Participatory design of a community AI intervention for scaling up adolescent access to SRHR education: Case of the TeenApp

There is a growing concern that current patterns of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology adoption are likely to exacerbate existing inequalities with undesirable consequences for underserved communities. AI is also seen as a potential solution for addressing inequalities. However, little is known about how AI-based solutions may be introduced in low-income settings to address societal challenges. We present our efforts towards building a community AI intervention for scaling up adolescent access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) education. We employed a participatory approach to design a prototype of the AI intervention using synthetic data, which aided requirements gathering, user experience design (UXD), and stakeholder feedback on learning content. The participatory AI design approach allowed designers to engage directly with stakeholders, which was beneficial in identifying community needs. We also found that prototyping was effective for engaging users on UXD and AI-generated SRHR education content. However, challenges abound when implementing an AI project in low-income settings. These include lack of benchmark AI projects, limited resources, misplaced community expectations, and lack of relevant AI datasets.