Special Session 1

Jake Okechukwu Effoduh is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law. Here at TMU, he teaches courses at the intersection of technology, AI, social justice, and the law [Critical Approaches to Data, Algorithms, and Science in the Law; Technology, Law, and Society; and Big Tech, Social Justice, and Public Interest Law]. His current research is focused on developing a comprehensive legal approach to remediating AI bias, discrimination and harms, especially by analyzing the impact of AI Systems on black people, people of African descent, and other marginalized populations. He has led and worked on empirical field research projects that required cross-disciplinary and international collaborations in law. A significant example is his role as Chief Counsel for the Africa-Canada AI and Data Innovation Consortium, where he mobilized several machine-learning and Big Data techniques to build strategies to increase societal preparedness for global pandemics.

Jake has informed the regulatory frameworks and policy formulation on artificial intelligence both for supranational organizations such as the United Nations and the African Union, as well as domestic institutions in several countries, including Canada, the United States, Brazil, and Nigeria. He has held multiple academic fellowships, including at the Centre for Law, Technology, and Society at the University of Ottawa; the Harvard Library Innovation Lab of Harvard Law School; the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance of the University of Cape Town, South Africa; and the Center for Human Rights Science of Carnegie Mellon University, USA.

He has published widely on various issues of artificial intelligence, international law, and human rights. Some of his works have been published by the Harvard Human Rights Journal, Oxford University Press, Journal of Robotics, AI & Law, African Journal of Legal Studies, and The TWAIL Review. He is the Production Editor of the Transnational Human Rights Review, a peer-reviewed journal on transnational human rights normativity and practices. He is also the author of the book ‘A Decade at the Bar,’ an anthology of legal experiences in Africa.

Funke Oba, associate professor, has received teaching excellence awards from TMU, Wilfrid Laurier University and the President’s Teaching and Learning scholar award at the University of Regina. Dr. Oba’s background in clinical practice, community organizing, Afrocentric pedagogy and experiential learning infuses her creation/ redesign of courses such as TMU’s first anti-Black racism social work course, courses on Canadian diversity, social change, and social movements.  

Reflective self-study, passion for the scholarship of teaching and learning connects her teaching and research which integrates Black elders, art, drumming, dance and Afrocentric sharing circles with a common thread of cultural appreciation and transnational reciprocity. Dr. Oba seeks to forge North-South collaborations with African partners under the aegis of the Carnegie Foundation as a Carnegie fellow and African Diaspora visiting scholar. Dr. Oba has mentored over 50 graduate/undergraduate student researchers, post doctoral candidates and global interns. She is an alumnus of Lagos Business School’s Advanced Management Program and has clinical experience in Child Welfare, Domestic violence, and Field Education.

Dr. Oba is a past president of the African Canadian Association of Waterloo Region, founder of Community Academic Reciprocal Engagement (CARE) for Black youth’s interdisciplinary practice course and Leading While Black, a leadership seminar created for Black students in TMU’s Faculty of Community Services projects. She is a director of the Working Center, Kitchener and The Compass Center for Refugees, Kitchener. She serves as advisor to the Youth Research and Evaluation Exchange, The Roots of a Black Girl project and Bell Let’s Talk Community Diversity Fund.