Arthur (Artie) Abal, Impact Sourcing and Crowd Diversity at Appen

The Witness Box - Artie Abal from UQ Law on Youtube.

About the speaker

Arthur (Artie) Abal (he/him) leads Impact Sourcing and Crowd Diversity at Appen, one of the world’s leading producers of data used for the development of machine learning and artificial intelligence.

After starting at a large commercial law firm immediately out of UQ, Artie learned that private practice was not for him and made a quick exit. He moved to Timor-Leste to serve as the Legal and Policy Advisor to then Prime Minister, H.E. Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão, where he had the privilege of contributing to state-building for one of the world’s newest nations. Artie was responsible for setting up Timor-Leste’s Maritime Boundary Office and supporting international negotiations to resolve the Timor Sea Dispute. 

While in Timor-Leste, Artie saw firsthand how multinational corporations could have far-reaching effects on people in developing countries. Inspired to explore the private sector’s role in driving positive global change, Artie left Timor-Leste to pursue further studies at Harvard and MIT, where he received a Master in Public Policy and a Graduate Certificate in Sustainability Management.

Since then, Artie’s career in corporate social impact has taken him all around the world, from Sub-Saharan Africa, where he developed policy structures to attract private investment in the electricity sector, to Colombia, where he led a social and environmental impact evaluation with coffee farmers.  

Artie is currently exploring how to harness AI, blockchain, and the future of digital work to build a more equitable and inclusive global society. Artie is the co-founder of Corsali Intelligence, a social enterprise that makes digital work accessible to unemployed youth in developing countries through a simple smartphone app.  At Appen, Artie contributes to ethical AI by overseeing social impact programs for Appen’s global crowd of over 1 million people living in more than 170 countries, covering over 235 languages, and working from over 70,000 locations.

Artie is a proud Australian of colour, indigenous to the Southern Philippines. He recognises, honours, and respects the rights of all indigenous and colonised peoples of the world.