Waterberg, South Africa → London

Lucy Calcott

Strategist working on AI deployment and institutional readiness, between Google DeepMind and the public sector.

Now

I'm Lucy. I work in the Office of the COO & Chief AI Readiness Officer at Google DeepMind on strategy and special projects. I build internal deployment tools, including scenario-planning models that help partners, governments, and higher-education institutions map the consequences of strategy choices and decisions across systems and plan under uncertainty.

I'm co-founding The Good Society Forum, a leadership community that grew out of the Yale World Fellows network, convening senior leaders across civil society, government, academia, and industry to build the judgement their institutions need for increasingly capable AI.

Lucy Calcott presenting a slide titled Bounded Scenario Mapping to a seated audience
Giving a talk on bounded scenario mapping — using systems, trade-off, and correlation mapping to plan under uncertainty.

Before

I studied Global Affairs at Yale (BSc '25, full scholarship). While there, I led a 13-person team advising Haiti's Transitional Presidential Council on gang-violence reduction strategy, won a $10,000 Davis Projects for Peace grant and used it to run ReTsoga — six educator-training conferences across Limpopo with South Africa's Department of Basic Education, reaching 1,000+ educators and parents — published peer-reviewed research on early-childhood policy at the Yale Child Study Center, analysed micro-credit rollouts for CGAP at Dalberg in Mumbai, and founded the Jackson School's first undergraduate council.

A large hall filled with educators, parents, and young children at a ReTsoga conference in Limpopo
A ReTsoga parent–educator conference, Limpopo.

Where I started

I grew up in the Waterberg in northern South Africa, near the Botswana border, sixth generation on that land. At twelve I founded Pine View School, a Saturday programme that grew to 90 students on a curriculum I wrote and R40,000 I raised — close to the average annual household income in Limpopo at the time. At nineteen I needed to fund my teacher-training course in Prague, so I cycled solo across Botswana's Thuli Block to raise the money. When home internet became good enough to study and explore online, I taught myself everything I could reach: technology was the unlock, and building that same unlock for others has driven everything since.

Children seated at desks in Pine View School's first classroom, walls decorated with mathematics and English posters
Pine View School, 2012 — our first rented building, with chairs and tables donated by a nearby high school and books funded through grants, for that year's 30-student cohort.

Writing & talks

I write on Substack (link coming soon) — and talk, when invited. A list of recent talks is on its way.

Lucy Calcott speaking on stage to a full auditorium at a policymaker conference in South Africa
Speaking on foresight and the future of skills at a policymaker conference, South Africa.

In the press