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Intelligences

The Future of Business in a Post-COVID Landscape

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The future of business in a post-COVID world
Moderator: MARC LAFLEUR, ZS Associates Panelists: JACQUES BARCIA, Institute for the Future; JORGE CAMACHO, Institute for the Future / Diagonal; JENNIFER LEE FUQUA, Ogilvy; DEVON POWERS, Temple University Events of the 18 months have upended questions of the future and, for business, cast a new light on how it might better contemplate and plan for uncertainties. COVID has also opened up a new sense of potential when it comes to re-inventing or designing better or new futures for ourselves, providing a sense of agency and fluidity that had, until recently, seemed less tangible. This panel will engage in this dialogue with the future, particularly as it relates to the future of business and the ways in which business could contemplate, confront and shape the future. Panelists Marc LaFleur believes that at the heart of every business challenge lies a question of human experience. While he has practiced in many industries, Marc has spent much of his career working in the fields of health and life sciences. There, Marc...

Intelligences

Redesigning the Social Safety Net

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Redesigning the Social Safety Net
Moderator: NADINE LEVIN, City of San Francisco Panelists: MORGAN G. AMES, University of California, Berkeley; , Monumental; MITHULA NAIK, Canadian Digital Service The past two years have laid bare that we inhabit a world with enormous and increasing inequality. We've also seen a decreasing level of faith in public programs and institutions to provide quality health care and education or even fair access elections. And the very systems designed for the betterment of all are often siloed and ineffective. This session comes at a time when policy and regulations affecting social safety net benefits are more in flux than usual in many countries. Using the tools of data, design, activism, technology, and innovation, these panelists have led an ethnography-forward approach to reimagining these systems and move toward safety nets that work for all. Panelists Nadine Levin, PhD, is an anthropologist, Rhodes Scholar, and UX researcher who focuses on improving equitable access to technology. After several years of academic research...

Intelligences

The Future of Audiences & Mixed Reality Performances

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Future of audiences and mixed reality performances
Keynote Speaker: SARAH ELLIS, Director of Digital Development, Royal Shakespeare Company Sarah Ellis is an award-winning producer, the Director of Digital Development for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and a fellow of the University of Worcester for her work in arts and technology. She has been awarded The Hospital Club & Creatives Industries award for cross industry collaboration for her work on the RSC’s The Tempest (with Intel and The Imaginarium Studios.) In 2013 she was listed in the 100 most influential people working in Gaming and Technology by The Hospital Club and Guardian Culture. She is an Industry Champion for the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, which helps inform academic research on the creative industries. She has been appointed Chair of digital agency, The Space, established by Arts Council England and the BBC....

Intelligences

Exiting the Road to Hell: How We Reclaim Agency & Responsibility in Our Fights for Justice

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Exiting the Road to Hell
Keynote Speaker: PANTHEA LEE, Reboot Panthea Lee is a strategist, organizer, designer, and facilitator, and the Executive Director of Reboot. She is passionate about building transformative coalitions between communities, activists, movements, and institutions to tackle structural inequity—and working with artists to realize courageous social change. Panthea is a pioneer in designing and guiding multi-stakeholder processes to address complex social challenges, with experience doing so in 30+ countries with partners including UNDP, MacArthur Foundation, Luminate, CIVICUS, Wikimedia, Women’s Refugee Commission, and governments and civil society groups at the national, state, and local levels. The global co-creation efforts she’s led have launched new efforts to protect human rights defenders, tackle public corruption, strengthen participatory democracy, advance equity in knowledge access, reform international agencies, and drive media innovation. Panthea began her career as a journalist, ethnographer, and cultural...

Intelligences

We Have Always Dreamed of (Afro)futures: Notes beyond the Dark Fantastic

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We Have Always Dreamed of (Afro)futures
Keynote Speaker: EBONY THOMAS, University of Michigan Ebony Elizabeth Thomas is Associate Professor in Educational Studies at the University of Michigan. She studies how people of color are portrayed, or not portrayed, in children’s and young adult literature, and how those portrayals shape our culture. As children’s and young adult literary empires continue to dominate publishing and Hollywood, she strongly believes that the field has the potential to become one of the most effective postcolonial, critical, and activist projects of all. A former Detroit Public Schools teacher and National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Thomas was a member of the NCTE Cultivating New Voices Among Scholars of Color’s 2008–2010 cohort, served on the NCTE Conference on English Education's Executive Committee from 2013 until 2017, and is the immediate past chair of the NCTE Standing Committee on Research. She is co-editor of Research in the Teaching of English, and her most recent book is The Dark Fantastic:...

Intelligences

Immersive Ethics: Anticipating Risks and Harms in Virtual and Augmented Reality

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Immersive ethics
Moderator: JILLIAN POWERS, Cognizant Panelists: JORDAN KRAEMER, Anti-Defamation League; ARWA MICHELLE MBOYA, Magic Leap; JESSICA OUTLAW, The Extended Mind LLC As new technologies, from AI to immersive experiences, are developed at scale, they raise ethical concerns for research and design. Data-driven systems have repeatedly been shown to entrench social biases along lines of race, gender, and class, from racist algorithms in the criminal justice system to misgendering trans and nonbinary people. Immersive technologies, such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), however, raise separate and thorny questions for ethical design. Immersive technologies create novel experiences of embodiment and reality, not to mention new sources of personal data. These facets create distinctive challenges for ethics, equity, and inclusion, intensifying the potential harms of misinformation, harassment, privacy violations, surveillance, or unequal access. How can ethnographic research anticipate emergent ethical questions specific...

Intelligences

Creating Future Imaginaries through Indigenous AI

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Creating Future Imaginaries through Indigenous AI
Keynote Speaker: JASON LEWIS, Concordia University Jason Edward Lewis' multidisciplinary research and creative practice has been central to developing Indigenous media art in North America and worldwide, establishing a vital conversation about the interaction between Indigenous culture and computational technology. His contributions comprise scholarly writing, art making and technology research, as well as his leadership of the Initiative for Indigenous Futures and his creation of the Indigenous Futures Research Centre. A digital media theorist, poet, and software designer, Lewis is currently University Research Chair in Computational Media and the Indigenous Future Imaginary and Professor of Computation Arts at Concordia University. At Concordia he also serves as Special Advisor to the Provost on Indigenous Spaces. Lewis spent a decade working in a range of industrial research settings, including Interval Research, US West's Advanced Technology Group, and the Institute for Research on Learning, and, at the turn of...

Intelligences

Catching up to the Present to Reimagine the Future

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Catching up to the Present to Imagine the Future
Moderator: AFRA CHEN, Fudan University Panelists: CHUMA ANAGBADO, Artist & Designer; NATASCHA NANJI, LAY IT ON THICK; RASA SMITE, RIXC Center for New Media Culture; RAITIS SMITS, RIXC Center for New Media Culture In the age of pandemics and climate crises, reality is represented via varied narratives on health, politics, and the environment across different cultural and social contexts. As artists, designers, and ethnographers practicing the art of narration within different specialties and contexts, this panel aims to showcase how creative professionals re-organize their methods, practices, relationships, and lives in the face of present circumstances. Panelists will share how art and design can help us reflect upon the present and address any future challenges. Panelists Afra Chen is a PhD candidate in medical anthropology from Fudan university, her research interests mainly centered around medical/biological technologies and how do they intersects with societal changes in China, her recent research focused...

Intelligences

Tutorial: Ethnography for Project Risk Analysis and Quality Assurance

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Ethnography for Project Risk Analysis and Quality Assurance
Instructor: PATRICIA ENSWORTH, Harborlight Management Services LLC & New York University Learn the core vocabulary, concepts, and methods of project managers, risk managers, and quality assurance managers, and explore how they align with ethnographic practices and expertise. Overview This tutorial was conducted at EPIC2021. Exercises and discussions have been omitted to protect the privacy of participants. In this tutorial participants will learn the core vocabulary, concepts, and methods of project managers, risk managers, and quality assurance managers, and explore how they align with ethnographic practices and expertise. This understanding helps us build bridges to domains such as Legal, Operations, and Compliance, and elevate the impact of our work on the products, services, and strategies of the organizations you serve. Participants will become familiar with standard Project Management Body of Knowledge and Agile processes, tools, and templates for risk and quality management: identification of seldom-noticed...

Intelligences

Tutorial: Frameworks and Foundations for Research Team Development

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Frameworks and Foundations for Team Development
Instructor: MOLLY STEVENS, Director of UX Research, Booking.com Develop a strategy for cultivating a successful research team and growing yourself as a leader. Overview This tutorial was conducted at EPIC2021. Exercises and discussions have been omitted to protect the privacy of participants. Growing a successful research team within an organization can be overwhelming—you must consider a variety of elements to grow yourself and your team, at the same time that you create value for customers and stakeholders. There are many moving pieces, and often not enough time to consider which elements are essential for that next step. This tutorial will help you navigate where and how to focus your efforts. We will cover a framework that includes individual people and groups of people (your role, the individuals on your team, the research team as a whole), as well as cross-cutting elements such as the organization, the domain, and the research itself. Topics include: Yourself: What are the key attributes and capabilities you...

Intelligences

Tutorial: Using Analogs to Research the Unknown

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Tutorial - Using Analogs to Research the Unknown
Instructor: JO AIKEN, Google Learn strategies to design research of inaccessible or future environments. Overview This tutorial was conducted at EPIC2021. Exercises and discussions have been omitted to protect the privacy of participants. Ethnographers seek insights by studying people in their natural environments. What if the thing you are designing will not be used for 20–40 years from now? What if the natural context is inaccessible—an infrequent event, a dangerous environment, an exclusive space? How do you understand environments and users that do not yet exist? This tutorial breaks down the complexity of conducting ethnographic research of environments that are unknown or inaccessible. Using real NASA case studies, Jo will walk you through frameworks and methods, such as analogs and scenario testing, for conducting practical research when you can’t get to the “real” field site. This interactive tutorial will include a combination of presented content, small-group activities, and discussion. Participants...

Intelligences

Tutorial: From Research to Action—Leading Teams Through Synthesis

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from research to action: leading teams through synthesis
Instructors: KSENIA PACHIKOV (Principal, Field Studio) & MARTA CUCIUREAN-ZAPAN (Design Director, IDEO) Overview This tutorial was conducted at EPIC2021. Exercises and discussions have been omitted to protect the privacy of participants. After the richness of fieldwork, the research and design team must figure out, “What does this mean?” and “What should we do?” The synthesis phase presents a tough set of issues: we want to accurately represent all of our participants, yet we must make hard decisions around whose stories and learnings to prioritize. New data and points of view, sometimes conflicting, are introduced by other stakeholders in the project. And we must move from being descriptive to being directional. In this tutorial you’ll learn strategies for two key challenges of synthesis: emotional dynamics—how we navigate interpersonal relationships to come to alignment—and convergence—how to prioritize when faced with tons of data and ideas. Participants will learn how to externalize the hidden criteria...

Intelligences

Tutorial: Research Recruitment—How to Find and Connect to Participants

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Instructors: JOANNA BEER, CECILIE LøVESTAM & ANNA LUCAS, Generation Focus Learn how to create and execute a recruitment plan, strategies for recruiting quality respondents, practices for engaging and motivating participants, and more. Overview This tutorial was conducted at EPIC2021. Exercises and discussions have been omitted to protect the privacy of participants. This tutorial teaches best practices for human-centered recruitment and strategies to create win-win-win experiences for participants, clients and recruiters. Participant recruitment is a comprehensive process. It involves several activities, including identifying qualified participants, explaining the study to potential candidates, obtaining informed consent, and retaining participants until the study is completed. Finding, recruiting, and retaining articulate and engaged participants in the right target audience is critical for the success of a study. In this interactive workshop, attendees will learn how to create and execute a recruitment plan,...

Intelligences

Tutorial: Research for Accessible and Inclusive Design

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Research for Accessible and Inclusive Design
Instructors: GREGORY WEINSTEIN (Senior Accessibility Designer, CVS) & ERICA MCCOY (Senior Accessibility Designer, CVS) Gain tools and strategies for integrating people with disabilities into your research and driving inclusive design. Overview This tutorial was conducted at EPIC2021. Exercises and discussions have been omitted to protect the privacy of participants. Including people with disabilities in user research is fundamentally the right thing to do, because their experiences matter just as much as those of the non-disabled users that are typically represented in research. In addition, including people with disabilities in research makes good business sense, because it leads to products that are more inclusive and generally more accessible, usable, and delightful for everyone. This tutorial will help participants to expand their research practices by integrating people with disabilities into research. We will discuss barriers to conducting inclusive research and strategize about lean and robust ways to address...

Intelligences

Tutorial: Power Tools for Equity in Research & Design

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Power Tools for Equity in Research & Design
Instructors: CHELSEA MAULDIN (Executive Director, Public Policy Lab) & NATALIA RADYWYL (Research Director, Public Policy Lab) This tutorial gives you robust, actionable tools for navigating inequity through a project life cycle. Overview This tutorial was conducted at EPIC2021. Exercises and discussions have been omitted to protect the privacy of participants. To do ethical, equitable work in any domain, we need robust tools for assessing and addressing power. Whether we’re creating products, services, or policies, inequities can create direct and indirect risks for research participants and underserved populations. This tutorial gives you robust, actionable tools for navigating inequity through a project life cycle. Public Policy Lab developed Power Tools over many years of innovative and effective work with at-risk communities. Across planning, research, design, and implementation, the instructors will teach you how to use Power Tools to check biases, inform theories of change and logic models, identify effective...