the Inclusive AI Lab. She is an acclaimed digital anthropologist, and award-winning author of several books including “The Next Billion Users (Harvard) and ‘From Pessimism to Promise’ (MIT). She has been listed in the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics 2025 and won the 2025 Women in AI Benelux Award. Forbes called her the ‘next billion champion’ and the ‘right kind of person to reform tech.’ 250+ international media outlets have covered her work including the Financial Times, Wired, and The Economist. She has consulted for the public and the private sector including UNHCR, Spotify, KPMG, Adobe, IDEO, Google, and GE. She has given 350+ keynotes and invited talks in 85 countries including  TEDx talks. She is a Harvard and Columbia University, and Rockefeller Bellagio Resident Fellow alumni, and currently lives in Amsterdam.