November 6, 2020
Ben Gansky's Guest Lecture
Topic: Data Politics, Rights and the Unseen Economy of Your Personal Information and Tech in Higher Ed
As noted, we’ll have a variety of futurists throughout the year - some specific to higher education, some focused on other futures-facing social and technical issues.
Ben Gansky is an expert on data politics and the (mostly) unseen economies and privacy/human rights issues at play. What is your data worth? How much control do you have about how it is used? What are layers of economic activity that happen every time you log in? What are the implications as higher education increasingly goes “online?”
https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/data-as-property
Here's the list Ben put together as resources for his talk.
Here's Laura's of other important voices (some on Ben's list too) to go even further.
Other links mentioned in his talk:
Principles of Māori Data Sovereignty
Reflect & Election exhale…!
Special focus on what it means to center equity in future of higher education
Explorations and work
Reflections on the importance of exploring racist/white supremacist “bones” of higher education and their echoes
Resources on Racism, Equity, Higher Education and the Future
Shared chat space on Racism and Higher Education History
Play - Higher Education Futures
Core assumptions regarding “college” - let’s name them
Game play with assumptions
Explore IFTF short film about future of higher education and the learning ecosystem
More Things to Explore . . .
Since we’re in the midst of our national election - its an interesting time to think about the future of government. Here’s a resource from Nesta (a UK futures group) from last year entitled “Radical Visions of Future Government” featuring 17 short creative essays on this topic. Along those lines, you might also be interested in my working list of governments around the world that have committed some resources to incorporating futures/foresight work in their national strategies.
This is an important report on the future of public higher education that came out from Deloitte a couple of years ago. We discussed it last year in the Futures Collaboratory. What makes this report especially interesting is that it includes 5 different scenarios for how the future of public higher education may evolve. These are definitely not exhaustive options - but great to get creative thinking muscles flexing! We’d consider it a key reading for our work - check it out here.
This recent piece from the Chronicle of Higher Education covers an overview of “what’s at stake for higher education” with the national election. Another provocative piece sheds some light on what they call “higher ed's dirty little secrets” - important to consider when building capacity to evolve faster, and co-create a more equitable and effective future.
Even More...
PSU Futures Collaboratory Presentation at Faculty Senate last week
The pandemic is dragging on - and professors are burning out
Webinar slides with “Artist” - start up company developing training courseware via text
What it takes to lead through a period of exponential change
What’s at stake for higher ed in the election?
Five principles for thinking like a futurist
Higher ed’s “dirty little secrets”
Inspiration: A new hippocratic oath asks doctors to fight racial justice and misinformation