Led by Canada 150 Research Chair Dr Wendy Chun, the Digital Democracies Conference brought internationally renowned experts in Ethics and Artificial Intelligence, Digital Journalism, Global Infrastructure Studies, Critical Race and Digital Media Studies, Information Science, Architecture, Indigenous Studies, Contemporary Art, and Communications to SFU’s Vancouver Campus for this 2.5 day conference to disseminate cutting edge research on the topics: “Ethics and Machine Learning,” “Internet Platforms and the Public Sphere,” and “Decolonizing Infrastructures.”

Wednesday May 15

9:15-10:45: WHAT’S DEMOCRATIC ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES?

Chair: Ahmed Al-Rawi, SFU. Talks by Jonathan Albright (Columbia University), Lisa Parks (MIT).

11:00-12:30: WHY DEMOCRACY CAN’T BE PLATFORMED

Chair: Adel Iskandar, SFU. Talks by Fred Turner (Stanford University), Siva Vaidhyanathan (University of Virginia).

2:30-4:00: LABORING INFRASTRUCTURES

Chair: Sarah Ganter, SFU. Talks by Lisa Nakamura (University of Michigan), Nick Dyer-Witheford (University of Western Ontario).

Thursday May 16

9:15-10:45: THE ETHICS OF AI

Chair: Sun-ha Hong, SFU. Talks by Safiya Umoja Noble (University of Southern California), Kate Crawford (AI NOW).

11:00-12:30: MAPPING INTERVENTIONS

Chair: Fred Lesage, SFU. Talks by Laura Kurgan (Columbia) and Helen Nissenbaum (Cornell).

2:30-4:00: DECOLONIZING ACTIONS

Chair: Karrmen Crey, SFU. Talks by Jodi Byrd (University of Illinois) and Ariella Azoulay (Brown).