Over the last year, communities of practice have grown into new environments where gesture, learning, language, and action have been reformatted to fit our remote lives. NEW INC and Data & Society are hosting a conversation about designing for collectivity and collaboration under pandemic constraints. Special guest Tricia Wang will interview Ari Melenciano to shed light on her insights and experience growing and platforming community. This event is for anyone seeking solidarity, lessons, real talk, and practical advice on how to sustain community during this time.
Ari Melenciano is a designer, creative technologist and researcher who is passionate about exploring the relationships between various forms of design and sentient experiences. She is a creative technologist at Google's Creative Lab, teaching and research fellow at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Graduate Program, and founder of Afrotectopia, - a social institution fostering interdisciplinary innovation at the intersections of art, design, technology, Black culture, and activism. Her award-winning work has been supported and exhibited by a variety of institutions including Sundance, New Inc, The New York Times, and The Studio Museum of Harlem. She is often guest lecturing at universities around the world. She is based in Brooklyn, NY.
Tricia Wang is a tech ethnographer obsessed with designing equity into systems. Her work spans across the private and public sector. She is the co-founder of Sudden Compass, a firm that helps companies reconnect with their customers and teams. She is a member of the World Economic Forum Global Futures Data Council, fellow at Geo Tech Atlantic Council, and affiliate at Data & Society. She researches and writes about personal data, hyperlocal communities, blockchain, and cryptocurrency accessibility. Prior to the pandemic, she was based in Peru, working on an internet access start-up. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she conducted digital ethnography in Wuhan--where she used to live--on how residents managed during the early days of lockdown. She co-founded Last Mile, a volunteer-led organization that supports communities most impacted by COVID-19. Last Mile launched COVID Straight Talk, a public health campaign to increase awareness for COVID as an airborne disease and to accelerate policies for workplace indoor ventilation. Tricia's life philosophy is that you have to go to the edge to discover the center. She is on the advisory boards of Kadabra, Colectivo23, Afrotectopia and Studio Rev. For more information, go to her website www.triciawang.com or follow her on twitter or instagram @triciawang.
About Data & Society
Data & Society is an independent nonprofit research organization. We believe that empirical evidence should directly inform the development and governance of new technology. We study the social implications of data and automation, producing original research to ground informed, evidence-based public debate about emerging technology.