Events

Digital infrastructure and the touchpoints it forms, and does not form, with people’s daily lives took on renewed significance during the Covid-19 pandemic.  Technology became the means through which people, newly-required to work from home, continued in employment; through which children and young people stayed connected with their schools; and through which relationships with friends […]

Race and technology are closely intertwined, continuously influencing and reshaping one another. While algorithmic bias has received increased attention in recent years, that is only one of the many ways that technology and race intersect in computer science, public health, digital media, gaming, surveillance, and other domains. To build inclusive technologies that empower us all, […]

In April 2020, the Colombian government announced an unconditional cash transfer program to provide income to families who were deemed vulnerable to economic shocks caused by the pandemic. A mere 2 weeks after the scheme was launched, 3 million families were notified by SMS that they had been selected as eligible and received the funds […]

The initial draft sequence of the human genome, published in 2001, promised to usher the world towards personalized medicine, in which a patient’s genome is used to diagnosis, treat, and prevent illness. Almost twenty years later, many clinically actionable mutations have been identified and are incorporated into treatment, and medical genomics offers exciting opportunities for […]

First emerging from the anonymous imageboard 4chan, Anonymous found its activist sea legs in 2008 during a worldwide protest campaign against the Church of Scientology. Not long after, Anonymous surged in visibility and popularity as hackers used the name to lay claim to high-profile hacktivist actions. Other groups and individuals used it to coordinate dozens […]

The volume of information available to human rights practitioners has grown steadily since the globalization of Internet access and the widespread adoption of smartphones across geographies, cultures, and socioeconomic classes. This vast material landscape creates an unprecedented visual record of the experiences of a significant percentage of humanity. When properly collected and analyzed, this material […]

The Race + Data Science Lecture Series aims to celebrate and advance research in the areas of race and data, engineering, and computational science. With this series of events, our goal is to improve how we as data scientists and data-adjacent researchers speak about race. Jasmine McNealy, Associate Professor, College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida

This talk will draw on research from “Wearing Many Hats,” a forthcoming Data & Society report authored by Matt Goerzen and Gabriella Coleman. Dr. Coleman describes her talk as follows: Our report examines the transformative period in which many hackers moved from a vilified underground subculture into a domain of respected professionalism, playing a privileged […]

Transparency is in high demand in tech policy: Advocates are calling for more information to help fight discrimination and empower users to speak online, researchers are seeking access to data to better understand the online environment, and lawmakers are demanding answers from tech companies at high-profile hearings. Whether people are concerned about online services restricting […]

Join author Hannah Zeavin for this conversation with Data & Society's Health and Data researcher Livia Garofalo and psychiatrist Dr. Romy Gad el Rab, inspired by Zeavin's new book "The Distance Cure: A History of Teletherapy" (MIT Press). Provocations and Q&A follow the discussion.