Benjamin Prud’homme is the Vice-President, Policy, Society and Global Affairs. Previously, he was the executive director of the AI for Humanity department at Mila – Québec AI Institute. The department conducts normative work in AI governance and public policy, learning and literacy, ethical and Responsible AI, and leads applied “AI for Good” projects focused on human rights, algorithmic bias, and sustainability. His focus areas included policy, social sciences, technology, governance of AI, and interdisciplinarity. Benjamin’s work and publications also focused on the role of human rights in the international governance of AI, the inclusion of marginalized individuals and communities in the life cycle of AI systems, and the epistemology of interdisciplinarity.
Benjamin is on the board of directors at Sustainability in the Digital Age, part of the National Council of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and an expert for the United Nations Broadband Commission’s Working Group on AI Capacity Building. He is also an advisory board member for the Observatoire québécois des inégalités and vice president of Legal Aid in Montreal.
Benjamin holds a Bachelor of Law from Université de Montréal and was an Aisenstadt fellow at McGill University’s Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism. He started his career as a litigator in human rights and family law until his 2018 appointment as the advisor to the Minister of Justice of Canada. In 2019, he became advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada on matters of human rights and multilateral relations, a position he occupied until joining Mila.