Who's in the room when AI gets built? Interview with Luli Adeyemo

In this episode of Mindful AI, we welcome Luli Adeyemo, Executive Director of TechDiversity Foundation, co-founder of Tendertrace, and founder of Best Case Scenario. Her three decades in technology have made her one of Australia's most distinctive voices on AI governance and inclusion.From winning Britain's 1986 BMX World Championship as a teenage Black girl in a white-dominant sport to building Australia's first Diverse AI Governance Practitioners Programme, Luli brings lived experience and commercial rigour to a conversation the industry is only just beginning to have properly. We explore the "influence gap": what happens when the people most affected by AI aren't in the room when it's designed, and why governance is the boring-but-necessary foundation we can't afford to skip.The conversation moves through real failures (a University of Sydney study on melanoma-detection AI under-performing on darker skin), the international standards most organisations don't know exist (ISO/IEC 42005), and the widening gap AI risks creating between the haves and have-nots. Luli argues that diversity isn't something you bolt on at the end. It has to be the methodology from the start.If you care about who gets to shape AI and who pays when it fails, this conversation is for you. Links from the episode: Luli Adeyemo on LinkedIn TechDiversity Foundation Australia's First Diverse AI Governance Practitioners Programme: Dr Kobi Leins Cultural Infusion Diversity Atlas University of Sydney skin cancer AI study (via The Guardian) The Smith Family on breaking the poverty cycle through educationCHAPTERS:(00:00) Welcome and intro to Luli(02:00) BMX World Champion, 1986(04:00) Why diversity in tech matters(07:00) Diversity Atlas and TechReflects(10:00) When AI gets melanoma wrong(13:00) Diversity as methodology(15:00) The Influence Gap(18:00) Why governance is necessary(20:00) The AI Governance Programme(22:00) Velocity vs governance(27:00) The growing AI divide(30:00) TechDiversity Awards 2026