Biography
Payal Arora is a Professor at Utrecht University and Founder of the Inclusive AI Lab, challenging one of the biggest blind spots in deep tech today: most innovation is being built for the few, while the next billion users are elsewhere. A digital anthropologist, she uncovers how majority of the world are already hacking, reshaping, pioneering, and scaling technology in ways investors and policymakers routinely overlook. Award winning author of “The Next Billion Users” (Harvard) and “From Pessimism to Promise” (MIT), she reframes risk as missed opportunity and inclusion as common sense and the only sustainable pathway in building our tech futures. Forbes named her the ‘next billion champion’ and the ‘right kind of person to reform tech.’ Named among the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics (2025), and 2025 Women in AI Benelux Award winner on Diversifying AI, her insights have shaped global firms including Google, Adobe, and KPMG. Across 350+ talks in 85 countries for events such as re:publica, COP26, and TEDx , she pushes leaders to rethink where value is created and who gets to define the future of AI. 250+ international media outlets have covered her work including the Financial Times, Fast Company, Wired, The Economist, and Tech Crunch. She is a Harvard University, Columbia University, and Rockefeller Bellagio Resident Fellow alumni, and currently lives in Amsterdam.