My Work Trip to South Africa 21-27 June 2025
During my trip to Cape Town and surrounding areas in South Africa I will be exploring many topics from African perspectives including technology, AI, mental health and wellbeing, culture, policy and regulation of AI and technology, education, philosophy and ethics. Very importantly, I will be exploring culture, context, and connections while working with various people including heritage leaders and communities offering brain scans to people in respectful and culturally-sensitive and dignified ways while people engage in their own chosen meaningful moment (listening to music, playing music, dance, or anything else they wish to explore that has meaning and value to them). I will be working with many incredible people on this trip and will update this page along the way!
This is what I know so far while I prepare for my visit:
One
i will be CO-hosting A FORUM WITH IEEE STANDARDS ASSOCIATION ON REGULATING AI IN MENTAL HEALTH from african perspectives
As Co-Chair of the IEEE Standards Association Program on Ethical Assurance of Data-Driven Technologies for Mental Healthcare, I am to co-organising an in-person all-day Forum on Regulating AI in Mental Health in Cape Town, South Africa, on the 24th June 2025 with Maria Palombini, MBA from IEEE Standards Association. Previous Forums have taken place in London, UK, and Singapore.
At this African Forum, speakers, moderators, and delegates will share perspectives on approaches to safety, quality and improved protection of people, especially the most vulnerable, when working with AI-enabled technologies specifically in mental health and wellbeing spaces in Africa.
An additional Forum aim is to gather and share knowledge highlighting the need for more nuanced approaches in diverse cultural landscapes in Africa with the aim to align with the needs of the environment, culture, and value systems of individuals, communities, and societies in Africa.
Two
i have been invited as a keynote speaker at The University of the Western Cape Mental Health Colloquium 26th june 2025
I am extremely honoured to be giving this Keynote Presentation on 26th June 2025. I will upload more details soon. A sincere and warm thank you to everyone involved with my involvement in this Colloquium and especially so to Professor Matete Madiba Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Student Development & Support, University of the Western Cape, South Africa and her excellent colleagues Naythan Kayser, Coordinator, Office for Leadership and Social Responsibility at University of the Western Cape, and Faeza Khan, Student Development practitioner at University of the Western Cape.
Just playing around with some thoughts for my Keynote…I think I will weave together creativity, culture, mental health and wellbeing, neurotechnology, ethical AI, body popping, live demo dancing with real-time real-world data, insights from Cypher Judgng, neurosymbolism, and probably some more stuff…
I will be staying for both days of the Colloquim 26-27th June in order to learn as much as possible. Delegates from 26 universities across South Africa will be attending. I c an’t wait to learn so much! I will also be doing some creative brain scanning while I am at the Colloquium as well, which I will discuss in the next section.
More details coming soon about the Colloquium Agenda!
Three
The Lαβ has its debut ‘your moment’ Pop-ups planned in multiple spaces while I visit South Africa.
Scott Unwin and Wisasal Abrahams have been so incredibly considerate, passionate, and extremely knowledgeable. They ate helping me to connect in authentic and trustworthy ways with local communities to respectfully explore brain scanning people in their chosen meaningful moment, especially creatively. We will collaborate on the 23rd June for a day of scanning, at the pace of trust and with culture and heritage at the heart of it all.
As part of The Lαβ, I will also be popping-up during the University of the Western Cape Colloquium 26-27th June 2025 in Gordon’s Bay, South Africa. We are very open to scanning participants to explore their chosen moments, very similar to how we did our Singapore Pop-up in October 2024.
more background about the lab
visit our web page
Step into 'The Moment' with The Lαβ where we fuse science with creativity and personal reflection. We are always ethically guided by what people want to explore about themselves and their choose meaningful moments. Through EEG brain activity technology and our bespoke human-centred methodologies, we can visualise these moments, offering opportunities for both internal and external reflection. We collaborate with anyone from the general public to explore the dynamic interplay between creativity and the mind, investigating how different personal experiences impact our brains. We always prioritise ethics, and we are always guided by individuals and their chosen moments. We're an inclusive community, embracing people of all backgrounds and abilities.
Four
US at The Lab have teamed up with incredible legal and ethics experts to write academic papers within South African contexts on these topics below (both currently under review)!
In the build-up to my trip to South Africa, knowing that I would be working on regulation of AI in mental health and also doing brain scanning sessions with local heritage and technology leaders in culturally sensitive ways, I also teamed up with legal and ethical experts based in South Africa to write some academic papers (below). These manuscripts are currently under review and I will be meeting with one of the co-authors at our Forum while I am in South Africa to discuss how our modified consent form for our brain scanning sessions can be culturally adapted by working with our community and heritage experts with local communities!
“Contextualising Mental Privacy in South Africa: Legal, Ethical, and Socio-Cultural Considerations with Policy Recommendations.” Full author list: Marietjie Wilhelmina Maria Botes; Melodie Labuschaigne; Camille Castelyn; Becky Inkster; Mark Sheppard
"Decoding the Brain, Respecting the Person: A Neuroethical Inquiry into Consent and Cognitive Liberty in South Africa". Full author list: Marietjie Wilhelmina Maria Botes; Melodie Labuschaigne; Camille Castelyn; Becky Inkster; Mark Sheppard