Big Data Disaster

Big Data Disaster

Epidemics and the rise of techno-solutionism from Ebola to COVID-19

Technology is viewed as a panacea for all problems, including epidemics and pandemics. Technical solutions - such as COVID apps, contact tracing and the like - are largely experimental in nature. It is not clear what societal/medical/disaster-management problems these solutions are out to solve. In the process of experimentation, tech, governance and legal ecosystems are left with technical, legal and process debt.

How do we navigate the increasing tendency of adventurism in technology? In this session, speaker Sean McDonald, shares his work on Ebola and COVID-19, mainly how use of Big Data to solve epidemics has not always yeilded favourable results. In fact, techno-solutionism has put the mariginalised at risk. Sean will present the learnings he has abstracted from documenting epidemics and the role that technology has actually played.

References from Sean McDonald’s work:
The Digital Response to the Outbreak of COVID-19
Ebola: A Big Data Disaster
No, we don’t need an app for this

Participation is via Zoom (link to be shared shortly). Or, you can watch the livestream from this page.

Who should participate:

  1. Technology professionals, including engineers, product managers, and data scientists.
  2. Researchers, academics, and journalists working on technology.
  3. Anyone interested in understanding the role of technology in society.

Share your questions before the event by:

  1. Joining Kaarana’s Telegram channel: https://t.me/kaarana
  2. Post your questions in the Comments Section.

Contact information: For queries, email info@hasgeek.com or call 7676332020.

About Kaarana: Kaarana community investigates the impact of technology on society. In the past, the Kaarana community has examined the claims, realities and rationale of Aadhaar and digital India. Follow Kaarana’s blog: https://medium.com/karana | Twitter : https://twitter.com/kaarana_
Watch videos of previous Kaarana events on: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL279M8GbNsevu45saFnJGx_-Yv1CyDtV-

Videos

See all
Epidemics and the rise of techno-solutionism

Epidemics and the rise of techno-solutionism

Sean McDonald

1 hour 6 July 2020

Hosted by

The Kaarana community engages in critical analysis of societal scale technical infrastructure. Follow us at - Blog - Telegram - Github - YouTube - Twitter more