Platform Cooperativism Consortium (PCC) Global and PCC Thailand
What would it mean to design artificial intelligence in service of communal care, climate justice, and local values? The 2026 Solidarity AI conference aims to offer some insight into this by bringing together diverse communities and building collective power. Held at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, from 12-15 November 2026, this event brings together researchers, cooperative leaders and worker-owners, AI developers, policy researchers, journalists, and artists to take up these questions.
Co-convened by Platform Cooperativism Consortium (PCC) Global and PCC Thailand, in partnership with Chulalongkorn University and regional allies, the event seeks to explore how people can gain meaningful power over the technologies, especially AI, that shape their work and lives. The sessions will look at how mutual support and shared resources can lay the foundations for collective ownership, democratic governance, and a fair distribution of benefits and costs. The emphasis is on what solidarity looks like when it is written into bylaws, business models, infrastructure, and cross-border alliances.
Catch IT for Change at the following sessions:
1. The Anatomy of a Feminist AI Stack
Pre-conference event
Date: Wednesday, 11 November 2026
Time: 08:30 AM–06:15 PM (GMT+7)
Location: Main Hall, CU Social Innovation Hub
Organizers: IT for Change, Center for Global Digital Justice; Akkanut Wantanasombut (Chulalongkorn University); Trebor Scholz (Platform Cooperativism Consortium); Anuradha Ganapathy (University of Manchester)
The Center for Global Digital Justice, in collaboration with IT for Change, aims to convene developers participating in the FemFirst Lab initiative, researchers and academics participating in the FemFirst Research Observatory, and innovators from the region working on imagining AI differently. The aim is to create a safe space for kindred spirits to give voice to shared dilemmas and commit to transformative futures – one decisive step at a time.
Read more here.
2. What Does a Solidarity Infrastructure for AI Look Like?
Date: 13 November 2026
Time: 02:45 PM–03:30 PM (GMT+7)
Location: Main Hall
At this keynote address, our Executive Director, Anita Gurumurthy, examines how equity and solidarity in the AI epoch need to be reimagined through new institutional arrangements — going well beyond the polemics of openness.
Building on our work on credible, pragmatic alternatives to dominant digital policy, Anita’s insights will focus on how equity and solidarity can be built into multi-scalar socio-technical and governance architectures.
3. Regulating for an AI Commons: Adopting, Sustaining, and Defending Public-Interest Innovation in the Global South
Date: 13 November 2026
Time: 02:45 PM–3:30 PM (GMT+7)
Location: Room E
Organizers: IT for Change, Social Web Foundation, Centre for AI, Trust, and Governance (University of Sydney)
Our Senior Associate - Research and Policy Engagement, Abhineet Nayyar, will be speaking at this workshop that centres on our recently published whitepaper ‘Regulating for an AI Commons: Adopting, sustaining, and defending people-first innovation trajectories’. This session brings together researchers, technologists, and policy advocates to reflect on the political economy of the AI supply chain and the underlying geopolitical and geoeconomic tailwinds. Other panelists include Mallory Knodel (Cryptographer and public-interest technologist) and Kimberlee Weatherall (Professor of Law at the University of Sydney).
4. Advancing Worker Power across the Lifecycle of Algorithmic Systems
Date: 13 November 2026
Time: 02:15–03:15 PM (GMT+7)
Location: Room 105, Maha Chulalongkorn Building
Organizers: IT for Change and Worker Info Exchange
This workshop examines algorithmic pay and how worker organizations can use new institutions, such as Karnataka's welfare board, to investigate discrimination. Shobhit S., Lead - Research and Policy Engagement at IT for Change, joins James Farrar, Founder and Director of Worker Info Exchange (WIE), to discuss key issues around algorithmic wage discrimination and the implementation of Karnataka’s Platform Work Law.
Explore the full conference program here.