[Sora] Free webinar this Weds, May 20 @ 4pm NCWIT Conversations for Change: Race to the Future? Reimagining the Default Settings of Technology and Society

[VARGAS Amelia - ODE]

Conversations for Change: Race to the Future? Reimagining the Default Settings of Technology and Society
>From everyday apps to complex algorithms, technology has the potential to hide, speed, and deepen discrimination, while appearing neutral and even benevolent when compared to racist practices of a previous era.

In this talk, Ruha explores a range of discriminatory designs that encode inequity: by explicitly amplifying racial hierarchies, by ignoring but thereby replicating social divisions, or by aiming to fix racial bias but ultimately doing quite the opposite. Ruha also helps attendees consider how race itself is a kind of tool designed to stratify and sanctify social injustice and discuss how technology is and can be used toward liberatory ends.

This presentation delves into the world of biased bots, altruistic algorithms, and their many entanglements, and provides conceptual tools to decode tech promises with sociologically-informed skepticism. In doing so, it challenges us to question not only the technologies we are sold, but also the ones we manufacture ourselves.

Registration link<https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_mqpS_pDtQAa3ANBipoQhAQ> (free event)

About the speaker: Ruha Benjamin is a Professor of African American studies at Princeton University and author of People's Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier (Stanford University Press). She has studied the social dimensions of science, technology, and medicine for over fifteen years and speaks widely on issues of innovation, equity, health, and justice in the U.S. and globally. She is also a Faculty Associate in the Center for Information Technology Policy, Program on History of Science, Center for Health and Wellbeing, Program on Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Department of Sociology, and serves on the Executive Committees for the Program in Global Health and Health Policy and Center for Digital Humanities. Ruha is the recipient of many awards and honors, including the 2017 President's Award for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton. Ruha received her PhD in Sociology from UC Berkeley, and completed postdoctoral fellowships at UCLA's Institute for Genetics and Society and Harvard.

This is part of a series hosted by the National Center for Women and Information Technology<https://www.ncwit.org/summit/agenda/28551>.


Amelia L. Vargas
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
Program Director of Educator Pathways
[E9467134]
Oregon Department of Education
255 Capitol Street NE, Salem, OR 97310
Office phone: (503) 947-0712 *if you leave me a voice message I will be able to return your call!
Amelia.Vargas at state.or.us<mailto:Amelia.Vargas at state.or.us> | www.oregon.gov/EAC<http://www.oregon.gov/EAC>

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