Following the recent release of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Emma Vesson and Sarah Stang examine the trajectory of the representation of gender roles in the iconic video game series and how, until this latest game, Zelda embodied the damsel-in-distress trope. Though in Echoes of Wisdom players can now play as Zelda for the first time, Vesson and Stang question whether this change will have an impact on gender representation in video games.

In this essay, 2023 Data Fluencies Dissertation Research Grantee Zhaowen Guo examines how the public interacts with and views the surveillance state in China, focusing not just on the technological systems used but the human agents who interact with people enforcing rules and deterring dissent.

Meet Jess Moore Matthews, one of our 2023–2024 Just Tech Fellows. She is the Founder and Chief Good Troublemaker at Backbone Digital Leaders where she has worked with history-making political candidates and organizations like Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight and Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote to make voting and campaigning accessible to all. A digital coach with the National Democratic Training Committee, a long-time disability justice advocate, and a mentor to many, Matthews’s activism has always recognized that centering the principles of disability justice is a key to achieving just tech.

In this field review, 2022 Just Tech Fellow Kim Gallon examines the rise of generative artificial intelligence in the healthcare space and how some researchers and machine learning advocates back its use to strengthen health datasets and make them more diverse. Gallon traces the history of health data inequality in the United States and explores the ethical and equity implications of using artificial health data in health research.