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Summary
Human rights activist Janna Araeva challenges tech and business communities to consider how innovation and AI affect vulnerable populations in the Global South and beyond.
Key vocabulary
innovationalgorithmlegislationvulnerableGlobal Southlobbyingpatriarchalholisticgreen economyhuman rights
Grammar notes
Rhetorical questions for persuasion — The speaker repeatedly uses questions not to get answers but to challenge the audience's thinking. "Do we want to pass on something really valuable and good?"
Hedging with "like" and "you know" — Informal spoken English uses these discourse markers to soften statements or buy thinking time. "And like when I say Kyrgyzstan, everyone thinks it's another country."
Conditional structures (zero/first conditional for real situations) — Used to describe predictable cause-and-effect scenarios. "When those people run out of resources… all the businesses are going to actually fail."
Passive voice to describe systemic processes — Araeva uses passive constructions to shift focus from actors to outcomes. "The funding… was withdrawn" and "they are not thinking because they are overwhelmed."
About this video
In this TEDxRoyal Holloway talk, Janna Araeva — a human rights practitioner from Kyrgyzstan — argues that technological innovation and AI are not inherently bad, but that developers and business decision-makers consistently fail to consider their impact on the world's most vulnerable people. She draws on vivid personal examples: delivering women's rights and LGBTQ training in a remote Kyrgyz village, visiting a Futurism museum in Berlin where visitors simulate seven-generation legislative thinking, and referencing the Grok AI controversy over harmful content. She also connects the rollback of U.S. aid under the Trump administration to weakened human rights infrastructure globally, and ties climate change — rising seas, water wars, climate migration — directly to the communities that benefit least from the technologies causing them.
For shadowing practice, this talk is excellent material because Araeva speaks in a candid, conversational style with occasional hesitations and self-corrections ("like," "um," repetition), which mirrors real-world spoken English rather than a rehearsed script. Her accent is non-native but clear, exposing learners to natural international English. The vocabulary ranges from everyday informal language to policy and tech terminology, making it rich and varied.
This video suits B2–C1 learners who want to practise issue-based discussion language, opinion-giving structures, and the kind of persuasive spoken English used in academic and professional settings. Shadowers will gain fluency with rhetorical questions, hedging phrases, and cause-and-effect connectors.
Idioms & expressions
catch up — to reach the same level or speed as something else; here, legislation failing to keep pace with technology: "it doesn't always catch up as fast"
pushback — resistance or opposition from a group against a decision or change
play along — to go along with a situation without actively challenging it
all in one — combining multiple benefits or features in a single thing: "It's like a very good deal all in one"
hit us all eventually — to affect everyone sooner or later, used about climate change
go to the field — to do practical, on-the-ground work in real communities rather than from an office
tech bro — informal term for a young, typically male, tech-industry figure seen as privileged and out of touch with broader social issues
