Keynote: Building Equity in Public Interest Technology with Dr. Alondra Nelson and Dr. Charlton McIlwain
Today we're happy to share the lineup for our opening keynote: Dr. Alondra Nelson and Dr. Charlton McIlwain.
Alondra Nelson, Deputy Director for Science and Society for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, will be in conversation with Charlton McIlwain, Vice Provost for Faculty Engagement and Development at NYU, about what it looks like to build A BETTER TECH that is genuinely equitable.
Dr. Alondra Nelson is Deputy Director for Science and Society for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. She is also the Harold F. Linder Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. A scholar of science, technology, medicine, and social inequality, Nelson is author, most recently, of The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation after the Genome. Her books also include Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination; Genetics and the Unsettled Past: The Collision of DNA, Race, and History; and Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life. She is also editor of “Afrofuturism.”
Dr. Charlton McIlwain is the Author of Black Software: The Internet & Racial Justice, From the Afronet to Black Lives Matter. He is Vice Provost, and Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU. His work investigates the intersections of race and computing technology. He has served as an expert witness in landmark U.S. Federal Court cases on reverse redlining/racial targeting in mortgage lending, and recently testified before Congress about the impacts of automation and artificial intelligence on the financial services industry. McIlwain founded the Center for Critical Race & Digital Studies and heads NYU’s Alliance for Public Interest Technology.
They will discuss the emerging field of public interest technology and the central role of equity considerations in it.. How can government, education, policy, advocacy, and industry advance equity in public interest technology? How do we ensure that public interest technology maintains equity as a primary goal as it develops? The speakers will discuss this and more.