Pulitzer Center Awards AI Accountability CoLab Microgrant for Improved AI Governance and Accountability
The Pulitzer Center is thrilled to announce 13 new recipients of the South to South (S2S) AI Accountability CoLab microgrant. Selected from 160 applications we received this year, our grantees’ projects will focus on the most relevant issues relating to AI accountability in Africa, Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia.
Launched in May 2025, S2S is a Pulitzer Center program that aims to strengthen the connection between artificial intelligence accountability reporting with academic and civil society engagement, contributing to a more informed discourse of AI in Global Majority countries. The program does this in two ways: first, by creating peer learning among civil society organizations, journalists, and academia on AI accountability, and second, by providing microscale grants to support organizations and academia in AI accountability efforts.
This year’s selected projects will use Pulitzer Center-supported reporting to engage university students, researchers, educators, civil society organizations, journalists, youth-led groups, and Indigenous communities across Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Myanmar, Nepal, Senegal and Zambia. These initiatives will run from October 2025 through May 2026.
Reporting supported by the Pulitzer Center will provide real-life case studies on the impact of AI on communities around the world, promoting accountability in its practices. The use of journalism and human-centered storytelling in these initiatives aims to foster collective understanding and a critical perspective on how AI affects our lives, both positively and negatively, and what actions we can take in response.
“The stories we support are tangible proof of how AI has impacted society and the environment. Through this microgrant, we are attempting to relate them with civil society actors and academics with the hope that it breaks the silos and fosters collaborations that serve public interest,” said Maria Karienova, the Pulitzer Center's program manager for artificial intelligence engagement.
Impacting livelihoods, governance, climate change, the information we consume, and the choices we make every day, AI has become part of our lived reality. The selected projects build transparency in public dialogue, support knowledge sharing and scalability, and build capacity so communities are better equipped to respond to AI’s influence.
"I'm excited to see how these grantees extend the reach and impact of our stories. Making the AI supply chain and its real and present effects on communities accessible is the first step to holding governments and companies accountable in how they develop and use AI,” said Joanna Kao, AI Accountability Network lead.
Check out the projects selected for 2025 below.
Latin America
Indigenous Voices on AI Accountability (Mexico)
This project supports the participants to be bridges with their local communities in an effort to promote inclusion, accountability, and informed decision-making around AI. Drawing from the Pulitzer Center-supported series From Destruction to Speculation by journalist Laís Martins, and from stories highlighting Brazilian Indigenous communities’ pursuit of self-determination, the project will help participants deepen their understanding of autonomy, cultural identity and representation, and data sovereignty in relation to their languages and cultures through virtual training sessions. Further, a small group of Indigenous participants from Chiapas will attend an in-person gathering to collaborate with local media collectives to produce multimedia resources in local languages to build greater awareness within their own communities of the impact of AI technology.
Digital Repository on the Environmental Impact of Data Centers in Querétaro (Mexico)
This project will build a digital repository of publicly available information at the intersection of digital rights and climate justice to help journalists, activists, researchers, and civil society organizations achieve a better understanding of the state of the art. The repository will gather, organize, and systematize resources, such as academic papers, investigative reports supported by Pulitzer Center such as The Backyard of AI by AI Accountability Fellow Pablo Jiménez Arandía, official documents, multimedia resources, among others, in an accessible and easy-to-use platform.
Community of Practice: Observing Public and Judicial Processes That Address AI, Deep Fakes and Elections (Argentina)
Through rigorous documentation, research, and dialogue, this project will strengthen the capacities of diverse stakeholders to understand and respond to AI-driven electoral disinformation, in a bid to protect democratic processes and electoral transparency in Argentina and neighboring regions. This project, inspired by Pulitzer Center-supported reporting "Misinformation on TikTok: How 'Documented' Examined Hundreds of Videos in Different Languages" by Lam Thuy Vo and "Brazil Consumer Agency Demands Action After Pulitzer Center Report on Child Abuse AI Content" by Sofia Schurig, will systematically track judicial cases and media impacts to better inform key stakeholders to action change. These materials promote effective strategies for electoral justice and platform regulation while balancing freedom of expression with protections against misinformation.
Contestation of Algorithmic-Based Decisions: A Booklet (Brazil)
The project aims to produce literacy material concerning the logics of contestation (rights and institutional channels) of algorithmic decision-making, especially those related to government welfare programs in Latin America. Inspired by Pulitzer Center-supported reporting such as
"The Elderly That the Algorithm Doesn't See: The Flaws in the System That Defines Poverty in Peru" and "MIDIS Creates a Channel To Report Errors That Can Exclude You From Social Programs" written by AI Accountability Fellow Fabiola Torres, the key audience for this project is the civil society, with a central focus on low-income communities. The project will conduct meetings and interviews with civil society organization members to provide technical and socio-political input on the topic which will materialize in a booklet.
Community-Led Evaluation for AI Accountability in Latin America (Brazil and Mexico)
The project will pilot Ethical Tech Public Assemblies (ETPAs) with civil society organizations, journalists, educators, and affected communities in Brazil and Mexico. ETPA is a feedback loop mechanism for government’s AI use, by combining three key activities: critical AI literacy workshops to demystify AI systems work and who they impact; methods of testing AI models to identify harms based on lived experiences (also known as red-teaming exercises); and democratic deliberation sessions to co-define community standards and accountability demands. Pulitzer Center-supported reporting on AI's Role in Child Exploitation by Sofia Schurig, "As AI Took Over Policing in Delhi, Who Bore the Brunt?" by Astha Savyasachi, "Using AI on Campuses: Security Surveillance or Privacy Invasion?" by Damien Kanner-Bitetti will serve as the foundation for the AI literacy modules, providing real-world case studies on algorithmic bias, surveillance, data labor, sustainability, and online harms to anchor discussions in evidence-based journalism.
Africa
Fair Work for AI Kenya: From Data Workers to Policy (Nairobi)
This project will connect the Center’s AI Accountability journalism to action. Through community workshops, roundtables, university lessons, videos, and more, the project will engage with stakeholders: data workers, student leaders, civil society organizations, higher education professionals, and regulators such as the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, who are integral to Kenya’s AI landscape. Pulitzer Center investigations on AI colonialism and AI labor, Karen Hao’s AI Colonialism and Fuelling the AGI Hype by Marché Arends and Kathryn Cleary will anchor the sessions as case studies. At the end, the work will culminate with an issue brief to improve awareness and inform institutional practice relating to AI governance.
Drawn to Truth: A Community Zine on AI and Our Lives (Nigeria)
The project will engage with AI accountability issues in accessible, creative formats for youth and grassroots communities in Nigeria. Inspired by Pulitzer Center reporting, "Artificial Intelligence Is Creating a New Colonial World Order" by Karen Hao, and "Inside the Suspicion Machine" by Gabriel Geiger, Eva Constantaras, et al., the project will demystify algorithmic bias, surveillance, and digital inequality through art, storytelling, and dialogue by engaging with audiences often excluded from AI governance conversations. Through workshops, participants consisting of young artists, students, and civic actors will reinterpret Pulitzer Center-supported AI reporting through illustration and short narratives; the production and distribution of zines; and a virtual exhibition to showcase the work.
Unseen Eyes: Exposing AI Surveillance and Protecting Digital Freedoms in Zambia
Unseen Eyes will investigate how AI-driven technologies like facial recognition and predictive policing are expanding without public oversight and quietly threatening journalism, activism, and civic spaces. The project will collaborate with journalists, civil society actors, digital rights advocates, policymakers, and the public to address these risks through storytelling, training, and public dialogue. Drawing from the Pulitzer Center-supported story by Karen Naundorf and Sarah Pabst, "How We Investigated Mass Surveillance in Argentina," learnings on transparency, oversight, and human rights risks will guide documentation, workshops, and a more informed dialogue for ethical AI governance.
AI and Disinformation: Understand, Decrypt, React (Senegal)
The project will strengthen resilience to AI-driven disinformation by engaging with journalists, communication students, and civil society actors and equipping them with practical skills to identify, analyze, and respond to fake news generated or amplified by AI. By conducting a national training workshop in Dakar and producing an educational guide, the grantee will demystify how AI technologies like deepfakes and bots spread false information. The guide will be widely disseminated online to raise public awareness and promote responsible information sharing. Inspired by Pulitzer Center-supported reporting such as Srishti Jaswal’s The Journey of a Propaganda Message in Indian Elections, the guide will help amplify lessons learned, document cases, and share experiences with the global CoLab South-South network, thus contributing to broader accountability conversations on AI and information integrity beyond Senegal.
South and Southeast Asia
When Algorithms Decide: Filtered Voices From Nepal
This project examines how algorithmic content moderation affects online expression in Nepal, particularly for youth, women, and civic voices. Through Nepali-language explainers, visual content, and focus group discussions with digital creators, the project will demystify complex AI systems while documenting real experiences of content removal and account restrictions. A multi-stakeholder roundtable will identify gaps between these lived realities and existing policies. The findings will be compiled into a creative zine combining personal narratives with insights on AI governance. Pulitzer Center-supported reporting, Policing by Proxy written by Astha Savyasachi and Lam Thuy Vo’s "Misinformation on TikTok: How 'Documented' Examined Hundreds of Videos in Different Languages," will provide foundational knowledge, connect Nepal's digital rights challenges to global conversations on AI accountability and transparency, and amplify marginalized perspectives.
Amplifying Hate: An Analysis of Facebook's Algorithmic Failures in Myanmar
This project will investigate failures of Meta's AI-driven content moderation and algorithmic amplification systems in controlling the spread of hate speech on Facebook pages in Myanmar. Inspired by Pulitzer Center reporting, "How WhatsApp Fuels Fake News and Violence in India" by Timothy McLaughlin and "Officials Blame Facebook for Fueling Ethnic Tension in Myanmar. For These Women, It’s More Complicated" by Shaina Shealy, the project aims to create an evidence-based informative tool for its key audience. The project will include Meta's policy/safety teams, UN human rights bodies, international policymakers, and Myanmar journalists. It will use statistics to identify algorithmically amplified hate speech, qualitatively analyze the content, and systematically report posts to document the success or failure rate of Meta's moderation response. The project will build upon Pulitzer Center-supported reporting on the impact of these platforms, while providing new evidence to investigate the technological cause and specific failures of Meta's AI systems.
Dissemination as Praxis: Empowering Litigators to Contest Algorithmic Asymmetries in Indonesia
This project will explore how AI-based decision-making in ride-hailing platforms affect gig drivers in Indonesia. The project is inspired from the Pulitzer Center investigation, Karol Ilagan’s "How We Unveiled Grab’s Opaque Fare System" and the discussion, "The Impact of AI on Operational Systems and the Future of Gig Workers in Indonesia," co-hosted by CfDS at UGM and the Pulitzer Center. Algorithmic systems shape income stability, working conditions, and bargaining power while remaining shielded by corporate secrecy. To respond, the project will organize three capacity-building workshops for litigators, translating empirical research into actionable knowledge and tools for contesting algorithmic harm within accountability mechanisms. By linking investigative evidence with interdisciplinary insights from law and labor studies, the project aims to strengthen litigators’ capacity, foster research and legal collaborations, and support more accountable digital labor governance in Indonesia.
From Classroom to Community: Student-Led Investigations on AI's Impact (Indonesia)
The project is designed to equip students at UMN with skills to conduct in-depth, documentary-style investigations specifically focused on AI accountability and its impact on Indonesian communities. Further, the project will reach the broader public through online digital channels. Project activities include syllabus revisions, guest lectures, workshops with specialists, story grants for the best student-led investigations, and mentorship throughout the production and dissemination phases. Pulitzer-supported reporting on AI Accountability, "Amid Legal Gaps, App Workers Push for Rights in Courts, on Streets" written by Karol Ilagan and "Inspired by Pulitzer Center, Student Investigates Ride-Hailing Algorithm’s Impact on Drivers," will serve as essential case studies and context, facilitating classroom discussions and guiding the students' original investigative work.
