Ron Salaj is the founder of Meaning Making, an independent, experimental collective for critical praxis and research exploring how technologies shape the conditions of collective life. His work is situated at the intersection of politics, philosophy, and education, with a sustained focus on digital infrastructures, algorithmic systems—especially AI—and the socio-technical practices and meanings that emerge around them.
At Impactskills, he serves as Director of Research and Strategy, where he sets the agenda for investigations into frontier technologies in humanitarian and development work. In parallel, he co‑instigated and continues to coordinate the Master’s programme ICT for Development and Social Good with the University of Turin, where he leads a network of thirty international lecturers and shapes the curriculum around critical technology studies for development and international cooperation.
He is currently a Research Fellow at the Department of Computer Science, University of Turin, within the Territori e Comunità Digitali research group — a multidisciplinary cluster at the intersection of social computing, human-centered design, and territorial sustainability.
He previously held a Research Fellowship at the Department of Culture, Politics and Society at the University of Turin. In that role, he led two research projects commissioned by Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation: The Role of ICT in Achieving SDGs in Countries with Low Digital Infrastructure (2023), and Artificial Intelligence in Development and Humanitarian Work: Promises, Paradoxes and Perils (2025).
Ron’s practice is rooted in experimentation. As part of UNICEF’s five‑person founding team, he helped launch the Innovations Lab in Kosovo—UNICEF’s first global, award‑winning innovation lab. Two experiments that have remained foundational for him are UPSHIFT, a youth social innovation programme he helped design, and Science for Change, a youth‑led citizen science movement. The former has since been adopted in over forty countries. The latter was the first attempt to incubate a youth social movement within a UN agency, creating a participatory, inter‑epistemic space where young people from marginalised and polluted communities engaged with data, technology, education, and collective action. The movement catalyzed Kosovo’s first environmental protests and contributed to tangible municipal and national policy change. That experience continues to shape his conviction that technological design must begin with situated knowledge and end with accountable power relations.
His engagement with policy spaces is not a departure from practice, but an extension of it—an effort to bring critical perspectives, participatory methods, and dialogical ethics into the infrastructures of governance.
Ron currently serves on the Ethics Board for Emerging Technologies of the City of Turin—the first of its kind in Italy—where he is part of a working group evaluating the public-sector application of generative AI in digital services. This work focuses on ensuring that technological innovation aligns with democratic values, civic accountability, and human rights.
At the Council of Europe, his work spans several departments addressing the intersections of artificial intelligence, democracy, education, and youth. Within the Education Department, he is a member of the Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence in Education, where he is co‑drafting two policy instruments: the Policy Toolbox on Teaching and Learning with and about AI and the Council of Ministers’ Recommendation on AI Literacy. These documents aim to support member states in addressing the pedagogical, ethical, and governance dimensions of AI in public education systems.
He has also served as Course Director for the Council of Europe’s pioneering online training on AI and Discrimination, designed and delivered in collaboration with governmental institutions of the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. The course was developed to build institutional capacity and foster critical engagement with the ways algorithmic systems can reproduce and deepen structural inequalities.
With the Youth Department, he sits on the Steering Committee on AI and Youth, where he helped design and facilitate two high-level consultative meetings that brought together youth organisations, educators, and policymakers. He also co-edited and contributed to a forthcoming educational resource (in press, due 2025), which explores strategies for fostering critical AI literacy and engagement among young people across Europe.
Ron has also contributed to policy work at the European Commission, most recently supporting DG INTPA’s Youth Action Plan by designing and facilitating participatory workshops with Youth Advisory Structures in over forty countries. This work aims to build a transnational, youth-led, and participatory advisory ecosystem around international cooperation priorities.
He currently advises AREU – Lombardy Region’s Emergency and Urgency Agency on the design of its new Office for International Cooperation and Development. His role includes structuring its institutional architecture and developing strategies for cross-border engagement in health and emergency services, with a special focus on the ethical and effective application of digital technologies. This engagement builds on his long-standing experience at the intersection of ICTs, human rights, public service innovation, and participatory design.
Earlier in his career, Ron was actively involved in rights-based communication and advocacy initiatives, including work with Roma communities through the Council of Europe’s INSCHOOL and EQUIROM projects, as well as strategic campaigning on minority rights. In 2011, he contributed to the Council of Europe’s flagship No Hate Speech Movement, serving as educator, external advisor, and co-author of We Can! Taking Action Against Hate Speech through Counter and Alternative Narratives. While this work predates his current focus on AI, ethics, democracy, and education, it continues to inform his approach to technologies of humility—particularly his commitment to transdisciplinarity, justice, solidarity, and resistance to all forms of oppression.
He is the (co)author of numerous essays, research reports, and articles on topics spanning philosophy, politics, education, and technology.
He can be contacted via: ron.salaj [at] nospam meaningmaking.it