IEAD–USFQ
Instituto de Estudios Avanzados en Desigualdades, Universidad San Francisco de Quito
Founding institutional nodesA Latin American network for critical research, technological experimentation, and multinodal cooperation.
LASTLab for Critical AI &
Digital Technologies
We investigate how artificial intelligence and digital technologies reshape knowledge production, power relations, labour, institutions, and social life. From Latin America, we connect rigorous research, applied methods, education, and cooperation to develop situated sociotechnical capacities and alternatives.
RESEARCH
EXPERIMENTATION
EDUCATION
ENGAGEMENT
EXPERIMENTATION
EDUCATION
ENGAGEMENT
A critical, interdisciplinary Latin American perspective.
KHIPUx Quito 2026 · 9–10 November · USFQ · Hybrid
Official launch of LASTLab for Critical AI & Digital Technologies
Monday, November 9, 10:00–11:00 (Quito, UTC−5). Launch session ‘Open, responsible and critical AI in Latin America’, at Campus Santiago Gangotena, Universidad San Francisco de Quito.
Strategic challenge
Why a Latin American perspective on AI?
The infrastructures, models, and decisions shaping the expansion of AI are distributed unequally. In Latin America, their implications are intertwined with historical dependency, struggles over knowledge and data, transformations of labour, and territorial inequalities. LASTLab studies these configurations, develops tools to analyse them, and fosters public and technological initiatives grounded in regional realities.
What we do
Research, experimentation, and public engagement
We connect critical theory, empirical research, technical capabilities and institutional cooperation across five complementary activities:
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Critical research
Analysis of AI, platforms, infrastructures, political economy, labour, knowledge, power and inequalities.
Methods and experimentation
Mapping, data analysis, system evaluation and prototypes developed through situated, inclusive and participatory approaches.
Public-policy engagement
Reports, policy briefs, recommendations and dialogue with actors who design, regulate or implement technologies.
Education
Seminars, workshops and resources to strengthen technical, analytical and critical capacities.
Network and cooperation
Multinodal network
LASTLab originated from an initiative conceived in Ecuador in 2024. It developed into a network with founding institutional nodes at IEAD–USFQ (Ecuador) and ICSyA–UNAJ (Argentina), together with Diversa as an organizational node participating since its foundational stage. The network welcomes institutional, organisational, and individual nodes that share its commitments to academic rigour, intellectual autonomy, cooperation, inclusion, and social justice.
ICSyA–UNAJ
Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Administración, Universidad Nacional Arturo Jauretche
Founding institutional nodesDiversa — organizational node of LASTLab
Diversa is a Quito-based organisation that researches, develops and applies artificial intelligence, data analysis and geospatial technologies from critical and feminist perspectives rooted in the Global South. It combines technical expertise with applied research, education and public engagement on social justice, governance and technological power. Diversa is an organizational node of LASTLab and has participated in the network since its foundational stage.
Organizational node of LASTLabLASTLab
Origin
The initiative was conceived in Ecuador in late 2024 by Horacio Correa Lucero. Cheryl Martens, at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Inequalities, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, supported its early development and institutional articulation. Diversa participated during the foundational stage, connecting academic research, technical capabilities, and civil society. In 2026, LASTLab consolidated its internal organisational instruments and its multinodal structure across Ecuador and Argentina.
Knowledge in circulation
Publications by network members
Colonial structures in AI: a Latin American decolonial literature review of structural implications for marginalised communities in the Global South
Horacio Correa Lucero; Cheryl Martens
AI & Society, 41(3), 2511–2527 · Published article
Publication by network members · DOI: 10.1007/s00146-025-02547-9
Entities as Embodied Networks: Power, Capital, and the Structuration of Socio-Biotechnical Totality
Horacio Correa Lucero
Technophany, 4(1), 1–29 · Published article
Publication by network members · DOI: 10.54195/technophany.18939
Collaborate with LASTLab
Collaboration across universities, organisations, communities and researchers in Latin America and beyond. The network preserves intellectual autonomy and welcomes new nodes.