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Keynote for the Digital Inclusion Policy Conference in London

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What a wonderful and diverse audience for this keynote for the Digital Inclusion Policy conference held in London by the University of Liverpool. It emerged from some very critical and timely questions such as - What type of skills do people need to ‘be digital’? Do different people from different ages and abilities need different types of skills and training? And how can we foresee what skills will be needed for future work? The conference brought together researchers, civic activists, government think-tanks, policy practitioners, tech entrepreneurs and more from very different contexts and countries which made these conversations more challenging and rewarding.  My keynote was about Inclusion with the emergence of the Next Billion Users and what that means for equity and justice at a global level in this data-driven age.  The basis of my talk was as follows: The mobile phone has been a global game-changer. There are more cellphones than people in China. India is th

6 marathon presentations at the ICA-Washington

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It was one of my busiest times I have had at the International Communication Association , the largest annual gathering of communication and media scholars. This year it was held in Washington DC. I presented a diverse set of papers at the main and pre-conference and also landed up having a pre-launch for the new University of California Press journal Global Perspectives where I will serve as the Section Editor for the media and communication section. It kick-started with me speaking alongside a wonderful panel of speakers - Frank Pasquale and Thomas Poell  on 'The Moral order of Datafied Publics' at the Justice and Order in the Datafied Society Pre-conference.   My talk was drawn from the recently published paper with First Monday on Benign Dataveillance? Examining novel data-driven governance systems in India and China. Additionally, did some intellectual judo with Joseph Turow as we clearly had different perspectives on how we viewed the datafication systems in dev

Speaker on Datafication and healthcare at the Royal Tropical Institute

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Looks like May is blowing up on me. Getting intense but fascinating to be moving among very diverse circles from tech activists in Berlin to mobile healthcare ministries and healthcare donors. My book The Next Billion Users is definitely pushing me into many different worlds all grappling with similar questions on fairness, tradeoffs, privacy futures, user aspirations, cultural differentiation and data regulation to name a few. So on May 9th I spoke at the Future of Health Coverage conference in Amsterdam. This is an event organized in partnership with the Financial Times , Joep Lange Institute , and the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs . These organizations have been some of the ones who started to focus on the importance of financial innovation and the role of mobile technology in improving health systems in developing countries well before it became mainstream through mhealth initiatives and mobile apps. Some questions explored together were  How can we allow those

Talk at the iconic Volksbühne theatre on AI for the common good

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On May 6th, I will be heading to Berlin to help launch the School of Disobedience initiative  and fittingly it will be at Berlin's most iconic theatre -  Volksbühne, home to art and activism in Germany for over a century. The event will feature a conversation with  Lorena Jaume-Palasí  , the founder of The Ethical Tech Society, a non-profit focused on the social impact of technology and Advisory Council member of AI for the Spanish government.  We will be speaking about AI for the common good. I will be giving a talk before hand on the Next Billion Users , drawing from my new book on how this population will push us to rethink what constitutes as "good" practice in AI futures.  Currently, artificial intelligence delivers lots of material for projections about the future of societies. It seems to disrupt our concept of space, time and borders. Predominant is the view that AI will become or even is already a tool to create dystopias of oppression. However, this is onl

Keynote at the BRESTOLON symposium network

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Was nice to head back to ZEMKI Bremen where I did my fellowship last year to give a keynote talk on The Next Billion Users book with Harvard Press. This was for the BRESTOLON network which is an interesting formation of academic networks to sustain mentorship across diverse academic cultures and countries. The quality of questions and engagement was wonderful and am thrilled that one can accomplish such a network - a rare feat today! Basically,  Brestolon is a research network collaboration between members of the Media and Communications Departments of  Södertörn University (Stockholm, Sweden);  Bremen University  (Bremen, Germany);  London School of Economics  (London, UK), and  Goldsmiths, University of London (London, UK) and  Catholic University of Portugal  (Lisbon, Portugal). The network was launched in 2013 with a grant by the  Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Reserach and Education  (STINT). Since then, it has gathered annually at the member universit

Book launch at Athenaeum bookstore in Amsterdam

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Seems like these days I am having a lot of "first" moments. My first studio talk with BBC , which will be broadcast in the next few weeks and then my first talk at a book store. Had my book launch at the Athenaeum bookstore   in Amsterdam. Was such an interesting experience. Completely casual and intimate. A load of chairs and comfy couches clustered tightly together so you could have a real conversation with people. The audience was eclectic from retired people, tech entrepreneurs, media agencies, students, academics, and just folk interested in the topic. The format was smart - Tina Harris , an anthropologist from University of Amsterdam engaged me in a conversation before we opened it up for questions. Nicely done overall. What better way to officially launch my book than to do it in such a lovely setting in my favorite city that I call home now!

New paper on Data-Based Governance out in First Monday

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Hallam Stevens from Nanjang Technological University and I co-edited a Special Issue in First Monday , one of the first Open Access journals on the internet. The theme of this issue is " Data-driven models of governance across borders: Datafication from the local to the global." In essence, this special issue looks closely at contemporary data systems in diverse global contexts and through this set of papers, highlights the struggles we face as we negotiate efficiency and innovation with universal human rights and social inclusion. The studies presented in these essays are situated in diverse models of policy-making, governance, and/or activism across borders. Attention to big data governance in western contexts has tended to highlight how data increases state and corporate surveillance of citizens, affecting rights to privacy. By moving beyond Euro-American borders — to places such as Africa, India, China, and Singapore — we show here how data regimes are motivated