This year’s STARTS Day Conference sets out to re-tell the story of inevitable technological progress as contingent and contextual, the result of decisions dictated by particular desires, interests or preferences. To back up this narrative, we spotlight brave initiatives and projects that open up other paths and bifurcations on the road of technological progress that can restructure the digital and, with it, social, economic or political realities.
Throughout the day, diverse practices—brought together in unlikely and perhaps curious constellations—will create a many-voiced narrative. Actors from business and industry, civic society, government and policymaking, as well as grassroots initiatives and artistic visions come together to show the many forms of action both stemming from and generating a sense of hope.
We unpack what it takes to build futures in which technology serves democracy, social justice, and users and look at how digital innovation is currently being used in practices to reimagine educational, economic, and other models.
To participate in this event in the POSTCITY conference hall, you need a FESTIVALPASS(+) or DAYPASS.
-
Alternatives | Digital Technologies for Education
Maha Bali (EG), Martin Hollinetz (AT), Martyna Marciniak (PL), Sowjanya Suraj (IN), Eva Knibbe (NL), Paulien Gerlings (NL), Karin Gabriel (AT)
Digital technologies caused a shift in our educational models, from opening up new possibilities (online learning, EdTech) to requiring new forms of (digital/visual) literacy. We spotlight five examples to illustrate the multitude of approaches to education through digital technologies and literacy about the digital landscape we navigate daily.
-
Alternatives | Digital Technologies for New Economic Models
Petia Niederländer (AT), Rafael Madureira dos Anjos (BR), Agnes Aistleitner Kisuule (AT), Rita Isiba (AT)
Can alternative, individual uses of technologies give us a glimpse into how systemic change might look like? We spotlight three examples that use new technologies to reimagine financial and economic models or hold governments accountable for their spending.
-
Alternatives | Digital Technologies of Hope
Albert Ortig (AT), Apolinário Passos (BR), Thomas Nayer (AT), Claudio Silvestrin (DE), Frederike Kaltheuner (DE)
A true cabinet of curiosities of the digital age, the practices presented at the end of STARTS Day create a sense of hope through their nature and focus, as well as their diversity. They become a collage of intentional, thought-through uses of digital technologies that can help us envision a deliberate digital future – one…
-
Calculating Empires: Mapping Technology and Power Across Time
Kate Crawford (AU), Vladan Joler (RS), Frederike Kaltheuner (DE)
How can we understand the operations of technology and power in our era? Our technological systems are increasingly complex, interconnected, automated and opaque. The industrial transformations in AI are further concentrating power, while accelerating polarization and alienation.
-
Culture, Democracy, the Rule of Law and the Critical Practice of AI
Paul Nemitz (DE), Frederike Kaltheuner (DE)
The idea that an innovative and positive future will emerge from artificial intelligence is misguided. It is time for us to stand up for the primacy of democracy over technology and business models.
-
Reclaiming Digital Technologies | Is breaking up Big Tech enough?
Francesca Bria (IT), Jillian C. York (US), Christoph Knogler (AT), Frederike Kaltheuner (DE)
The concentration of power that makes and runs the present digital ecosystem signals a need to reclaim digital technologies. But in a paradigm that allows, if not encourages, monopolistic tendencies, is breaking up Big Tech enough to ensure new technologies – even when developed by a more diverse range of actors – operate differently? Reclaiming…
-
Welcome & Introduction to the day
Frederike Kaltheuner (DE)
Bios Credits This project has been developed and is presented in the context of the STARTS in the City project. STARTS in the City has received funding from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology under grant agreement No. LC-01984766.
This project has been developed and is presented in the context of the STARTS in the City project. STARTS in the City has received funding from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology under grant agreement No. LC-01984766.
