Indigenous community chief Mr. Kandjengo is an Associate of the UNESCO Chair in Digital Technology Design with Indigenous People Indigenous at Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) and a community leader. As a cultural custodian, he is an experienced co-designer of emerging technologies from the Donkerbos community in the Eastern region of Namibia. His background spans literacy development, community organisation, cultural preservation and technology-mediated innovation. 

Furthering North-South collaborations

Mr. Shorty Kandjengo visits AIAS as a Tandem fellow from 14 to 28 March to collaborate with AIAS Associate Fellow Rachel C. Smith from the Department of Digital Design and Information Studies, Aarhus University, on the Partcipatory AI for Alternative Sustainable Futures (P-AIA) research project.

“His visit will deepen an established North–South research collaboration between Denmark and Namibia as well as bringing new intellectual terrain by introducing indigenous-led, practice-grounded insights into AI and sustainability from a Global South perspective”, Rachel C. Smith explains.

Over the past seven years, Mr. Kandjengo has collaborated closely with Aarhus University´s research partners at NUST through the Indigenous Knowledge Cluster and the Inclusive and Collaborative Innovation Tech Hub, co-leading projects that range from VR gesture design and community soundscapes to AR souvenirs and community podcasting. 

Additionally, Mr. Kandjengo has first-hand experiense in the co-design, deployment and local management of an AI-supported hydroponics system in his home village. This system is embedded in the everyday realities of rural life, community governance, food insecurity, local environmental conditions and Indigenous agricultural knowledge. 

Sharing first-hand experience of AI-supported hydroponics system

During his Tandem fellowship at AIAS, Mr. Kandjengo shared his experience as part of a Global South-North exchange through several dialogues, providing perspectives embedding Indigenous Knowledge, Participatory AI and Sustainable Futures. Bringing these perspectives into a Danish context, Mr Kandjengo visited the community house 'Laden´in Brabrand, Aarhus, where a hydroponics system is currently being installed within the network of Bydelsmødre. 

As part of his visit, Mr Kandjengo helped the community to configure the tent, providing technical support and tacit knowledge about planting and AI co-performance with the system, ensuring its sustainable deployment. Moreover, Mr. Kandjengo presented his experience and mastery of small-scale AI over the past two years with Aarhus University masters students, broadening their conceptualisation of localising AI and technology design in different contexts, helping cultivate responsible and participatiory technology formulations.  

Enriching interdisciplinarity and challenging assumptions

In addition to the dialogues, Mr.Kandjengo’s presence at AIAS enabled the direct translation, comparative analysis and technology retrofitting across Namibia and Denmark into new frameworks for sustainable and participatory AI. 

Specifically, Mr. Kandjengo together with AIAS Associate Fellow Rachel C. Smith and her research team Assoc. Prof. Rikke Hagensby Jensen, Post doc Chris Muashekele, with support from research partners Prof. Heike Winschiers-Theophilus at NUST, Namibia and Senior Researcher Sarina Till, Varsity College in South Africa, have analysed emperical data from his community, leading to the emergence of key concepts and participatory mappings setting the foundation for alternative perspectives on sustainable futures. 

Furthermore, Mr. Kandjengo’s presence enriches AIAS’s interdisciplinary environment by weaving together design anthropology, sustainability and transformation studies, human-computer interaction, responsible AI, Indigenous studies and design experiments. He brings empirical and cultural expertise that will challenge and expand existing assumptions about what “participatory AI” and “green transition” mean in deeply diverse contexts. 

“His visit at AIAS is not simply supportive of the P-AIA project that I am leading, but it will also contribute to the AIAS interdisciplinary community by foregrounding perspectives and experiences rarely represented in leading European research institutions or environments, “ Rachel C. Smith elaborates.

Contact

Rachel Charlotte Smith, AIAS Associate Fellow & Associate Professor
E-mail: rsmith@cc.au.dk

Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies &
Department of Digital Design and Information Studies
Centre for Digital and Green Transformation of Cities and Communities (DIGTCOM) https://digtcom.au.dk
Aarhus University
Denmark