Meet the 5 Black Innovators Named to the TIME100 AI List

TIME released its fourth annual TIME100 AI List, naming the 100 people shaping artificial intelligence’s direction worldwide.

Among them are five Black leaders, innovators, and thinkers spanning NASA space missions, a global network for Black women in tech, and a WhatsApp-based health insurer in Senegal.

Their inclusion signals how Black talent across the U.S. and the African continent is central to AI’s next chapter—not just as individual trailblazers, but also as key advocates for ethical AI, robust testing, and real inclusion in the field.

1. Newton Campbell Jr. 

Dr Newton Campbell Jr. is a renowned computer scientist and a leading expert in applying AI to global challenges, space exploration, and climate resilience. Before his aerospace work, he spent a decade as a principal investigator and technical lead for the U.S. Department of Defense and Intelligence Communities. In this role, he developed new technologies in the Internet Privacy, Internet of Things, and Cyber-Physical Systems fields. Campbell was also the inaugural Director of Space Programs for the Australian Remote Operations for Space and Earth (AROSE) Consortium. Under his leadership, he oversaw Australia’s first lunar mission: Trailblazer. 

Now, as CEO of Everything Lives LLC, a private consulting firm, he is the leading AI researcher to NASA’s Office of the Chief Information Officer. He spearheads initiatives that seek to leverage AI on space missions, from autonomous space vehicles to improving food production for astronauts on long missions. Campbell Jr. also serves as an AI Subject-matter Expert for the United Nations Early Warning for All initiative. With this project, they are developing AI-based warning systems to alert communities to climate disasters like floods and fires. 

2. Marian Croak 

Dr Marian Croak is easily one of history’s most prolific technology innovators with over 200 patents to her name. Croak is best known for inventing the technology behind modern internet calling (VoIP), which powers all WhatsApp, Zoom, and Google Meet calls. She also created the infrastructure behind the text-to-donate technology in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This system enabled people to donate $43 million for Haiti earthquake relief in 2010. In 2014, Croak was Senior Vice President at AT&T Labs, overseeing over 2,000 scientists and 500 programs. She had worked there for a total of 32 years. 

Today, Croak is Vice President of Responsible AI and Human-Centered Technologies at Google. In this role, she is determined to change what progress in AI looks like. Rather than judging AI models on technical benchmarks and time to first token, she wants them to be judged on cultural intelligence, user sentiment, and lasting value. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers awarded Croak its Founders Medal for leadership across communications networks, digital equity, and responsible AI. 

Related post: Google Spotlights Tech Pioneer Dr. Marian Croak in New Film ‘The Art of Possible’

3. Sanmi Koyejo 

Dr. Sanmi Koyejo is a Nigerian computer science professor at Stanford University and an authority on AI safety who has worked with big tech companies like Meta and Google. His early research spanned statistics, machine learning, neuroimaging, and genetics. Koyejo’s research has mostly focused on AI evaluation and safety assessment. It has been fundamental to pressure-testing AI models before they are deployed to the public. 

Koyejo was a research scientist at Google DeepMind for six years, and he worked at the University of Illinois for 10 years. In 2021, Black in AI appointed him as the president of the Board of Directors. The organization is dedicated to broadening inclusivity to remedy technology’s exclusionary past and affirm an equitable future. As an assistant professor in the computer science department of Stanford University, Koyejo is the director of Stanford University’s Trustworthy AI Research Lab (STAIR). He is also the co-founder of AI security startup Virtue AI. His team was hired by Meta’s fundamental AI research division (FAIR) earlier this year to shape their Superintelligence Lab’s security efforts. 

Related post: 10 Black STEM Pioneers Who Changed the World (and Don’t Get Enough Credit)

4. Angle Bush

In 2019, Angle Bush first heard about AI when she challenged herself to build a cocoa-serving robot. After attending a local meet-up for AI enthusiasts, she was confronted with the lack of diversity in the field. As a woman of color, she felt underrepresented. Instead of building the robot, she set out to build a membership-based organization: Black Women in Artificial Intelligence (BWIAI). 

Over the past six years, under her leadership, the organization has grown to 155 members worldwide. Eleven BWIAI members developed and deployed AI products before representing BWIAI at NVIDIA’s GTC Conference earlier this year. BWIAI has also forged strategic partnerships with tech giants like NVIDIA, Amazon, and Microsoft to provide technical training, mentorship, and workforce recruitment for Black Women. In her career, she has become a sought-after speaker and thought leader who challenges the tech world to think bigger and innovate smarter. Business Insider, the World AI Summit, Forbes, and Bloomberg, among others, have recognized Bush for her work. 

Related post: HBCU Bowie State Launches Bachelor’s Degree in Artificial Intelligence

5. Moustapha Cisse

Professor Moustapha Cisse is a world-renowned Senegalese computer scientist, entrepreneur, and a founding architect of Africa’s AI ecosystem. His academic research has focused on deep learning, model robustness, and ethical AI. He began his career as a research scientist in AI at Facebook in 2016 (FAIR). He then transitioned to Google, where he founded Google’s first engineering and AI research center in Africa, located in Accra, Ghana. Cisse is a professor of machine learning and the Founder and Director of the continent’s first graduate program: an African Master of Machine Intelligence at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences. 

In 2023, he founded Kera Health Platforms, a startup using machine intelligence to tackle fragmented medical infrastructure systems in West Africa. As the CEO, he launched Sura, a transformative health insurance product that utilizes AI to streamline claim approvals. Rather than creating another app, Cisse integrated Sura directly into WhatsApp. Previously, medical claim wait times would be 120 days. Cisse has cut down that time to just 30 seconds for clinics and patients. Sura now covers tens of thousands of people, operating in Senegal and the Ivory Coast and launching in a third African country later this year. 

Main image:  Dr. Marian Croak