Community Data Workshop with Anita Say Chan

Clark University’s Community Data and AI Lab cordially invites you to a dinner workshop with fellow Worcester-based organizations to discuss the perils and possibilities of our current head-spinning AI-driven datafication of everything. The dinner brings together community partners to:

• Share concerns, diagnose the state of the problem, and explore ethical digital practices that support and sustain the communities you serve;
• Reset the conversation so that the people determine the terms of data collection and digital practices;
• Build solidarities and coalitions;
• And come away feeling more empowered in the AI and big data ecosystems.

The conversation will be facilitated by Dr. Anita Say Chan, Professor in the School of Information Sciences and the College of Media at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Dr Chan’s research and teaching interests include globalization and digital cultures, innovation networks and the “periphery”, science and technology studies in Latin America, and hybrid pedagogies in building digital literacies. She received her PhD from the MIT Doctoral Programs in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology, and Society. She is the author of Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and Our Fight for an Independent Future (2025).

We hope you will join us for this important interactive event. Please RSVP to Winifred Spillers at wspillers@clarku.edu. We welcome up to two representatives from each organization to join us. We look forward to an illuminating and fruitful conversation. Please note, space is limited.

Sponsored by Clark University's
Higgins Institute
Department of Language, Literature, and Culture
Department of English
Becker School of Design & Technology