In this blog, Data2X unpacks key insights from Episode 7 of AI: Alternative Intelligence, a podcast from Data2X, featuring Astha Kapoor. Listen to or watch the full conversation on Spotify or YouTube.
Today’s episode continues to build on a thread introduced earlier in the season, including conversations with guests like Rebecca Ryakitimbo—a body of work that positions people and communities as the fundamental building blocks of any system. This stands in contrast to approaches that center the state as the primary architect of governance, or those that look to the global technology industry as the engine of innovation. In an era dominated by Big Government and Big Tech, today’s guest, Astha Kapoor, Co-Founder and Director of the Aapti Institute, highlights the role of a “Big Public”—individuals and communities who use collective bargaining to establish new relationships with digital platforms and institutions, imagine new mechanisms for accountability and trust, and assert their worth and dignity within systems that often treat them primarily as sources of data. While much of her work is rooted in India, her insights resonate globally.
Evolving Questions Around Data, Governance, and Digital Public Infrastructure
Kapoor co-founded the Aapti Institute in 2019 to examine how technology is reshaping people’s relationships with work, government, and themselves. Her early exposure to India’s digitalization—from Aadhaar to direct benefit transfers—revealed both the transformative promise of new systems and the human complexities and costs that accompanied them.
Over time, Aapti’s work has focused on what traditional governance models overlook: how individuals and communities negotiate, resist, and adapt to technological systems. The questions that shaped the organization at its founding—around labor, datafication, and power—have only grown more pressing in the age of AI. As large language models accelerate data extraction, new governance mechanisms are needed to ensure that people are not simply passive sources of value.
Data Cooperatives and Their Role in AI
A significant focus of Kapoor’s work is the exploration of data cooperatives—member-driven institutions where individuals pool, steward, and collectively govern their data. Drawing from examples in Switzerland, California, and India, she explains how these cooperatives enable communities to negotiate more effectively with platforms, redirect the value of their data, and set limits on its use.
In a future shaped by AI models trained on vast datasets, data cooperatives offer a pathway to agency. They strengthen collective bargaining power, provide transparency, and embed member interests at the center of decision-making. Kapoor describes them as a “big public”—a counterweight to Big Tech and Big Government—and a vehicle for collective rights in an increasingly extractive digital economy.
Rethinking Digital Public Infrastructure
India’s experience with digital public infrastructure (DPI) raises broader questions about openness, sovereignty, and accountability. While DPI is often presented as a neutral and open public good, Kapoor notes that openness alone does not guarantee equity. Infrastructure that is open in theory may still rely on closed systems, become captured by powerful actors, or be governed in ways that limit public agency.
To address this, Kapoor proposes the concept of micro-sovereignty—community-level spaces where people can exercise control over digital infrastructure and its governance. From community broadband networks in Brazil to self-governed platforms like Mastodon, she highlights how bottom-up models can reclaim autonomy within increasingly centralized systems.
Digital Trust and Inclusive AI
Trust — particularly among women — is another critical dimension of inclusive digital systems. Aapti’s research across India shows that women are more likely to build confidence with technology when they learn in collective, supportive environments that allow experimentation without shame or fear.
These findings underscore that trust is not simply built; it is negotiated. Cooperative structures, self-help groups, and offline support systems enable women to navigate digital risks, avoid fraud, and engage with new technologies—including AI—on their own terms.
Together, these ideas illustrate a shift toward digital systems where communities—not corporations or governments alone—shape the terms of engagement. Astha Kapoor’s work demonstrates that inclusive AI and digital governance become possible only when people hold power, define value, and determine how technology serves their collective future.