There are a confusing number of acronyms used by the community that is interested in keeping tabs on progress being made (in research, development, activism), making sense of it, and learning lessons from what worked and what challenges emerged. It’s an important part of our work – and paying it proper attention is the only way we’re ever going to stop making the same mistakes. 

The MERL Tech Initiative is an important one that brings together anyone interested in monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL) – with a special focus on realistic digital approaches that center people, communities and societie. They have a strong focus on equity, justice and avoiding harm.

They have a useful website and often host webinars that are free to join. They recently advertised for an AI+Africa Lead for the Natural Language Processing Community of Practice (NLP-CoP) lead so we can look forward to important conversations about AI in the future.