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We are a three person early-career research team seeking travel funding to present our paper at GigaNet Annual Symposium and give a lightning talk at UN’s Internet Governance Forum (IGF) from 14-18 December 2026 in Nairobi, Kenya.
Our paper introduces a three-dimensional index for scoring multilateral AI governance frameworks on concentration, reversibility and efficiency. We applied the index to five frameworks and identified that the existing frameworks are fragmented and lack a combination of low concentration, medium reversibility and high efficiency. The index is live at https://governance-index.camilla-balbis.workers.dev/
International AI governance is fragmenting into overlapping frameworks that trade efficiency for concentrated power or disperse power at the cost of effectiveness.The current frameworks lack a combination of low concentration, medium reversibility, and high efficiency. Our project develops a three-dimensional index to map where each framework sits on this design space and identifies the institutional levers that shift a framework's position along each dimension. Our proposals were accepted by the MAG (Multistakeholder Advisory Group) for the IGF lightning talk, and by the reviewers of the GigaNet symposium. Two of the three team members will travel to Nairobi to present our work at both the GigaNet session and IGF’s lightning talk. We have the following goals-
1. Present our paper at the GigaNet symposium.
2. Give a 20 minute lightning talk at IGF.
3. Build relationships with participants including researchers and practitioners working on multilateral AI governance, UN agency staff and policymakers.
4. The intended long-term impact is better-designed international AI governance during the current formative period, reducing the risk of governance failures during transformative AI transitions.
Our team met through Mangrove, and we got feedback from the ecosystem.
Immediate measurable outputs-
GigaNet paper presented on 14th december.
Lightning talk delivered on the main IGF program.
Paper publication and addition to GigaNet proceedings.
At least 10 substantive conversations with target researchers and practitioners.
Projected long-term outcomes-
Citations of the paper or index by AI governance researchers.
Use of the index as a tool by third parties.
Invitations to extend the work through follow-up collabs and/or workshops.
The funds would be used for travelling to attend the event for two out of three team members. The following is the rough estimate-
Round trip flights x 2: approx $900 and $950.
Shared accommodation in Nairobi (to reduce cost)- approx $125
IGF registration and accreditation- free
Local transport, food, visas and insurance- covered by the team
Miscellaneous expense/price fluctuations- $25
Total- $2000
For detailed break-through refer to the following sheet-
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1L7GF4mxOY0Rexg4XKjOfdP0QUUJ4c2_mVZq48_53TZw/edit?usp=sharing
The team was built through Mangrove. Our team consists of-
Camilla Balbis (Canada) is SPAR Fellow, ML4Good Alumni, judge and panelist for 3 Apart Research Hackathons, AIGS Canada paper on AI preparedness and BlueDot course facilitator and mentor https://www.linkedin.com/in/camillabalbis/
Jeanne Marie Vincendeau (France) is dual Master’s in International Relations between LUISS (Rome) and CFAU (Beijing) magna cum laude, mentor and facilitator for 3 AI safety fellowships, namely Mercial, AIxBio Africa and Nous. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanne-vincendeau/
Parveen Sheikh (India) is an interdisciplinary researcher with a Masters’s in Social Exclusion and Inclusive policy, founder of NISA and former policy researcher for the Indian Parliament. https://www.linkedin.com/in/parveen-sheikh/
Jeanne and Parveen will travel to Nairobi and Camilla will contribute to the presentation virtually.
Track record on this project- peer-reviewed acceptance at the GigaNet Annual symposium 2026 and an online published live index tool. https://governance-index.camilla-balbis.workers.dev/
Lighting talk details: https://intgovforum.org/en/content/igf-2026-lightning-talk-40-discussing-global-ai-governance-and-power-concentration
The most likely cause would be funding shortage to present our work. If we cannot fund this trip then we would have to forgo the opportunity to share our work and to engage with the IGF and its UN connected network of practitioners and decision-makers. The paper and the index exist regardless, the only counterfactual loss is the network-building and the two speaking slots.
As a team, this is our first attempt at raising money. All the work we have done has been on a volunteer basis.