Exploring digital spheres

Mon, 26 Aug 2024 14:50:54 +0000 https://exploringdigitalspheres.podigee.io/36-s02e06-francais 3a9aa0463cfa16ce26b3a43de0e61ba5 Cet épisode de "Exploring Digital Spheres" nous emmène en Mauritanie, un pays d'Afrique du Nord-Ouest, pour explorer l'intersection entre technologie, genre et migration. Au cours de ce séjour, nous avons eu la chance de rencontrer deux femmes réfugiées remarquables, Fadimata Aicha Walet Mohamed Issa et Moueny Abdoulwahab, qui nous ont parlé de leur expérience en tant que femmes dans l'industrie de la technologie en Mauritanie. Toutes deux racontent leurs histoires personnelles depuis le Mali et l'Afrique centrale vers la Mauritanie, soulignant les défis particuliers qu'elles affrontent en tant que femmes réfugiées naviguant au sein d'un environnement numérique nouveau. Malgré un accès à l'internet limité à WhatsApp, Facebook et Tiktok et la rareté de l'internet mobile, les femmes ont trouvé des moyens et approches innovants de créer des entreprises et de créer des communautés. Elles utilisent ces plateformes non seulement pour établir des connexions sociales, mais également pour gérer des commerces en ligne, démontrant une créativité remarquable malgré les contraintes. Découvrez leurs histoires et leurs expériences d'espoir, de courage, ainsi que de nombreux défis auxquels ces femmes sont confrontées et comment elles utilisent la technologie pour tenter d'atteindre leurs objectifs. Cette discussion fait partie du projet "Women in Tech" mené par l'Institut Alexander von Humboldt pour Internet et Société (HIIG), en collaboration avec la Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) et le Centre de Transformation Digitale (DTC) en Mauritanie. Toutes les publications et informations relatives au projet „Women in Tech" sont disponibles sur le site du projet. Vous pouvez trouver Fadimata Aicha Walet Mohamed Issa sur TikTok et Moueny Abdoulwahab sur Facebook. full no Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) 2343

This episode of Exploring Digital Spheres takes us to Mauritania, a country in Northwest Africa, to explore the intersection of technology, gender, and migration. It features in-depth interviews with two remarkable refugee women, Fadimata Aicha Walet Mohamed Issa and Moueny Abdoulwahab, who are talking about their experiences as women in the tech industry in Mauritania.

In dieser Spezialfolge erkunden wir die Möglichkeiten von Open Educational Resources (OER) als neue Lehr- und Lernmethoden. In Zusammenarbeit mit der Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb) entwickelte das Alexander von Humboldt Institut (HIIG) eine Toolbox, um Schulen, Universitäten und Organisationen einen Ansatzpunkt zur Auseinandersetzung mit möglichen Zukünften zu geben. Diese Folge thematisiert, wie OERs speziell an Schulen einsetzbar sind und wie Lehrkräfte so mit ihren Schüler*innen (Zukunfts-)Denken trainieren können.

In the last episode of Season 2 we visit Mexico City to explore the potentials and challenges of sustainable digital entrepreneurship to mitigate climate change.

How can digital skills and technologies be trained and implemented in remote regions where the rainforest is of particular importance for local development?

Digital platforms are fundamentally changing the world of work. While the platform economy opens immense opportunities for flexible, gainful and convenient entrepreneurship, the precarious livelihoods of workers and service providers often remain unaddressed.

In this episode we shine a light on the transformation of a former military camp into the Innovation and Training Park (ITP) Prizren in Kosovo, an aspiring hub for innovation, economic development and digital transformation in the city and wider region. We discuss the connection between spatial development, innovation and digitalisation at the ITP with local experts.

At the SENIA, Benin's first AI conference, our team had the opportunity to talk to local experts about the possibilities of digitalisation for the improvement of the agricultural sector and its working conditions. Christian Grauvogel, Marie Blüml and Georg von Richthofen travelled to Benin in July 2022 to discuss the opportunities and risks of applying Artificial Intelligence in sustainable entrepreneurship in Benin and Francophone West and Central Africa. They had the opportunity to interview Seth Ayim, operational manager of the international NGO TechnoServe, and Theodore Gboyou, data scientist and regional manager of the digital platform Digital Rice Africa in Benin.

In a collaborative project researchers from Oxford and Berlin developed an index as the first economic indicator of industry-specific risk assessments related to Covid-19, based on financial disclosures of US companies. The index can provide valuable real-time information about economic risks associated with the pandemic, and it has already been featured in Oxford University News, the Washington Post, and the Wirtschaftswoche. In today's special episode we welcome the data scientists Dr. Fabian Stephany and Dr. Fabian Braesemann from the University of Oxford. The two speak with HIIG Ph.D. student Bronwen Deacon about their recent work on the CoRisk-Index. We look forward to your feedback on the episode. Please feel free to provide comments and let us know whether you would like to hear more about Social Data Science research in the future.

How do you build Digital Momentum? How do you stay visible? As the music industry is changing, big music labels are reinventing their branding strategy. This podcast explores the resulting consequences in terms of power-relations and digital flows. Lorenz Grünewald-Schukalla is a project manager in the project team Third Engagement Report, where he deals with questions of civic engagement in the digital world. Besides that he is researching the digital mediatization of music business and music culture. Therefore his Ph.D. project is about the changing relations of consumer brands and music from a media and communications perspective. He is managing director of the German Association for Music Business and Music Culture Research.

HIIG researcher Jessica Schmeiss is talking to Julia Hoxha about the collection and monitoring of medical data. Julia Hoxha is a former postdoctoral research scientist in Medical Informatics at Columbia University and co-founder and CEO of Zana, an AI-based health assistant. It is available via app, wearables and a platform, that can directly answer questions about health via voice input and enables continuous monitoring of medical factors for both patient and doctors. The episode is part of the "Demystifying AI in Entrepreneurship" project at HIIG.

Wolfgang Schulz studied law and mathematics and is now an expert on media law and algorithmic decision taking. He is the director of the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) and the Hans-Bredow-Institute in Hamburg and also advises the European Council on intermediaries – such as social media platforms, search engines and micro blogging services – and human rights. In this episode, he explains the difficulties of regulating intermediaries that increasingly can be seen as hybrids between state and society.

HIIG researcher Jessica Schmeiss interviews Uli Erxleben (Hypatos) on how exactly the startup uses deep learning automation technology for document processing and how this frees up some of our time. The episode is part of the "Demystifying AI in Entrepreneurship" project at HIIG.

What do Edward Snowden, Aaron Swartz and Phil Zimmermann have in common? This episode is all about whistleblowers, activists and other people deliberately breaking the law for a specific ideological conviction. What are the parallels of todays' digital civil disobedience to for example the civil rights movement in the US, Ghandi, Rosa Parks or the anti-nuclear energy protests in Germany. Well, and what's new? Theresa Züger, researcher at HIIG, talks with Wouter about her research insights into practices and characteristics of digital disobedience. Listen to her sharing stories of encryption, hacking and whistleblowing.

Suppose they gave war and nobody has to come. The idea of autonomous weapons is tempting for some and troubling for most, because it raises many ethical issues. Yet, what exactly do we mean when saying 'autonomous weapon systems' (AWS) – does it mean we're really taking the human out of the loop? Thomas C. Bächle and Frank Sauer met at HIIG to talk about the question of how to regulate these systems, how China or the UK deal with this, what the future of weapons looks like, what the CCW does and much more.

Are universities the best option we have? In this episode, Benedikt Fecher and Wouter talk about this question to discuss what research actually is and how we create knowledge in our society today. Science is not only about research and education, but more and more about trying to bridge the gap between scientific results and society. Also they speak about increasing science's actual impact on society and HIIG's recent project "twentyforty", an essay competition on the future of digital society in 2040.

In dieser Folge geht es um die großen Fragen unserer Zeit: die Komplexität in der modernen Gesellschaft, wie Facebook Facebook geworden ist und ob es überhaupt vorstellbare Alternativen zur Digitalisierung gibt. Die digitale Technologie ist jung, aber das grundlegende Problem, dass sie zu lösen versucht, ist alt. Das ist die These, die Armin Nassehi in seinem Buch „Muster“ formuliert. HIIG-Direktorin Jeanette Hofmann diskutiert mit Nassehi, worin dieses Problem genau besteht und ob wir Digitalisierung eventuell auch anders verstehen können.

HIIG researcher Christian Katzenbach speaks about the responsibility of platforms and the content that they host, regulative mechanisms as well as the widely discussed EU directive on copyright better known for its proposed upload filter and Article 13. Also in the conversation with Wouter Bernhard, they discuss Zuckerberg's hearing in the US as well as the role of AI for content moderation.

By ranking the world’s most powerful internet, mobile, and telecommunications companies Ranking Digital Rights (RDR) works to promote freedom of expression and privacy on the internet. Nathalie Maréchal, Senior Research Analyst at Ranking Digital Rights, talked with Frédéric Dubois about the wrong doings of internet and telecommunications companies such as Facebook, Apple or Deutsche Telekom. Learn about how RDR is rethinking how to hold companies accountable for human rights harms associated with targeted advertising, algorithms, and machine learning – maneuvering from looking only at individual rights to understanding the collective consequences of the companies' policies and practices.

The internet is currently built of more than 60.000 autonomous systems. Without connectivity among those, the internet simply doesn't exist. Associated HIIG researcher Uta Meier-Hahn looks in her research at the question, how network operators, such as Netflix, Youtube and Deutsche Telekom jointly provide internet connectivity. Since they constantly have to negotiate whether to cooperate or compete with each other, a very particular form of connectivity economics exists. In this episode, Wouter goes on a journey into the very depth of the internet. Together with Uta Meier-Hahn, they explore the architecture of the internet and the objects traded among operators. Also learn about "the networkers", a closely-knit community of internet engineers around the globe who work for "the good of the net".

Ein automatischer Staubsauger überfährt eine Katze. Ist der Hersteller oder der Besitzer Schuld? Luhmann-Schüler und Systemtheoretiker Dirk Baecker meint: Vielleicht einfach die Katze? Mit Thomas C. Bächle spricht Dirk Baecker über „Künstliche Intelligenz“ und wie wir die derzeitigen Entwicklungen aus systemtheoretischer Sicht verstehen können. Schlussendlich geht es um die Frage, was Intelligenz überhaupt ist und was die systemtheoretische Forschung leisten kann.

This week its the General Data Protection Regulation's (GDPR) first anniversary. Wouter speaks with HIIG-researcher and data protection expert Max von Grafenstein on the difficulties of data protection and his research on the innovation potential of the GDPR.

Online advertisement companies have been using statistical models for long. HIIG researcher Jessica Schmeiss interviews Marcel Pirlich (Adspert) on how exactly the startup uses AI technologies in online marketing and how this results in a successful business model. The episode is part of the "Demystifying AI in Entrepreneurship" project at HIIG.

"Silicon Savannah", "Africa is rising" – much attention is directed at Africa as a continent of economic opportunity and growth. In this episode, HIIG researcher Nicolas Friederici stresses that relative to the hype and hope, things are not that easy and we shouldn't limit our focus on how to copy silicon valley models. The research presented in this episode is part of the ERC-funded Geonet project by the Oxford Internet Institute (check the show notes for more information on the project).

"People think it’s inherent of the internet that you lose your privacy, but it’s not, it’s based on the business model of those companies.” – Marleen Stikker speaks about how the fairphone was invented, what fablabs are for and how we eventually should get involved ourselves to decide what to do with disruptive technology. This is an episode for smart citizens!

When did you hear of the last German Facebook, Uber or Amazon? Today’s episode is on the question why Germany tends to find it difficult to make the translation between researching AI and creating a successful AI startup. We’ll be speaking with Jessica Schmeiss, doctoral researcher at the Humboldt Institute. Her research focusses on digital entrepreneurship and in trying to make AI less of a ‘black box’.

Wie kann dein Selfie noch origineller sein? Der Versuch, immer und überall authentisch und unverwechselbar zu sein, ist keine Modeerscheinung. Das meint zumindest der Soziologe Andreas Reckwitz. Mit HIIG-Forscher Thomas Christian Bächle diskutiert er, wie neben der Standardisierung der modernen Gesellschaft die Einzigartigkeit von Subjekten und Kollektiven im gegenwärtigen Fokus steht.

Christian Djeffal talks about how artificial intelligence can help public administrations cut costs and resources, and re-allocate them to be of better service to its citizens.

Julia Krüger is deeply convinced that we need to create alternative moderation schemes to uphold liberal values. Together with HIIG-researcher Amélie Heldt, she discusses the different methods of moderation, the role of AI yet to come, and what she personally hopes for.

Wouter met Martin Riedl in the middle of Berlin to discuss how platforms keep the internet "clean" from undesirable content – but what is undesirable? And what does it mean for moderators when they click through thousand of graphic images?

Nick Couldry has recently coined the term 'data colonialism' in order to highlight continuities from colonialism’s historic appropriation of resources to today's datafication of everyday life. He visited us in Berlin for his lecture "Colonised by data". HIIG researcher Thomas Christian Bächle met with Couldry – who once was his professor at Goldsmiths College in London eleven years ago – for a talk on the digital society. In this episode, we learn about Couldry's very own media rituals – celebrity spotting and falling asleep to the radio news – as well as how a media professor is dealing with knowing what kind of personal data WhatsApp is collecting. Also: What exactly is data colonialism? How is it different from concepts such as surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, 2018) or data capitalism?

In this episode, Wouter dives deeper into the universe of algorithms in order to clean up the mess of buzz words we are confronted with on a daily basis. Did you also wonder why certain videos pop up in your timeline that seem most unlikely you ever wanted to see them? How do computers recognise objects and animals on photos? In an insightful conversation with Wouter, HIIG director Björn Scheuermann tells us about his research as a computer scientist and in how far he trusts algorithm based machines.

Amélie Heldt speaks with Clara Iglesias Keller about the regulation of fake news in times of election campaigns. Both have been analysing recent examples such as new preliminary injunction procedures or data protection rules. Clara explains how publicly accessible phone numbers on Facebook have allegedly been used during the 2018 presidential elections in Brazil to spread fake news and political propaganda through WhatsApp. Furthermore, the two speak about the dissemination of false information in social media, the set of problems regarding information manipulation during the elections in France and the United States, possible countermeasures and much more.

A conversation with Rike Maier on the use and mis-use of remixes on the internet. How does one regulate the immeasurable amount of material uploaded every minute and do filters do a good job of keeping copyright infringements at bay?

We find ourselves surrounded by buzzwords like Big Data, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence and it becomes ever more difficult to understand the world that we are currently building. This is Exploring Digital Spheres, a brand new podcast produced by the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society. My name is Wouter Bernhardt and I’m very excited to announce this podcast all about our digital society.