Good Code

How can we make virtual, augmented and mixed realities accessible to all, including people with disabilities? That's a question that's been on Shiri Azenkot's mind for years now. She's an Assistant Professor of Information Science at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech, and her research focuses on accessible technology. She explains why accessibility is important to her, and why she believes that XR is a promising technology in that regard.

Young people spend a lot of time on social media, where they express happiness, pain, trauma, grief and anger. What do social media really say about them? To what extent do they facilitate violence? Our guest is Desmond Patton, an Associate Professor of Social Work at Columbia University. His research examines the ways in which young people of color experience violence online, and offline. He explains why we need to work within communities to best interpret social media posts.

In the quiet city of The Hague, in the Netherlands, is the United Nations Centre for Humanitarian Data. It's not a traditional data center: there is no data storage here. Think of it as an innovation hub. Its goal is to increase the use and impact of data in humanitarian crises. Our host Chine Labbe visited the Centre over the summer. Follow her as she takes a tour of the place, and speaks with several of its members.

What is being filtered out of our online platforms? What don't we get to see? That's a question that our guest worries about a lot. Niva Elkin-Koren is a Professor of Law at the University of Haifa, in Israel, and her research looks at the ways in which big tech companies (Google, Facebook, Twitter) are acting as "guardians of the public sphere", through content moderation. We ask her why she thinks that private filtering poses a fundamentally democratic problem, and we discuss her proposal for a "Public Artificial Intelligence."

5G is coming. With increasing speed and decreased latency, it will power a vast array of new services. And with new possibilities will come new vulnerabilities. Tech companies and governments around the world worry about the security of 5G networks. So does our guest Gilles de Kerchove, the European Union Counter-Terrorism Coordinator. But he also worries that in the era of 5G, it could become harder and harder, if not impossible, for law enforcement agencies to do their job, and prevent attacks.

Season 1 wrapped up in late June. Over the summer, we worked hard on new content, and we're very excited about what's coming. So stay tuned… But before we dive into Season 2, we wanted to look back on our inaugural Season, and take a minute to thank all the terrific researchers, academics and professionals who trusted us with their time, when Good Code was still a baby podcast. Here is a compilation of some of their comments, I hope you'll enjoy it. And come back soon, for Season 2!

In this episode, the last of season 1, we speak with Diana Freed. She's a PhD student at Cornell Tech, and part of a group of researchers working on technology-enabled intimate partner violence. How do abusers exploit technology to harass their victims? How can we improve their digital safety? Freed meets with survivors of domestic violence every week in clinics throughout New York City to help them mitigate this type of abuse. Listen on as she explains her work.

In this episode, released on World Refugee Day, we talk about the ways in which digital technologies can be used to improve the lives of refugees, and we explore some of their inherent risks. More than 70 million people were displaced at the end of 2018, the highest level in almost 70 years. Our guest Salam Shahin, senior business analyst at UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, walks us through some of the most promising technological developments for refugees, and how they could transform the work of organizations like his.

In this episode, we talk about genetic engineering and the future of our species as we enter these uncharted territories. Our guest is Jamie Metzl, a technology futurist and Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. In his latest book, Hacking Darwin : Genetic Revolution and the Future of Humanity, he explores all the ways in which the Human-led rewriting of our genetic code is about to shake the very foundation of our Humanity. Sit back and listen on!

In this episode, we speak with Isabelle Zaugg, a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University. She studies minority languages, and the ways in which digital technologies can contribute to their decline and even extinction. What are digitally disadvantaged languages? Why should we care about rare languages not getting the support they need to thrive online? And what can be done to bring them to digital vitality? Zaugg walks us through what's at stake when languages do not enjoy digital support.