Technology and Human Rights Symposium

The Rosenfield Program in Public Affairs, International Relations and Human Rights is sponsoring a Technology and Human Rights Symposium from March 7-10, 2017. The symposium will feature visiting authors and scholars who will discuss a wide array of topics.

All of the events are free and open to the public. Unless otherwise noted, they will take place in Joe Rosenfield '25 Center, Room 101, at 1115 Eighth Ave., Grinnell.

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

4 p.m.

Author Evgeny Morozov will open the symposium with "Do We Have a Right to Our Data? Data Ownership and the Inequality Debate."

Morozov is author of The Net Delusion and To Save Everything, Click Here. His monthly column about technology and politics appears in The Observer in the United Kingdom and in newspapers in Germany, Spain, and France, among others. His writings also have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications. Previously a senior editor at The New Republic, he has been a fellow at Georgetown University and Stanford University.

Wednesday, March 8

4 p.m.

Mark Latonero will present "Data, Technology and Vulnerable Populations."

Latonero is lead researcher for the Data and Human Rights initiative at the Data and Society Research Institute in New York City, where he is also a visiting scholar at New York University. At the University of Southern California, he is a research professor and the research director of the Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy, directing its Technology and Human Trafficking initiative. He works on tech and data-driven problems that involve vulnerable populations, including refugees. He has published numerous reports on the role of online, mobile, and data-driven technology in human trafficking, child exploitation, and migration.

7:30 p.m.

Sarah Labowitz ’04 will discuss "The Robots Are Coming: Technology, Work and Labor Rights."

Labowitz is co-director of the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights and a research scholar in business and society at NYU Stern. She conducts research on human rights in different business sectors, with a particular focus on fast fashion. She previously worked at the U.S. State Department on cyber policy, Internet freedom, and human rights. She also has worked for the Fair Labor Association, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, Yahoo, and Human Rights First.

Thursday, March 9

11 a.m.

Opal Tometi will give the Scholars' Convocation lecture, titled "The Role of Technology in the Black Lives Matter Movement. The lecture is co-sponsored by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

Tometi co-founded Black Lives Matter, a movement to confront systemic racism, anti-black violence and social justice, in the wake of the murder of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012. She is executive director at the Black Alliance for Just Immigration. Based in New York, Tometi is Nigerian-American writer, strategist, and community organizer advocating for racial justice, immigrants' rights, and black lives.Her interest in immigration reform was born out of personal experience. She grew up in Phoenix as the child of immigrants who moved to the U.S. from Nigeria.

4 p.m. in Faulconer Gallery

Visiting artist Joan Linder ’92 will present a gallery talk about her exhibition, "Operation Sunshine." The Faulconer Gallery — located in the Bucksbaum Center for the Arts, 1108 Park Ave., Grinnell — is sponsoring this segment of the symposium, which will be followed by a reception at 5 p.m. in the rotunda of the Bucksbaum Center.

Linder uses drawing to uncover how history can be buried: as artifacts in the ground, and as documents in the archive. She will discuss how her art explores brownfields and toxic waste sites near Niagara Falls, and delves into the related documents. Linder lives and works in Brooklyn and Buffalo, New York. She is the department chair and an associate professor of drawing at the University of Buffalo. Her work focuses on drawings that transform mundane subjects into rich images.

Friday, March 10

4–8 p.m. in Burling Library Lower Level Computer Room
Human Rights Wikipedia Edit-a-thon. Everyone is welcome.