Back to news
Abundant Imaginaries: Virtual Student Symposium on Indigenous AI Futures
The future of artificial intelligence remains unclear. But one thing is certain: the technology is bound to fail if it’s not shaped by an abundance of knowledges and imaginaries.
The Abundant Intelligences research program – which advances methods of developing culturally-grounded AI systems to support Indigenous ways of knowing – aims to contribute to such abundance through its Student Symposium on Indigenous AI Futures!
Join us for Abundant Imaginaries, a student symposium on Indigenous AI Futures, to learn how artificial intelligence is being imagined – and built – anew through Indigenous Protocols and Knowledge Systems.
With six thematic panels spread across two days, students from around the world will share their research-creation projects and future imaginaries of AI rooted in Indigenous Knowledges, protocols, epistemologies, and arts.
Below we share the tentative schedule. Presentation abstracts can be found here.
For any inquiries, please email robert.marinov@mail.concordia.ca.
Zoom Link: https://concordia-ca.zoom.us/j/89025544771
PROGRAMME SCHEDULE:
Day 1 – Wednesday May 13, 2026
Total duration:
8:00am – 12:00pm HST
11:00am – 3:00pm PST
12:00pm – 4:00pm MST
13:00pm – 5:00pm CST
2:00pm – 6:00pm EST
6:00am – 10:00am NZST (Thursday May 14, 2026)
*Note: All times listed in the table below are in Eastern Standard Time.
Convert to your local time zone here.
………….
Day 2 – Thursday May 14, 2026
Total duration:
8:00am – 12:00pm HST
11:00am – 3:00pm PST
12:00pm – 4:00pm MST
13:00pm – 5:00pm CST
2:00pm – 6:00pm EST
6:00am – 10:00am NZST (Friday May 15, 2026)
*Note: All times listed in the table below are in Eastern Standard Time.
Convert to your local time zone here.
Event
Impact
Conference / panel
Student Feature
Speakers:
Robert Marinov
Ceyda Yolgörmez
Date:
From 2026-05-13 to 2026-05-14
Location:
Canada
Featured People
Robert Marinov
Robert Marinov is a PhD candidate in Communication Studies at Concordia University. His SSHRC-funded doctoral research focuses on the emergence of “digital twinning” in Canada and its links with artificial intelligence, investigating their implications for environmental sustainability, governmentality, and democratic politics. His work has been published in journals including the Canadian Journal of Political Science, the Canadian Journal of Communication, Communication Review, Politics & Policy, Futures, Imaginaries: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies, and others. Robert is a Research Assistant with Abundant Intelligences.
Ceyda Yolgörmez
Ceyda Yolgörmez is a Postdocoral Researcher at the Indigenous Futures Research Cluster, working in the Abundant Intelligences Research Program. Her PhD work brought together social theory and interactive technologies, such as large machine learning models or social robots, to consider how our conceptions of the social are changing. Her PhD dissertation proposes a framework for a sociology of machines that reimagines human-machine relations. Her research looks at playful and creative engagements with machines as a site to explore and experiment with human machine socialities, and is interested in methodologies that reveal and trouble the common-sensical way in which we understand such relations.