Hi all, We invite you to the second session of our (still new) "X4D" virtual speaker series tomorrow (apologies if this is the first you're hearing of it)! Our fabulous speakers include the following: *Catherine D'Ignazio,* Assistant Professor of Urban Science & Planning, MIT *Title: Data Feminism & Feminicide* Data Feminism (co-authored with Lauren Klein, MIT Press, 2020) is a set of seven principles that demonstrate how feminist thinking can be operationalized in order to imagine more ethical and equitable data practices. This talk will briefly introduce those principles and relate them to a collaborative project undertaken by the Data + Feminism Lab, Feminicidio Uruguay and the Iniciativa Latinoamericana por los Datos Abiertos. We are exploring how to build technologies to support counterdata collection by activists and civil society organizations who are working to fight gender-related violence against women and its lethal outcome, feminicide, in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). *Dr. Nassim Parvin,* Associate Professor of Digital Media, Georgia Tech *Title: On the Uses and Misuses of Unintended Consequences*One of the hallmarks of feminist theory and praxis is to identify and challenge dominant modes and tools of knowledge making that perpetuate oppressive power relations. In this talk, I discuss the uses and misuses of “unintended consequences,”—a seemingly mundane phrase that is popular in science and technology discourses—demonstrating its power in advancing techno-utopic interventions and visions. For more see, Parvin, Nassim, and Anne Pollock. "Unintended by Design: On the Political Uses of 'Unintended Consequences,'" Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 6 (2020): 320-327. *Dr. Shaowen Bardzell,* Professor at College of Information Sciences and Technology, the Pennsylvania State University *Title: The Tempest in the Menstrual Cup: How Design, Critique, and Activism Changed Taiwan*Can design contribute not just towards an incrementally better world, but to a radically better one? In recent years, feminist utopian thinkers have sought to imagine radically better social worlds and accompanying ways of life using a double-move: the first is a “diagnostic critique” of the present that seeks to denaturalize it, which creates openings for the second move “anticipatory design,” which imaginatively construes one or more aspects of the social world in a preferred and plausible way—much like what we in design call “design futuring.” In this talk, I will explore how anticipatory design and critique contributed to real world product design, in this case, a menstrual cup in Taiwan. The cup proposes and enacts concrete strategies that challenge and overcome unquestioned misogynistic cultural tendencies about the care and maintenance of the hymen in Chinese culture. In doing so, it also proposes an aspirational future for the women in the country, which in fact led to activism that helped bring that future into being. I argue that contemporary feminist utopianism represents a living critical/design practice: its double-move teases out glimpses of preferred and possible futures, which can guide and motivate democratic forms of activism in the present. *Pragya Saboo & Navya Nanda*, Cofounders of Aara Health *Title: Bridging the Gap in Access to Quality Healthcare for Women in India*Women's health and wellbeing needs remain seriously under-addressed in India, as in countries around the world. Aara Health allows women to connect with high quality doctors for virtual consultations, access expert-verified educational content, and join a safe and secure community for social support. *When: *11am-12.30pm US EDT (3pm-4.30pm UTC) *Where:* https://mit.zoom.us/j/97650407272 And please join our Google group <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/x4d-friends> if you'd like to stay in touch! Warmly, Neha On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 10:06 PM Neha Kumar <neha.kumar@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
We invite you to participate in our new "X4D" virtual speaker series, with a focus on unpacking the intersections of technology and global development from different disciplines and/or epistemic locations.
Our inaugural session will take place on August 4, 3-4.30pm UTC (that's 11am-12.30pm EDT, 4-5.30pm BST, and 8.30pm-10pm IST). The Zoom link: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/78811443025?pwd=VHI1SitTVmovSVBuWmp5SHExM0lNUT09
We are delighted to have these speakers at our inaugural session, who will be presenting their perspectives on the value and importance of interdisciplinarity, and opportunities to productively engage in interdisciplinary work, in attempting to address the problems that impact us globally:
Dr. Kentaro Toyama
University of Michigan, USA
Title: 15 years of ICTD research
Dr. Dorothea Kleine
University of Sheffield, UK
Title: Gender and Intersectionality in ICT4D
Dr. Aaditeshwar Seth
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi & Gram Vaani, India
Title: Making ICTD More Impactful
Dr. Rediet Abebe
Harvard Society of Fellows & UC Berkeley, USA
Title: Roles for Computing in Social Justice
Event details including abstracts of talks and bios are available on our website https://sites.google.com/view/x4d. We also aim to keep you informed about future events over email and invite you to join this Google group <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/x4d-friends>.
We plan to organize an event every 3-4 weeks; the exact time will be determined based on what works best for all our presenters, but keeping in mind that we must be inclusive of many time zones. The next topic will be feminist perspectives on technology design, followed by mental health as a global concern.
See you next week!
Neha Kumar, Georgia Tech, USA Akhil Mathur, Nokia Bell Labs, UK