This venture integrates technological advancements with Persian linguistic and cultural elements, aiming to develop an AI model tailored for the Iranian diaspora.

From 2018 to 2022, Ardalan was the founder and chief storytelling officer at IVOW (Intelligent Voices of Wisdom), which champions culturally conscious data strategies across multiple industries, from academia to development and enterprise.

[7] Ardalan has also served as Managing Editor at Hanson Robotics, and is a member of the AI for Good Brain Trust, composed of an international panel of innovators and thinkers from industry, United Nations (UN) agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), civil society, the UN's member states, academia, start-ups, media and the arts who assist in identifying initiatives aimed at using AI to advance the UN SDGs.

She produced award-winning cultural and news stories on health and environmental concerns in Los Alamos for which she won first place in documentaries from the Associated Press in New Mexico.

[17][18] Together with National Geographic Society, Ardalan's audio team has also piloted Soundbank, a database featuring crowdsourced sounds of nature from explorers and photographers around the world.

The fellowship pairs entrepreneurs, designers and innovators from the private sector to team up with forward-thinking agency partners to modernize critical government services, including transportation, healthcare,[20] veterans affairs, and American technology,[21] as well as hosting engagement workshops on data and digital storytelling.

In 2017, Ardalan designed an immersive storytelling project around healthy eating in the South Pacific funded by the innovationXchange of the Australian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Throughout her career, she has produced a wide array of radio stories, especially those pertaining to the culture, art,[24] history,[25] women's rights,[26] and politics in Iran,[27] as well as issues surrounding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In her book, she writes about the struggle of a nation as reflected in her family's story led to her memoir My Name Is Iran published by Henry Holt in 2008.

Bakhtiar authored, translated, edited, and adapted over 150 books including The Sense of Unity with her then-husband Nader Ardalan, and Sufi Expressions of the Mystic Quest.

Ardalan serves as a board member and Director of Data for Bakhtiar's Institute of Traditional Psychoethics and Guidance, and is building a conversational AI based on her mother's work.

[40][41] In April 2002, Ardalan and Jacki Lyden received a Gracie award from the American Women in Radio and Television for the NPR documentary Loss and Its Aftermath, the story of Israeli and Palestinian parents speaking about the deaths of their children in the conflict.

[44] The team also won three Anthem Awards in February 2022: Gold for the episode In Conversation: Reframing Black History and Culture,[16] and two silver medals, for Searching for the Himalaya’s Ghost Cats and Olympic Training During a Pandemic.