We Apply Trust & Safety to Your AI Strategy
Our mission weighs security, geopolitics, crisis response, techno-political influences, and more
AIS Team
Nusrat Farooq, Founding Partner
Nusrat Farooq is an expert in Trust & Safety, with experience spanning both business and geopolitics. She previously led the enhancement of Incident Response Protocols at the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), which is founded by Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube. In this role, she coordinated responses to terrorist and violent extremist attacks across 60+ countries, working with over 30 technology companies and 200+ global stakeholders.
Before joining GIFCT, Ms. Farooq consulted on international development, track-2 diplomacy, conflict resolution, deplatforming non-state actors, education, business development and social science field surveys for organizations such as the World Bank, Columbia University Law School, New America Foundation, UNICEF, Inter-Mediate, India Institute, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania.
She has been recognized as an emerging leader by Germany’s Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit and Morocco’s Policy Center for the New South, with which she remains actively involved. Farooq is also a member of the American Political Science Association (APSA), the Extremism and Gaming Research Network (EGRN) and Women's Regional Network-India (WRN).
A technologist and thought leader, Farooq holds an MPA summa cum laude from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a Bachelor of Engineering (summa) from the University of Kashmir. She is proficient in English, Kashmiri, Hindi, Urdu, and Arabic.
Dr. Derek Leebaert, Partner
Dr. Derek Leebaert has a background as a management consultant, advising CEOs of leading European enterprises since the acquisition of Linguateq—the telecom billing software company he founded—by SONUS Networks in 2002. An author on leadership, Dr. Leebaert’s recent book, Unlikely Heroes, was recognized as a "Best Book of 2023" by both McKinsey and The Wall Street Journal. His previous work, Grand Improvisation, earned the Truman Book Award in 2020, and To Dare and to Conquer: Special Ops and the Destiny of Nations (2006) remains on the United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) reading list.
Before Linguateq, Dr. Leebaert was a principal at R. H. Missner & Co., leading the acquisition of Intermarket Media. He also served as chief economist at the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI). Dr. Leebaert founded the Technology Management course at Georgetown University and taught strategy at Georgetown's McDonough School of Business. He co-authored the MIT Press’ trilogy on the IT revolution, including The Future of the Electronic Marketplace. And he is a founding editor of three enduring periodicals: The International Economy, the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, and International Security, the Harvard/ MIT quarterly which is essential reading for global political risk analyses.
Dr. Leebaert holds a D.Phil. in political economy from Oxford University and was a post-doctoral research fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Science and International Affairs. He has an MIA from Columbia University and a BA from Vanderbilt University. He is a founder of the National Museum of the U.S. Army and a former board member of Ascension, the largest U.S. nonprofit healthcare system.
Publications
The Invisible Hand of Artificial Intelligence in Transnational Repression
The Invisible Hand of Artificial Intelligence in Transnational Repression
The Invisible Hand of Artificial Intelligence in Transnational Repression
Artificial intelligence, including generative AI, is transforming the landscape of digital transnational repression. Digital transnational repression includes digital surveillance, deployment of spyware, phishing, and hacking attacks, doxxing, online harassment, and disinformation campaigns, all of which violently threaten targeted individuals, often forcing on them self-censorship and isolation from social media. Read more.
Content Warfare: Combating Generative AI Influence Operations
The Invisible Hand of Artificial Intelligence in Transnational Repression
The Invisible Hand of Artificial Intelligence in Transnational Repression
State and non-state actors are leveraging advanced AI tools to influence operations, evade content moderation, and conduct sophisticated propaganda campaigns across multiple platforms. It highlights recent instances of AI-driven influence operations in the US, the challenges in detecting and countering such activities, and the necessity for a collaborative approach against these emerging threats. Read more.
Bracing for Black Swans: Artificial Intelligence and Elections in 2024
The Invisible Hand of Artificial Intelligence in Transnational Repression
Reimagining International Security: Multilateralism vs Multi-Stakeholderism
With more than half of the global population across 78 countries participating in elections in 2024, and with artificial intelligence (AI) derived misinformation and disinformation identified as the foremost global risk factor in terms of election outcomes, multiple black-swan events--that are high impact and difficult to predict but inevitable-- can be anticipated. Read more.
Reimagining International Security: Multilateralism vs Multi-Stakeholderism
Reimagining International Security: Multilateralism vs Multi-Stakeholderism
Reimagining International Security: Multilateralism vs Multi-Stakeholderism
With the advent of social media more than a decade ago, and now with the emergence of generative artificial intelligence, international security has become increasingly complex in terms of its cross-sectoral and transnational nature. Multilateralism as the only response to international security concerns is an outdated lens; multi-stakeholderism is the new fresh lens. Read more.
Communications During an Incident Response
Reimagining International Security: Multilateralism vs Multi-Stakeholderism
Hate in the Times of Covid-19 Can We Blame the Print Media in India?
To improve communication in the current multi-stakeholder international system, Incident Response teams should provide communication
and engagement training to their internal teams and those identified as relevant third-party
stakeholders and partners. Where appropriate, conducting debriefs and establishing information-
sharing agreements with close partners can be helpful if any sensitive information is shared. Read more.
Hate in the Times of Covid-19 Can We Blame the Print Media in India?
Reimagining International Security: Multilateralism vs Multi-Stakeholderism
Hate in the Times of Covid-19 Can We Blame the Print Media in India?
Using Machine Learning, we analyzed bias in Covid-19 reporting by top five English newspapers in India: how their reporting acted as a catalyst in accelerating Islamophobia in India during Covid19. Alongside the severe havoc that Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) wreaked in the global economy, it also unleashed a worldwide pandemic of hate targeting minorities and marginalized groups. Read more.