June 15, 2021

Media Release: Decolonising the internet – How Artificial intelligence shapes our world

Media Release
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Media Monitoring Africa, Goethe-Institut and the German Embassy invites you to join their panel discussion “Decolonising the internet: How AI shapes our world”. This discussion seeks to unpack how Artificial Intelligence, Algorithms and Bots shape our views of the world. Tackling questions such as; what does declolonising the internet mean, whose stories are being told and who is telling these stories on the internet with a diverse and robust panel providing international and local expertise, this conversation will provide light on the gaps and solutions to ensure a true reflection of public knowledge.

The access to the internet has incredible potential to deepen democracy and equality, and ensure diverse views and voices can be heard. The reality however is vastly different with a digital divide not just in South Africa but between the North and South. We see the global giants based in North America, with the majority of investments, technology development, programming, machine learning and power residing in the global North. These power dynamics have dramatic implications for every aspect of the Internet, from language to cultural dominance to northern realities informing biases built into the programmes and how they work. Given the digital divide, racial inequalities and lack of representation it is imperative to start interrogating the ‘behind the scenes’ of our online realities.

Join us for a discussion with a panel of experts to help unpack these issues.

Date: 1 July 2021

Time: 18:00pm

CLICK HERE RSVP HERE

 

More about the speakers:

 Cathy Mohlahlana (Facilitator)

Cathy is an award-winning broadcast journalist and senior news anchor for the 24hr channel Newzroom Afrika. She hosts the daily primetime bulletin between 18h00 and 21h00 on channel 405. She is a radio presenter on SAfm #TheTalkingPoint. Cathy has previously hosted eNCA’s  evening primetime bulletin NewsNight and eTV’s evening bulletin. She’s also covered high profile stories including the life of Nelson Mandela and the Oscar Pistorius Murder trial. Cathy’s career in national broadcast journalism spans over ten years.

 

Nanjira Sambuli

Nanjira Sambuli is a researcher, policy analyst and strategist interested in and working on understanding the unfolding, gendered impacts of ICT adoption on governance, media, entrepreneurship and culture. Nanjira is a Commissioner on the Lancet & Financial Times Global Commission (Governing Health Futures 2030), President and co-Chair of the Transform Health Coalition, a board member at The New Humanitarian , Development Gateway and Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL). She is also a Ford Global Fellow. Nanjira also sits on several advisory boards, including the World Economic Forum’s Technology and Social Justice Initiatives,  <A+> Alliance for Inclusive Algorithms and the Carnegie Council’s AI and Equality Initiative . Additionally, she is a Diplomacy Moderator at the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA).

 

Lorena Jaume-Palasí

Lorena Jaume-Palasí is the founder of The Ethical Tech Society, a fact- and theory based non-profit organization focused on automation and digitization processes with regards to their social relevance. Lorena’s work centers on ethics and legal philosophy. 2017 she was appointed by the Spanish government to the High Level Expert Council on Artificial Intelligence and Big Data and is a former member of the EU High Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence. She is one of the 100 experts of the Cotec Foundation for her work on ethics in AI and digitization. 2018 she was awarded the Theodor Heuss Medal “for her contribution to a differentiated view of algorithms and their mechanisms of action” with the AlgorithmWatch initiative.

 

Prof Siyasanga M. Tyali 

Siyasanga M. Tyali is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication Sci­ence at the University of South Africa (UNISA), Pretoria. He holds a PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). His research interests are in political communication, health communication, African media systems, cultural studies and decoloniality. He has written and published (essays, articles and book chapters) widely across these subject matters. He has held a number of research grants including the Ford Foundation International Fellowship, jointly held at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Johns Hopkins University and the NIHSS Doctoral fellowship held at Wits. Currently he is also the councillor member and deputy chairperson of the Film and Publication Board of South Africa (2021-2026).

 

Koketso Moeti

Koketso Moeti has a long background in civic activism and has over the years worked at the intersection of governance, communication and citizen action. She currently serves as the Founding Executive Director of amandla.mobi. Prior to this, Moeti worked and consulted for a wide range of national and international organisations. In 2021, she was announced as one of the inaugural Collective Action in Tech fellows. Moeti is an Atlantic fellow for racial equity. She is also part of the inaugural class of Obama Foundation fellows and an Aspen New Voices senior fellow. Moeti is a founding member of the African Digital Rights Network, as well as an expert advisor to the World Economic Forum’s ‘Partnering with Civil Society in the Fourth Industrial Revolution‘ initiative. She also serves as the chairperson of the SOS Coalition, a leadership council member of ioby as well as a reference group member of the Civic Tech Innovation Network.

She is an alumnus of the Inclusive Global Leadership Initiative (IGLI) summer institute, hosted by the Sié Chéou-Kang Center at the University of Denver. When not working, Moeti can be found writing and has been published by City Press, NPR, Salon, Daily Maverick, The Guardian, Al Jazeera and the Mail & Guardian, among others.

 

Event will be streamed live on Twitter @MediaMattersza and you can follow the conversation on Twitter using #DecolonisingTheInternet

 

For more details, you can contact:

Nomshado Lubisi
Tel: 011 788 1278
Email: nomshadol@mma.org.za