Maira Elahi is a 17-year-old student, author, activist, and researcher. When she’s not writing short stories inspired by Asian Myths and Greek History, you can find her engaged in research at the intersection of artificial intelligence, policy, and advocacy. Her research and advocacy work has been affiliated with institutions and bodies such as the United Nations, UN Climate Change, University of Southern Queensland, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oracle, Harvard University, The University of British Columbia, Yale University, OpenAI, Cohere, Google, Microsoft, and more. Notably, her research has been accepted and presented to conferences and places such as The Engineering Interactive Computing Systems Conference with the ViBRANT (Video-Based Respectful Assistive Novel Technologies) Workshop, Knowledge Media Institute’s Ecology of AI Workshop at the International Conference on Hybrid Human-Artificial Intelligence, Diversily, All Tech Is Human, The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNICEF Canada, The Berkeley Pharma Tech Journal of Medicine, the IAIFI (Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions) Summer Workshop, and more. She’s spoken at various conferences and leads multiple youth collectives.
Her activism spans various fields and issues, particular climate change activism with The United Nations and World Vision Canada, engaging with policymakers and government officials on the rights of women, providing youth advisory statements to various frameworks and laws, working with refugees and immigrants in her community, and leading local film screenings to inspire meaningful dialogue across critical areas. In her free time, Maira enjoys blogging about her favourite films and books, watching football, and creating content online.