Critical Digital Infrastructures and Interfaces (CDII) at Deakin University is excited to host a public talk by Professor Payal Arora, on their latest work titled “Pessimism to Promise: Lessons from the Global South on Designing Inclusive Tech” (forthcoming from Harper-Collins India and MIT Press). Register below for in-person or online.

HDR/ ECR students can also apply for a Workshop and Masterclass with Payal on 3 and 18 June (details on the CDII Events page).

Professor Arora’s Talk will introduce a radical paradigm shift in the way we think about AI and tech, taking hope and inspiration from the aspirational users of new technologies around the world.

Public talk: "From Pessimism to Promise: Lessons from the Global South on Designing Inclusive Tech"

In-person registation includes morning tea from 10:15

Online registration will include a reminder for this YouTube Link

Abstract

When it comes to tech, the mainstream headlines are bleak: Algorithms control and oppress. AI will destroy democracy and our social fabric, and possibly even drive us to extinction. While legitimate concerns drive these fears, Payal Arora points out that we need to equally account for the fact that tech affords young people something incredibly valuable—a rare space for self-actualisation. Outside the West, where most of the world's youth reside, there is a significant different outlook on tech: in fact, there is a contagion of optimism toward all things digital. These users, especially those in marginalised contexts, are full of hope for new tech. As AI disrupts sectors across industries, education, and beyond, who better to shine the light forward, Arora argues, than the Global South, the navigator of all manner of forced disruptions, leapfrogging obstructive systems, norms, and practices to rapidly reinvent itself?

Speaker bio

Payal Arora is a Professor of Inclusive AI Cultures at Utrecht University, and Co-Founder of FemLab, a feminist futures of work initiative. She is a digital anthropologist and an author, speaker, and consultant. Her expertise draws from more than two decades of user experiences among diverse marginalized communities worldwide to shape inclusive designs and policies. She is the author of award-winning books including ‘The Next Billion Users’ with Harvard Press. Her upcoming book with MIT Press & Harper Collins India, ‘From Pessimism to Promise: Lessons from the Global South on Designing Inclusive Tech” comes out in the summer 2024. Forbes named her the “next billion champion” and “the right kind of person to reform tech.” She has been extensively covered in the international media including by the BBC, Financial Times, The Economist, Quartz, 99% Invisible, Tech Crunch, FAZ, NRC, CBC, The Boston Globe etc. She has consulted on inclusive innovation, feminist design, and AI ethics for diverse organizations such as IDEO, Adobe, Spotify, Google, UNESCO, KPMG, GE, UNHCR, and HP etc. She has given more than 350 talks in 115 cities in 67 countries alongside figures like Jimmy Wales and Steve Wozniak and TEDx talks on the future of the internet and innovation. She sits on several boards for organizations such as the World Women Global Council in New York and has held Fellow positions at GE, ZEMKI, ITSRio, MICA, and NYU and is a Rockefeller Bellagio Resident alumnus. She is Indian, American, and Irish, and is currently based in Amsterdam.

CDII Bios

Associate Professor Toija Cinque

Toija Cinque is Associate Professor in Communications (Digital Media) at Deakin University, and a member of the ADI. Cinque’s projects focus on problems and affordances of digital life, particularly on media developments of digitisation, datafication and platformization (i.e., data-driven and algorithmically steered platforms), and their socio-cultural and environmental implications. Cinque co-authored and co-produced Memories That Make Us: Stories of post World War 2 Italian migration to Australia, a feature documentary that won Best Ethnographic Film in the New York International Film Awards and was Official Selection in the Asti International Film Festival, Italy; and, Fiorenzo Serra Film Festival, Italy. Cinque’s sole-authored monographs are Changing Media Landscapes: Visual Networking (Oxford University Press, 2015) and Emerging Digital Media Ecologies (Routledge, forthcoming). Other books include The Dark Social: Online Practices of Resistance, Motility and Power (co-edited, Routledge, 2023); Materializing Digital Futures: Touch, Movement, Sound and Vision (co-edited, Bloomsbury, 2022); and, Communication, Digital Media and Everyday Life (co-written, Oxford University Press, 2015).

Dr Luke Heemsbergen

Dr Luke Heemsbergen’s research looks at where emerging technologies meet society and intervenes to unsettle assumptions and rewire potentials for our shared digital futures. He co-leads Critical Digital Infrastructures and Interfaces at Deakin University, is a member of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, and is a founder of CAVRN.org. Previously, he served at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Canada. His work on emerging tech appears in international and national media, including The New York Times, Wired, ABC Australia, and Australian Financial Review, as well as diverse academic presses. His recent book Radical Transparency and Digital Democracy is published by Emerald.

Public talk: Lessons from the Global South on Designing Inclusive Tech

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