{"id":208614,"date":"2026-05-04T16:13:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T20:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/04\/njit-senior-earns-fulbright-award-to-help-jamaica-build-ai-in-its-own-voice\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T16:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T20:20:10","slug":"njit-senior-earns-fulbright-award-to-help-jamaica-build-ai-in-its-own-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/04\/njit-senior-earns-fulbright-award-to-help-jamaica-build-ai-in-its-own-voice\/","title":{"rendered":"NJIT Senior Earns Fulbright Award to Help Jamaica Build AI in Its Own Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.njit.edu\/njit-senior-earns-fulbright-award-help-jamaica-build-ai-its-own-voice\">NJIT Senior Earns Fulbright Award to Help Jamaica Build AI in Its Own Voice<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.njit.edu\/njit-senior-earns-fulbright-award-help-jamaica-build-ai-its-own-voice\">https:\/\/news.njit.edu\/njit-senior-earns-fulbright-award-help-jamaica-build-ai-its-own-voice<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-04 16:13:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"news.njit.edu\">news.njit.edu<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Key Points:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Fulbright Recipient&#8217;s Journey<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>NJIT graduate Naketa \u201cKET-A\u201d Williams has been selected for a Fulbright scholarship and will join Jamaica\u2019s initiative in developing the Caribbean\u2019s first sovereign large language model.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Culturally Grounded AI<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Williams is driven by a belief that AI should reflect diverse stories, languages, and values, especially those from underrepresented cultures.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>IRIS Project<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Williams will work with the Jamaica Artificial Intelligence Association (JAIA) and researchers at the University of the West Indies to evaluate IRIS, the Caribbean&#8217;s first sovereign large language model.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Personal Motivation<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>For Williams, this project is deeply personal and tied to her desire to help Jamaica remain culturally relevant in a rapidly changing world. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Focus on Cultural Authenticity<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Williams will study how communities evaluate the cultural authenticity of IRIS and its responses, emphasizing the importance of local input in AI development.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Community Engagement<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>She aims to facilitate community workshops where people can compare IRIS\u2019s responses with those of globally trained models to assess cultural legitimacy and trust.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Cultural Preservation<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>IRIS aims to help preserve Jamaican linguistic, cultural, and historical aspects, including endangered languages, ensuring they are carried forward and taught.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Broader AI Impact<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Williams hopes this project will influence broader AI conversations, promoting the inclusion of diverse cultural perspectives and fostering hope in the future of artificial intelligence.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NJIT Senior Earns Fulbright Award to Help Jamaica Build AI in Its Own Voice https:\/\/news.njit.edu\/njit-senior-earns-fulbright-award-help-jamaica-build-ai-its-own-voice&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":208615,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/news.njit.edu\/sites\/news\/files\/20260501-KET-AWilliams-022-Edit.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20,18],"class_list":["post-208614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-large-language-model"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208614"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208614"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208616,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208614\/revisions\/208616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}