Digital Futures Lab/Issue #3: Responsible Data Practices, the Metaverse & a Job Opp!
research 📑
You might remember our report, ‘Towards Responsible Data Practices for Machine Learning in India: Health & Agriculture’ from our previous newsletter.
To bring the humans behind these data practices to the fore, the report is accompanied by a graphic short, by graphic designer and comic makerKshiraja Krishnan, that highlights the challenges faced by different, integral workers in the data life-cycles specific to healthcare and agriculture in India.
The ‘Health’ section of the short spotlights the experiences of ASHA workers as they collect data for AI companies, specialised doctors who need to parse through messy, un-contextualised data to train AI solutions and AI developers at these companies who hope to create solutions without infringing upon users’ digital rights.
The ‘Agriculture’ section highlights the perspectives of farmers who are unsure how their data is being used, women and lower caste farmers whose specific contexts are often excluded in the development of technology solutions, and policy researchers attempting to ask important questions about public-private partnerships in the space.
Click on the title page below to read the 12-page comic!
practice 🤸🏽♀️
Digital Futures Lab hosted a 3-part roundtable series on the Future of Gov-tech in India from mid to end of July. 'Shifting Sands: Gov-Tech Futures in India' hosted participants from academia, tech policy and civic-tech startups to map the emerging Gov-Tech landscape in India and identify key challenges, opportunities and risks. More on this soon!
The team at DFL helped conduct interviews of gig workers and fintech startups in India for a CGAP study on how financial markets can support platform work in five emerging markets. You can read the focus note here.
media + events 🎤
Urvashi Aneja was part of a fireside chat on 'finding the meaning in the metaverse' at Access Now's 11th RightsCon summit. She was joined by NianticLabs' Trust and Safety Director, Camille François, with the conversation moderated by 'abogamer' & leading expert in the field of video game policy, Micaela Mantegna. You can read a minute-by-minute live-tweet thread of the conversation here.
Urvashi wrote an op-ed on the challenges of protecting data and rights in the metaverse, published by Devex as part of their Generation Why series with Fondation Botnar.
Urvashi participated in a high-level virtual roundtable for Digital Action's '2024: Global Year of Democracy'. The discussion focused on tech harms and the 2024 elections.
Urvashi also attended a stakeholder engagement event on the draft National Data Governance Framework Policy with Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Minister of State for the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology & Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.
coming up! 🚨
Urvashi will be speaking on a USAID panel on August 4th (9 AM EST/6:30 PM IST) on the role of finance in the gig economy, and how platforms are or can integrate financial services to deliver utility to gig workers. Register here.
work with us 👩🏽🎤
We're looking for a part-time graphic designer! If you're a creative self-starter with at least a year of relevant experience and 15 hours/2 days a week to spare for the next 3 months, consider applying!
connect with us 🤝
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Have an idea for creative collaboration, a future Tech and Society Dialogues event or a research partnership? Reach out to our Comms & Public Engagement Manager, Sasha John, at sasha@digitalfutureslab.in or @SashaEmJay on Twitter.
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