hi, i'm maira!

Maira Elahi is a 17-year-old student, author, activist, and researcher. When she’s not writing short stories inspired by Asian Myths and Greek History, you can find her engaged in research at the intersection of artificial intelligence, policy, and advocacy.Her research and advocacy work has been affiliated with institutions and bodies such as the United Nations, UN Climate Change, University of Southern Queensland, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oracle, Harvard University, The University of British Columbia, Yale University, OpenAI, Cohere, Google, Microsoft, and more. Notably, her research has been accepted and presented to conferences and places such as The Engineering Interactive Computing Systems Conference with the ViBRANT (Video-Based Respectful Assistive Novel Technologies) Workshop, Knowledge Media Institute’s Ecology of AI Workshop at the International Conference on Hybrid Human-Artificial Intelligence, Diversily, All Tech Is Human, The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNICEF Canada, The Berkeley Pharma Tech Journal of Medicine, the IAIFI (Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions) Summer Workshop, and more.She’s spoken at various conferences and leads multiple youth collectives. Her activism spans various fields and issues, particular climate change activism with The United Nations and World Vision Canada, engaging with policymakers and government officials on the rights of women, providing youth advisory statements to various frameworks and laws, working with refugees and immigrants in her community, and leading local film screenings to inspire meaningful dialogue across critical areas.

Some of my notable work experiences include working as a Freelancer for the International Association for Professional Writers and Editors, leading an event at Climate Week NYC 2023 with The Climate Group (check it out here), research interning and consulting at The Kigumi Group where I helped review an Ethics Health Check (check it out here), lobbying for the Government of Canada across multiple laws and frameworks including the launch of UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children 2023 Report, TB R&D at the UN High-Level Meeting, deep-sea mining, Court of Appeal of Mukaza in Bujumbura, Burundi, held reading group for ‘Stop Paving Over our Rights’ Comic Book, the Canadian wildfires, mobilizing local youth to demand Prime Minister Trudeau's cessation of fossil fuel subsidies and advocacy for G7 nations to follow, ahead of crucial global discussions, and more.I've been doing a fellowship at the Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab for the past year, where I'm currently building a storybook to educate young children on climate risks, in a way that is sensitive but also eye-opening. I've interned previously at igniteXL and Enhanced Healthcare Partners where we were able to work with the executives and deal with million dollar deals. I previously acted as the Social Media Lead of a creative incubator, with The Fashion Institute of Technology, where I led all the digital media efforts for the upcoming release of the program. I've served on the Advisory Committee for my local women's workforce STEM program for girls where I helped facilitate over 50+ partnerships with universities, robotics labs, etc., and I also led a project in the program where we led community efforts to help the homeless.I was a recent Model Parliamentarian at the Legislative Assembly of Ontario where I got to speak with the likes of the Green Party Leadership, Deputy Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, multiple MPs, see our PM in session, receive recognition from the Speaker of the House and sit in the house too! I was a Co-Creator of The Reimagining Unconference, where we welcomed over 200+ people, and where I also delivered a session.I'm currently a policy fellow at the Youth in Policy Institute and at Ballotpedia. I also served, in the past, as a Brand Ambassador for The Hershey Company for their HerforSHE Campaign. Here's a picture of some of the chocolates I got to promote below!

I enjoy all things football (Real Madrid and Man City), philosophy, effective altruism, Asian literature, literary fiction, poetry, war films, and cars!

I've also been involved with research at The Stimson Center with SustainChain or The U.S. Coalition on Sustainability, AI existential safety research at MIT, building a report and part of a working group at Oracle, as a co-author of the LCOY Canada Policy Document to form the Global Youth Position Statement with COY18 and be presented to world leadership at COP28, I completed a research project at The UBC NLP Lab, at Yale University under mentorship from a senior researcher and submitted to ML4H, at the University of Windsor where I helped develop a philosophy textbook and where I shadowed at a robotics lab, at OpenAI where I'm also part of an evals working group where we ensure that LLMs are safe and trustworthy, at IEEE and NIST where we're also building distinct reports, at Cohere where I'm taking part of multiple research and learning efforts, at All Tech Is Human where I co-authored the Tech and Democracy and the Better Tech Future Report, as well as led research and editing efforts for certain sub-groups and co-authored the Responsible Tech Guide 2023.I was part of another research group at The Pre-College Research Institute where I authored a literature review on AI and its intersection with health, at Dartmouth Hitchcock where I'm part of their lab and conduct research in cancer detection and epidemiology, at StabilityAI where I'm part of multiple different sub-research efforts. I review WIP papers as part of a collective at UC Riverside, and I previously interned at an initiative run by Harvard University, where we explored astrophysics and AI.

My advocacy work involves doing congressional in-meetings with the UN, being featured by the UN Envoy on Youth, serving on the World Vision Canada Nat. Youth Council where we helped lobby and passed Bill S-211 and launched the first ever National Youth Summit, and now working with the Climate Challenge Committee to launch the first ever nationwide Climate Challenge :') I'm also being trained under their Digital Advocacy Training program! Currently co-leading my city's first ever anti-hate youth collective where we receive funding from the government, and I recently completed an anti-book banning campaign programming at Novelly, where I now serve as an advocate and will be panelling at an upcoming event!I've been involved with Amnesty International in different capacities - holding Write for Rights events, holding film screenings, being part of their Urgent Action Network, sending letters to world leadership, and more. I'm a fellow for the national Team Trudeau Campaign, a delegate at YOUNGA, on the Children First Canada Advisory Council, on my city's art gallery Teen Council where we lead all the gallery events, part of Rotary International's Leadership Awards committee and serving as a recurring coach each year!I've been on the Climate Cardinals leadership team for some time and recently facilitated an event with the ECLA and UAE Embassy, programmed a translation tool for 10k+ volunteers, and was featured in the organization docu by Warner Bros! I'm part of the official youth constituency of UNFCC and the IGF, work community & outreach at foryoupage.org, a National Ambassador for UNICEF (recently wrote an article!), facilitated last year's MOZFEST, co-captained at the Canadian Youth Champions, and serve on the leadership of two youth non-profits: Leveled Legislation and TeamsCode.