Brandi Geurkink

Senior Fellow, Tech Policy

2022-2024

Germany

Brandi Geurkink is a veteran campaigner who wrestles with some of society's thorniest problems — and then maps a pathway to systemic solutions. Her background is varied, but her approach to social change is singular: interrogating power imbalances in society and shifting power to those who are impacted most. Brandi was Senior Manager of Advocacy at Mozilla, where she devised new ways to hold the internet’s biggest platforms accountable for algorithms, online advertising, and privacy.

Most recently, she joined the Coalition for Independent Technology Research as its inaugural Executive Director. Brandi is the creator of Mozilla’s YouTubeRegrets project, the largest-ever crowdsourced investigation into YouTube’s recommendation engine and its impact on society. As a Senior Fellow in Policy, Brandi will be exploring data donations as a method for AI activism and to inform policy approaches.

Fellowship Project

Brandi is developing a policy framework titled “The lifecycle of community-led governance of AI systems,” which will also incubate new data donation projects. The framework will complement existing transparency and access efforts for industry and regulatory oversight of AI systems, and also ensure that the public is equally involved in the oversight of these systems. Brandi conducted a landscape analysis of data donation projects to assess both the levels and status of community engagement, and seeks to foster a community of practice among data donation practitioners. She also conducts advocacy work to support data donation and other industry-independent methods to increase AI transparency.