Experts from across the country will talk about the power relationships inherent in our data-heavy world, including those that appear obvious and those that lurk beneath the surface. The symposium, which is free and open to the public, reflects the College’s commitment to exploring important issues of purpose, responsibility and justice on campus and beyond.
Opening Speaker Dipayan Ghosh
All symposium events will take place in Room 101 of the Joe Rosenfield ’25 Center, 1115 Eighth Ave., Grinnell. Opening the symposium at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 9, will be Dipayan Ghosh, who will give a talk about “Digital Deceit.”
Ghosh worked on global privacy and public policy issues at Facebook and served as a technology and economic policy adviser to the Obama administration. His book, Terms of Disservice: How Silicon Valley is Destructive by Design, will be published Nov. 5. A co-director of the Platform Accountability Project and a fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, Ghosh conducts research about digital privacy, artificial intelligence, and civil rights.
Additional speakers at the symposium:
John Pomfret, former Beijing bureau chief of The Washington Post and author of two books about America and China, will talk about “China’s Social Credit System: Orwell or Not?” His speech will begin at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 10.
Jennifer Musto, assistant professor in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at Wellesley College and author of a book about technology and sex trafficking, will speak at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 10. She will discuss “Technology, Anti-Trafficking and Carceral-Surveillance Assemblages.”
Lilly Ryan, a software security analyst, will speak about “How to Disappear Completely: The Efficacy and Evolution of Facial Recognition Technology” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 11.
Scholars’ Convocation Lecturer Ari BermanAri Berman, author, senior reporter at Mother Jones magazine, and a reporting fellow at Type Media Center, will give the Scholars’ Convocation Lecture at 11 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 12. He is the author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. His lecture, which is part of the symposium, will focus on “Why Census Data Matters for Democracy.”
Sean Forman ’94, founder and president of Sports Reference LLC, will discuss “The Death of Intangibles: How Sports Are Measuring the Previously Unmeasurable.” This event, which will conclude the symposium, will begin at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 12.
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