Dr. Vivian A. Atud has spent two decades at the seam where technology meets public life as an engineer, an advisor to governments, and a teacher. She traces her work back to a single evening in her grandmother’s village in Cameroon, listening to elders debate a new road by firelight. They asked one question of every decision: who does this serve? She has been asking it of intelligence systems ever since. She now leads a research practice on responsible AI and lectures at three universities across two continents.