Info Session: Brown Institute Venture Challenge Competition
2023-02-17 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom Meeting
The Brown Institute at Columbia Journalism School, in partnership with the Spring ’23 Columbia Venture Competition and Columbia Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Design are pleased to announce a competition for Columbia students, alumni, and their collaborators.
Now in its second year, this Journalism Challenge rewards new entrepreneurial ventures in journalism, media and technology. Perhaps you want to create new kinds of journalism or new kinds of content, design new forms of participation, contribute to our understanding of media and society, or experiment with entirely new ways to communicate.
Join us for this info session designed for the Spring ’23 Brown Institute Innovation Challenge in Journalism, Media, and Technology where you will hear from the Brown Institute and Columbia Entrepreneurship teams, hear from past winners, and meet Justin Hendrix who will facilitate the summer fellowship program at the Brown Institute.
Register Here

About Summer Delaney — Winner of the 2022 Brown Institute Innovation Challenge
Summer will be sharing her best tips for competing in the Innovation Challenge. Summer is an award-winning journalist, content strategist, and member of the creator community. She is the founder and CEO of CollabWORK, the first community-empowered hiring platform that leverages online communities and advanced AI algorithms to match talent with top creative jobs.
Over the past decade, Summer has grown digital communities and produced award-winning content at CNN, Yahoo News with Katie Couric, CBS Interactive and Tribune Media where her videos have received over 500 million views. She has also worked as a consultant and a program manager at Amazon Studios, News Corp, Protégé and Wilde. Summer was honored by the New York State Broadcasters Association during the Excellence in Broadcasting Awards for “Outstanding Social Media Personality.” Her work also contributed to Tribune Media winning several digital innovation awards from the Local Media Association, including best social media strategy and best new digital initiative.
Summer received her BS from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and her MBA from Columbia Business School.
About CollabWORK
CollabWORK is revolutionizing the $140B staffing and talent search industry by leveraging online communities and advanced AI algorithms to match talent with top jobs. Unlocking the power of endorsement at scale through access to curated and exclusive networks, our subscription-based product distributes creative, media, and communications jobs to vetted professional communities of qualified candidates. Our proprietary referral and AI-vetting approach alleviates expensive and arduous recruiting processes for companies, providing the highest quality talent at unparalleled speed and cost efficiency (on average, referred candidates are hired 55% faster than candidates sourced via traditional job sites).
About Justin Hendrix – CEO and Editor, Tech Policy Press. Justin will lead the summer program
Justin is the Founder, CEO, and Editor of the Tech Policy Press, a not-for-profit media and community venture that seeks to advance and influence the public discourse on the relationship between technology and democracy. Justin also currently holds an appointment at New York University as an adjunct Instructor of Integrated Digital Media at the Tandon School of Engineering.
Prior to his current positions, Justin was the Executive Director of the New York City Media Lab which connects companies seeking to advance digital media technologies with university capabilities in order to drive entrepreneurship and innovation. Launched by the New York City Economic Development Corporation, NYU, and Columbia University, NYC Media Lab is a public-private partnership encompassing all the universities of NYC and corporate members such as Viacom, ESPN, Bloomberg, MLB Advanced Media, The Weather Company, Singtel, Hearst, Verizon, Weather Company, NBCUniversal and more. The Lab’s goal is to generate fresh thinking that creates value through research, prototyping, knowledge transfer, talent development, and entrepreneurship.

Brown Institute Mixer and Infosession
2023-02-17 16:00 - 17:00 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Drop by and learn about the Brown Institute’s Magic Grants and other programs!
The David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation is a joint effort between Stanford’s School of Engineering and Columbia Journalism School. Each year, the Brown Institute awards close to $1M in grants to help you “follow your passion and experiment with new approaches to storytelling,” to paraphrase Helen Gurley Brown.
Our “Magic Grants” are a unique blend of technology and media. Grantees develop new ways to find and tell stories — producing platforms that extend our creativity, or creating powerful new works of journalism.

A Magic Grant can mean financial support for you and your team for up to a year (fellowships at Columbia, research positions at Stanford)
A Magic Grant can provide funding for your project — for production, prototyping, or purchasing services, software or equipment
A Magic Grant offers access to mentorship and our extensive alumni network

The Magic Grant program provides year-long funding awards of up to $150,000 ($300,000 for teams with members of both the Columbia and Stanford communities and their collaborators). In addition to funding, grantees have access to a distinguished advisory and mentoring group and an extensive and inspiring alumni network.
This information session is an introduction to the Brown Institute. We’ll cover Magic Grants as well as the other programs we are offering this year.
Register to Attend

Brown Institute Mixer and Infosession
2023-02-20 12:00 - 13:00 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Drop by and learn about the Brown Institute’s Magic Grants and other programs!
The David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation is a joint effort between Stanford’s School of Engineering and Columbia Journalism School. Each year, the Brown Institute awards close to $1M in grants to help you “follow your passion and experiment with new approaches to storytelling,” to paraphrase Helen Gurley Brown.
Our “Magic Grants” are a unique blend of technology and media. Grantees develop new ways to find and tell stories — producing platforms that extend our creativity, or creating powerful new works of journalism.

A Magic Grant can mean financial support for you and your team for up to a year (fellowships at Columbia, research positions at Stanford)
A Magic Grant can provide funding for your project — for production, prototyping, or purchasing services, software or equipment
A Magic Grant offers access to mentorship and our extensive alumni network

The Magic Grant program provides year-long funding awards of up to $150,000 ($300,000 for teams with members of both the Columbia and Stanford communities and their collaborators). In addition to funding, grantees have access to a distinguished advisory and mentoring group and an extensive and inspiring alumni network.
This information session is an introduction to the Brown Institute. We’ll cover Magic Grants as well as the other programs we are offering this year.

News Product Sprint
2023-02-25 10:00 - 2023-02-26 16:00 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Join the Brown Institute for a unique opportunity to learn about the latest trends in news product development! Our two-weekend event, taking place on February 25-26 and March 1, is led by industry leaders Dalit Shalom, Lead Product Designer at the New York Times, and Julia Beizer, Chief Digital Officer at Bloomberg Media.
This news product sprint is open to journalism, data science, and computer science students, and will provide hands-on training in the creation of innovative news products. Through interactive lectures and lab sessions, you will learn about the key concepts and practices of product development, design, engineering, and business. Over the course of two weekends (3-days), you will work in teams to iterate, prototype, and pitch products that engage and retain audiences and tell stories in new ways!
The Brown Institute’s mission is to push the boundaries of storytelling, and this event is a perfect opportunity to do just that. By participating, you’ll have the chance to work in teams to develop ideas that can be proposed to both the Magic Grant program and the Brown Institute Venture Competition, to funding opportunities provided by the institute. The Magic Grant program provides funding to teams in amounts ranging from $10k – $150k to pursue project work over the course of the year. And the Venture Competition provides small seed awards and automatic entry into a paid summer fellowship hosted by the institute to provide students with the resources needed to bring products to life. Apply now and be part of a unique learning experience!
Dates of the Program:
Saturday, February 25 (10am-4pm)
Sunday, February 26 (10am-4pm)
Wednesday, March 1 (6pm-9pm)
To attend, you must be able to commit to the entire duration of the program.
Apply to Attend

News Product Sprint
2023-03-01 19:00 - 21:00 | Columbia University

Lectures in Data Visualization: Cindy Xiong, UMass Amherst
2023-03-09 12:00 - 13:30 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Designs to Support Better Visual Data Communication
Cindy Xiong, UMass Amherst

Well-chosen data visualizations can lead to powerful and intuitive processing by a viewer, both for visual analytics and data storytelling. When badly chosen, visualizations leave important patterns opaque or misunderstood. So how can we design an effective visualization? I will share several empirical studies demonstrating that visualization design can influence viewer perception and interpretation of data, referencing methods and insights from cognitive psychology. I leverage these study results to design natural language interfaces that recommend the most effective visualization to answer user queries and help them extract the ‘right’ message from data. I then identify two challenges in developing such an interface. First, human perception and interpretation of visualizations is riddled with biases, so we need to understand how people extract information from data. Second, natural language queries describing takeaways from visualizations can be ambiguous and thus difficult to interpret and model, so we need to investigate how people use natural language to describe a specific message. I will discuss ongoing and future efforts to address these challenges, providing concrete guidelines for visualization tools that help people more effectively explore and communicate data.
Register to Attend
About the Lecture Series
The Brown Institute at Columbia Journalism School, in partnership with the Data Science Institute and the Department of Computer Science, is excited to present a lecture series that delves into the art and science of data visualization. This dynamic interdisciplinary series will explore the ways in which technology is transforming how we encounter, comprehend, and create data-driven narratives. The series will take place every other Thursday over the lunch hour from March to May, and will feature esteemed experts in these fields. Over the course of a few months, we will explore the profound impact that the tools and techniques utilized in data visualization have on the stories we can tell.
The series will include five lectures, led by renowned experts including Cindy Xiong, Dom Moritz, Arvind Satyanarayan, Jen Christiansen, and Gurman Bhatia. The topics to be covered in the series are diverse and thought-provoking, encompassing the role of ML in data visualization, the design process for best representing the stories behind the data, the future of interactive visualization, and the very role tools play in our approaches to graphics. Whether you’re a data scientist, a journalist, a technologist, a storyteller, or a combination thereof, this series will explore a practice that spans all disciplines. Join us as we hear from these experts and engage in interactive discussions exploring the latest advancements in data visualization and technology.
Join us for a lecture followed by a small reception, all held in the Brown Institute for Media Innovation on the entry floor of Pulitzer Hall (Journalism School). Registration required.
About the Speaker

Cindy Xiong is an Assistant Professor in the College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She received her Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology and her MS in Statistics from Northwestern University. Her research at the intersection of human perception, cognition, and data visualization has received awards at premier venues in psychology and computer science, including ACM CHI, Psychonomics, IEEE VIS, and IEEE VGTC. She is also one of the founding leaders of VISxVISION (visxvision.com), an initiative dedicated to increasing collaboration between visualization researchers and perceptual + cognitive psychologists.

Lectures in Data Visualization: Dominik Moritz, Carnegie Mellon University
2023-03-23 12:00 - 13:30 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
The future of Data Science is Live and in the Browser
Data science is a constantly evolving field, and as such, it is important to continually explore new ideas for improving the tools we use. In this talk, I will talk about two ideas that may change how and where we build these tools.
First, I will argue that data science should be interactive and live, with no wait time for changing filters or updating parameters. Slow analysis has been shown to have disadvantages and even dangers, yet few tools have been able to provide both a seamless user experience and the necessary performance. We will explore how web developers have already achieved this level of interactivity and demonstrate how the same experience should be and can be delivered to data workers.
Second, we will examine how the browser is already how that data scientists access many tools, such as Jupyter and ChatGPT. However, delays caused by network connections create new challenges for tool builders. We will explore the opportunities that new technologies like WebAssembly, WebGPU, and Apache Arrow offer for analysis and machine learning completely in the browser.
Register to Attend

The Brown Institute at Columbia Journalism School, in partnership with the Data Science Institute and the Department of Computer Science, is excited to present a lecture series that delves into the art and science of data visualization. This dynamic interdisciplinary series will explore the ways in which technology is transforming how we encounter, comprehend, and create data-driven narratives. The series will take place every other Thursday over the lunch hour from March to May, and will feature esteemed experts in these fields. Over the course of a few months, we will explore the profound impact that the tools and techniques utilized in data visualization have on the stories we can tell.
The series will include five lectures, led by renowned experts including Cindy Xiong, Dom Moritz, Arvind Satyanarayan, Jen Christiansen, and Gurman Bhatia. The topics to be covered in the series are diverse and thought-provoking, encompassing the role of ML in data visualization, the design process for best representing the stories behind the data, the future of interactive visualization, and the very role tools play in our approaches to graphics. Whether you’re a data scientist, a journalist, a technologist, a storyteller, or a combination thereof, this series will explore a practice that spans all disciplines. Join us as we hear from these experts and engage in interactive discussions exploring the latest advancements in data visualization and technology.

Join us for a lecture followed by a small reception, all held in the Brown Institute for Media Innovation on the entry floor of Pulitzer Hall (Journalism School). Registration required.
About the Speaker

Dominik Moritz is on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University where he co-directs the Data Interaction Group (https://dig.cmu.edu/) at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute. His group’s research develops interactive systems that empower everyone to effectively analyze and communicate data. Dominik also manages the visualization team in Apple’s machine learning organization. His systems (Vega-Lite, Falcon, Draco, Voyager, and others) have won awards at academic venues (e.g. IEEE VIS and CHI), are widely used in industry, and by the Python and JavaScript data science communities. Dominik got his PhD from the Paul G. Allen School at the University of Washington, where he was advised by Jeff Heer and Bill Howe.

Matt Jones & Chris Wiggins Book Launch 'How Data Happened', featuring a Conversation with Julia Angwin
2023-03-27 18:00 - 19:00 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Join us for a spirited conversation with renowned data journalist Julia Angwin as she discusses How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms with Matt Jones and Chris Wiggins of Columbia. The book expands on the popular course the authors created and have taught for the past several years at Columbia. Our students asked: How has data become such a pervasive and seemingly all-powerful force in our political and personal lives? How Data Happens illuminates the ways, going back centuries, in which data has been used and continues to be used as a tool and a weapon in arguing for what is true, as well as a means of rearranging or defending power.

Supporting Communities through "Equitable Data" with Denice Ross, US Chief Data Scientist
2023-03-30 11:00 - 12:30 | Lecture Hall, Pulitzer Hall, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
The Brown Institute for Media Innovation is pleased to host a visit to Columbia University by the U.S. Chief Data Scientist Denice Ross and Deputy U.S. Chief Data Scientist Dominique Duval-Diop. In a lecture on March 30, Ross and Duval-Diop will introduce the idea of “equitable data.” Through the Equitable Data Working Group, they have been tasked to “identify inadequacies and areas of improvement within Federal data and outline a strategy for increasing data available for measuring equity and representing the diversity of the American people and their experiences” (from their report “A Vision for Equitable Data,” in April 2022).
Join Ross and Duval-Diop as they discuss equitable data, its relationship to open data, and the opportunities for researchers and journalists.
Register to Attend

About the Speaker
Denice Ross serves as the U.S. Chief Data Scientist and leads the Biden-Harris Administration efforts on equitable data. Previously, she led a multidisciplinary group of stakeholders to coordinate support for a high-quality census, and co-authored the data series “Pandemic to Prosperity,” with a special focus on Southern states and their path to an equitable recovery. Her experience in open government includes co-founding the White House Police Data Initiative to increase transparency and accountability in the Obama-Biden administration and establishing the City of New Orleans’ first open data initiative under Mayor Mitch Landrieu. Prior to government, Denice co-directed a non-profit data intermediary, tracking the city’s recovery from Katrina through the definitive New Orleans Index. She brought a data-driven approach to numerous post-Katrina community planning initiatives and co-founded the first new childcare center after the storm. Denice holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Arizona and a masters degree in Energy Policy & Climate from Johns Hopkins University.

Lectures in Data Visualization: Arvind Satyanarayan
2023-04-06 12:00 - 13:30 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Intelligence Augmentation through the Lens of Interactive Data Visualization
The rise of large language models has brought new urgency to the future of human + machine partnerships. In this talk, I will use three research threads on interactive data visualization to better understand the balance between automation and augmentation. First, I will describe how new specifications of visual and non-visual data representations allow us to reason about visual perception and cognition. Second, I will explore how visualization can be used to bridge human mental models and machine-learned representations. And, finally, I will discuss how data visualization already exhibits an epistemological crisis of truth—one that generative models threaten to further widen.
Register to Attend

About the Speaker

Arvind is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at MIT, where he leads the Visualization Group at MIT CSAIL. His research uses interactive data visualization as a petri dish to study intelligence augmentation, or how do computational representations and software systems help amplify our cognition and creativity while respecting our agency? His work has been recognized with an NSF CAREER award, best paper awards at academic venues (e.g., ACM CHI and IEEE VIS), and honorable mentions amongst practitioners (e.g., Kantar’s Information is Beautiful Awards). Systems he has helped develop are widely used in industry, on Wikipedia, and in the Jupyter/Python data science communities. Arvind received his PhD from the Computer Science department at Stanford University, working with Jeffrey Heer and the UW Interactive Data Lab.
About the Series
The Brown Institute at Columbia Journalism School, in partnership with the Data Science Institute and the Department of Computer Science, is excited to present a lecture series that delves into the art and science of data visualization. This dynamic interdisciplinary series will explore the ways in which technology is transforming how we encounter, comprehend, and create data-driven narratives. The series will take place every other Thursday over the lunch hour from March to May, and will feature esteemed experts in these fields. Over the course of a few months, we will explore the profound impact that the tools and techniques utilized in data visualization have on the stories we can tell.
The series will include five lectures, led by renowned experts including Cindy Xiong, Dom Moritz, Arvind Satyanarayan, Jen Christiansen, and Gurman Bhatia. The topics to be covered in the series are diverse and thought-provoking, encompassing the role of ML in data visualization, the design process for best representing the stories behind the data, the future of interactive visualization, and the very role tools play in our approaches to graphics. Whether you’re a data scientist, a journalist, a technologist, a storyteller, or a combination thereof, this series will explore a practice that spans all disciplines. Join us as we hear from these experts and engage in interactive discussions exploring the latest advancements in data visualization and technology.
Join us for a lecture followed by a small reception, all held in the Brown Institute for Media Innovation on the entry floor of Pulitzer Hall (Journalism School). Registration required.

Lectures in Data Visualization: Jen Christiansen, Scientific American
2023-04-20 12:00 - 13:30 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Special Considerations for Science Graphics
Jen Christiansen, Scientific American

Science graphics are beholden to the same design principles as other types of graphics. But the information they hold is often the product of a process that a lot of people in your audience may not be familiar with. It’s important to honor the fact that the data you’re presenting is both the product of a rigorous study that builds upon past studies, and that interpretations may eventually shift a bit as future research sheds more light on the topic. This session provides you with some strategies for addressing those challenges. In particular, three overarching themes that are particularly pertinent to science graphics: honoring complexity, avoiding misinformation pitfalls, and visualizing uncertainty.
Register to Attend
About the Lecture Series
The Brown Institute at Columbia Journalism School, in partnership with the Data Science Institute and the Department of Computer Science, is excited to present a lecture series that delves into the art and science of data visualization. This dynamic interdisciplinary series will explore the ways in which technology is transforming how we encounter, comprehend, and create data-driven narratives. The series will take place every other Thursday over the lunch hour from March to May, and will feature esteemed experts in these fields. Over the course of a few months, we will explore the profound impact that the tools and techniques utilized in data visualization have on the stories we can tell.
The series will include five lectures, led by renowned experts including Cindy Xiong, Dom Moritz, Arvind Satyanarayan, Jen Christiansen, and Gurman Bhatia. The topics to be covered in the series are diverse and thought-provoking, encompassing the role of ML in data visualization, the design process for best representing the stories behind the data, the future of interactive visualization, and the very role tools play in our approaches to graphics. Whether you’re a data scientist, a journalist, a technologist, a storyteller, or a combination thereof, this series will explore a practice that spans all disciplines. Join us as we hear from these experts and engage in interactive discussions exploring the latest advancements in data visualization and technology.
Join us for a lecture followed by a small reception, all held in the Brown Institute for Media Innovation on the entry floor of Pulitzer Hall (Journalism School). Registration required.
About the Speaker

Photograph by Liz Tormes
Jen Christiansen is a science communicator specializing in visual media, the individual produces explanatory diagrams and data visualizations. She is the author of Building Science Graphics, a publication by A K Peters/CRC Press, and holds the position of senior graphics editor at Scientific American. Jen strives to create engaging and informative images catering to specialist and non-specialist readers. She possesses the ability to comprehend, interpret, and communicate scientific concepts visually, whether it involves illustrating complex processes or assisting readers in navigating a story. Although she is capable of producing final renderings, they also collaborate with freelance illustrators, data designers, and researchers on a project-by-project basis, as demonstrated by their work on this site.
Since 2007, Christiansen has held the position of graphics editor at Scientific American. However, their association with the magazine dates back to 1996 when they were hired by art director Ed Bell as an intern, straight out of the science illustration graduate program at U.C. Santa Cruz. With a double major in geology and studio art from Smith College, Jen started as an assistant art director and later moved on to work for National Geographic magazine as a hybrid assistant art director/researcher and then as a designer.

Susie Ibarra performs "Water Rhythms: Listening to Climate Change"
2023-04-20 19:30 - 21:30 | The Katharina Otto-Bernstein Screening Room, Lenfest Center for the Arts, 615 West 129th Street, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Register here.
A screening and performance of composer, percussionist, and sound artist Susie Ibarra’s ambitious Water Rhythms: Listening to Climate Change (2020). Water Rhythms: Listening to Climate Change is a collaboration between Ibarra and glaciologist, geographer, and climate scientist Dr. Michele Koppes, which maps water rhythms from source to sink. Ibarra’s composition is derived from field recordings of five global watersheds, including the Greenland ice sheet and glacier-fed rivers of the Himalayas. It has also been installed at TED Countdown Edinburgh, Scotland (2021); ARKO Art Center, Seoul, Korea (2021); Fridman Gallery, Beacon, NY (2021); and the San Francisco Exploratorium (2022).
Presented by the Sound Art MFA Program at Columbia University School of the Arts; the Computer Music Center, Columbia University; and the Brown Institute for Media Innovation.

About the Artist

Susie Ibarra is a Filipinx composer, percussionist, and sound artist. She is the founder of Susie Ibarra Studio and Sound Health Habitat, a cultural studio and journal that focuses on sharing and supporting listening health practices, global soundwalks, acoustic ecology focused on climate and eco-friendly and sustainable global music practices. She created Drum Labs: Rhythm in Nature, a course and e-book through her studio that demonstrates her 6 part analysis of rhythms in nature. Susie Is passionate about supporting fresh water sources, and cultural and environmental preservation for next generations.
Ibarra’s interdisciplinary practice spans formats, including performance, mobile sound-mapping applications, multi-channel audio installations, recording, and documentary. She works to support Indigenous and traditional music cultures, like musika katatubo from the Philippines; advocates for the stewardship of glaciers and freshwaters; and she collaborates with The Joudour Sahara Music Program in Morocco on initiatives that preserve sound-based heritage, support women and girls and address desert climate.
Ibarra has recorded over 40 albums as a composer and drummer and performed in events such as the London Olympics, Rio Olympics, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Carnegie Hall, MASSMoCA, Anthony Davies Hall, Sharjah Art Biennial UAE, Zamane Music Festival Morocco. She is a recipient of a Fromm Music Foundation Commission at Harvard University (2022), Foundation For Contemporary Arts Award in Music/ Sound (2022), National Geographic Storytelling Fellowship (2020), United States Artists Fellowship in Music (2019), the Asian Cultural Council Fellowship (2018), and a TED Senior Fellowship ( 2010 and 2014).

Computing &: A conversation series on computation and storytelling
2023-04-21 14:00 - 18:00 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
The Vagelos Computational Science Center (CSC) at Barnard College in partnership with The Brown Institute at Columbia Journalism School welcome you to Computing &, a series of panels exploring the complex and multifaceted role of computing in spaces of public life.
Framed around the theme of ‘Computing &’, we will rotate through three crucial subtopics, each representing an area where computation directly impacts vulnerable communities and the stories told about them. The discussions will highlight the oppressive and surveillant aspects of technology, as well as the innovative ways individuals and groups have leveraged technology and journalistic reporting to counteract these effects. This event is in-person only.
The three panels will focus on the following topics:
2:00pm – 3:15pm

Computing & Carceral Technology: A deep dive into the role of computation on communities pre-, during, and post-incarceration, exploring carceral technologies and alternative information networks. Featuring Sylvia Ryerson, Dan “April” Feng, Martin Garcia, Clarence Okoh, and moderated by Adam Iscoe.

3:30pm – 4:45pm

Computing & Queering Tech: A discussion on the role of queer communities in the design and implementation of internet technologies, examining the challenges and opportunities presented by the digital world. Featuring Afsaneh Rigot, Christina Dragon, Colleen Macklin, and a Tech Learning Collective instructor.

5:00pm – 6:15pm

Computing & Reproductive Justice: An exploration of how technology intersects with reproductive rights and justice. Featuring Anna Louise Sussman, Runa Sandvik, Dr. Kameelah Phillips, and moderated by Saima Akhtar.

Computing & is a unique series of talks that engage area experts, scholars, technologists, and journalists working to expose and challenge harms often invisible to the masses. Full bios below.
Register to Attend
__________________________________________________________________________________
Christina Dragon (she|her) serves as the Measurement and Data Lead in the NIH Sexual and Gender Minority Research Office. Previously she served as the Sexual and Gender Minority Data Lead in Medicare’s Office of Minority Health and as the data analyst for the Health People 2020 LGBT Health topic area at the National Center for Health Statistics, CDC, and has over a decade’s experience working on federal SGM data. She serves as the Terminology Subgroup lead for the Measuring Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) Research Group, part of the Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology (FCSM), and recently co-led the subgroup on SOGISC data in administrative forms for the Federal Evidence Agenda on LGBTQI+ Equity. She holds a Masters’ Degree from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a double major from Smith College in Neuroscience and Woman and Gender Studies.
Dan “April” Feng is the Chief Operating Officer at Ameelio. She holds a Masters degree in Philosophy and Public Policy from the London School of Economics. An economist by training and curious by nature, she had dedicated her work to solving the hardest challenges at the most critical time. Her previous experiences include solving social loneliness with Freakonomics author, Steven Levitt, working at the UK Parliament during Brexit, and managing public transportation innovations under then Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
Martin Garcia is the Manager of News Inside, the print publication of The Marshall Project, and the Associate of Inside Story, The Marshall Project’s new video series, both of which are distributed in hundreds of prisons and jails throughout the United States. Martin is also one of the co-chairs of The Marshall Project’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee. He is a Mercy College graduate and well versed in Department of Corrections policy. Previously, Martin was a community coordinator for Worth Rises, part of The Osborne Association as a Children’s Center Caregiver, and an Advisor to its NY Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents.
Adam Iscoe is a writer and editor from Austin, Texas. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, Texas Monthly and McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern. Iscoe is an editor at Lapham’s Quarterly. In 2019, he worked as a Visiting Scholar at The University of California, Berkeley. He has also taught journalism at Solano State Prison, in Vacaville, California; and edited The San Quentin News, an award winning newspaper produced by incarcerated journalists at San Quentin State Prison.
Colleen Macklin is a game designer and an Associate Professor in the school of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons School of Design. She’s interested in how games model and reveal ideologies through systems. At Parsons, she is the founder and co-director of PETLab, a design research lab that develops games for experimental learning and social engagement. PETLab projects include disaster preparedness games and sports with the Red Cross, the urban activist game Re:Activism and the physical/fiscal sport Budgetball. She is a member of the game design collective Local No. 12, known for the videogame Dear Reader and the social card game, The Metagame. She has co-authored (with John Sharp), Games, Design and Play: A detailed look at iterative game design (Addison Wesley Professional, 2016) and Iterate: Ten Lessons in Design and Failure (MIT Press, 2019). Colleen has a BFA in Media Arts from Pratt Institute, and an MA in International Affairs from The New School.
Clarence Okoh is a civil rights attorney and racial justice advocate whose work addresses the impact of mass criminalization and economic divestment in Black communities, with a particular focus on Black youth and young adults. Clarence is Senior Policy Counsel at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), where he leads the organization’s cross-team policy agenda to advance youth-led, anti-carceral approaches to community safety by challenging systems that surveil and punish Black, brown and Indigenous youth in low-income communities. He is also an inaugural member of the Just Tech Fellows at the Social Science Research Council. In this capacity Clarence leads a project designed to better understand and challenge the use of emerging technologies to criminalize Black and brown youth and systematically violate their civil and human rights.
Dr. Kameelah Phillips is a board certified Obstetrician and Gynecologist, wife, mother, and lifelong women’s health advocate. She is an educator, mentor, and expert in women’s health issues and has been involved in local, national, and international organizations aimed at advancing women’s health care issues through advocacy and direct patient care.
Afsaneh Rigot is a scholar and researcher covering issues of law, technology, LGBTQ, refugee, and human rights. Her work and her research pose questions about the effects of technology in contexts for which it was not designed, and the effects of western-centrism on vulnerable and hard-to-reach communities. She also looks, in theory and practice, at how to constructively engage with power-holding corporations. She is a senior researcher at ARTICLE 19 focusing on MENA LGBTQ and Tech issues, an Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, Advisor to the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard University, and a  Technology and Public Purpose Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s  Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She is the founder of the Design From the Margins tech design methodology.
Sylvia Ryerson is a PhD Candidate in American Studies at Yale University, with a Master’s concentration in the public humanities. Prior to graduate school she worked as an independent radio producer, and at the Appalshop media arts and education center in Whitesburg, Kentucky. There she served as a reporter and the director of public affairs programming, and co-directed Appalshop/WMMT-FM’s Hip Hop from the Hilltop & Calls from Home radio show, a nationally recognized weekly radio program broadcasting music and toll-free phone messages from family members to their loved ones who are incarcerated, and Making Connections News, a multimedia community storytelling project documenting efforts for a just transition from coal extraction. Her research questions build from this work, and are rooted at the intersection of scholarship, activism, and art.
Runa Sandvik is the founder of Granitt, a company focused on security for journalists and other at-risk people. Her work builds upon experience from her time at The New York Times, Freedom of the Press Foundation, and The Tor Project. Originally from Oslo, she now lives in New York.
Anna Louie Sussman is a journalist who writes on gender, economics, and reproduction. She is working on her first book, about the relationship between capitalism and reproduction, for Dey Street Books.
Tech Learning Collective is an apprenticeship-based technology school for radical organizers founded in New York City that provides a security-first IT infrastructure curriculum to otherwise underserved communities and organizations advancing social justice causes. We train politically self-motivated individuals in the arts of hypermedia, Information Technology, and radical political practice. Founded and operated exclusively by radical queer and femme technologists, we offer unparalleled free, by-donation, and low-cost computer classes on topics ranging from fundamental computer literacy to the same offensive computer hacking techniques used by national intelligence agencies and military powers (cyber armies).

Lectures in Data Visualization: Gurman Bhatia
2023-05-04 12:00 - 13:30 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
The Brown Institute at Columbia Journalism School, in partnership with the Data Science Institute and the Department of Computer Science, is excited to present a lecture series that delves into the art and science of data visualization. This dynamic interdisciplinary series will explore the ways in which technology is transforming how we encounter, comprehend, and create data-driven narratives. The series will take place every other Thursday over the lunch hour from March to May, and will feature esteemed experts in these fields. Over the course of a few months, we will explore the profound impact that the tools and techniques utilized in data visualization have on the stories we can tell.
The series will include five lectures, led by renowned experts including Cindy Xiong, Dom Moritz, Arvind Satyanarayan, Jen Christiansen, and Gurman Bhatia. The topics to be covered in the series are diverse and thought-provoking, encompassing the role of ML in data visualization, the design process for best representing the stories behind the data, the future of interactive visualization, and the very role tools play in our approaches to graphics. Whether you’re a data scientist, a journalist, a technologist, a storyteller, or a combination thereof, this series will explore a practice that spans all disciplines. Join us as we hear from these experts and engage in interactive discussions exploring the latest advancements in data visualization and technology.
Register to Attend
Join us for a lecture followed by a small reception, all held in the Brown Institute for Media Innovation on the entry floor of Pulitzer Hall (Journalism School). Registration required.
About the Speaker
Gurman Bhatia is an independent information designer, developer and award-winning data journalist based in New Delhi, India. For the past seven years, Bhatia has been using data, visuals and code to craft narratives at local, national, international news outlets and non-profit organisations. She is extremely passionate about data communication and journalism – things she often discusses on Twitter.
Bhatia has spent six years in newsrooms such as Reuters in Singapore, the Hindustan Times in Delhi, and the Palm Beach Post and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in the United States before going independent in 2021. Since then, she has trained over 750 people in data journalism and/or visualisation and helped several non-profit organisations communicate their data-driven research better.
A self-taught coder and designer, I hold a Masters in Journalism from Columbia University, New York. My work has won several awards internationally, including the Online News Association Awards, Malofiej Infographic Summit Awards, The Webby Awards and GEN Data Journalism Awards.

Brown Institute Welcome Session
2023-09-06 08:00 - 09:00 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
The Brown Institute serves as a digital hub at the school, researching and building the future of journalism. Join us in the Brown Institute to meet with our researchers and staff, and learn more about the various opportunities and offerings afforded to students during their time at the Journalism School as well as upon graduation.
Bagels and coffee will be provided!

Brown Institute Welcome Session
2023-09-06 16:00 - 17:00 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
The Brown Institute serves as a digital hub at the school, researching and building the future of journalism. Join us in the Brown Institute to meet with our researchers and staff, and learn more about the various opportunities and offerings afforded to students during their time at the Journalism School as well as upon graduation.
Nibbles and Refreshments will be provided!

Generative AI Dine + Design
2023-09-13 18:00 - 21:00 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
In the last year, new generative AI platforms have made headlines. Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Bard, LLaMA and claude have been compared on their abilities to perform

knowledge and reasoning tasks (answering questions, solving problems with external tools),
language manipulation (generating summaries, translating text, “reversioning” stories), and
common data analyses (structuring data, tagging and clustering data, writing and fixing code).

Unlike AI applications of the past, these platforms performed these tasks reasonably well “out of the box,” without a lot of extra training. This means prototyping a new AI task can be as simple as typing a prompt into ChatGPT.
Do you have a computing idea you would like to try, perhaps related to some data you’re looking at? Or some documents or a web site? Do you have an idea to engage audiences around some AI application? What about tools for local newsrooms?
The second Wednesday of every month, join us at the Brown Institute from 6-9pm for a dine-and-design event — open time to explore, to ask questions, to socialize with other students and practicing journalists, all interested in generative AI. A light dinner will be served.
We’ll talk about good design approaches, and about the strengths and weaknesses of these models. What works and what doesn’t? How do we make sure the platform is performing as we expect? What are the ethical concerns?
The first event is next Wednesday evening, September 13 from 6-9pm in the Brown Institute space on the ground floor of Pulitzer Hall. A light dinner will be served and perhaps a 10-minute presentation will kick off the evening with an inspiring example.
Students with all technical backgrounds are welcome. Come, build!

Points Unknown - QGIS 01
2023-09-20 08:00 - 10:00 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Points Unknown, a workshop series designed for journalism students, is an eight-week series to introduce students to spatial investigative and visualization techniques. News unfolds in places and every newsworthy event is shaped by the details of location. Those details might include the specifics of a neighborhood as it is today or of the history leading to its current configurations. Alongside the development of web technologies, journalistic organizations have incorporated web-based maps to enhance reader engagement with stories. But these interactions haven’t always been easy to produce. Points Unknown will train journalism students in GIS and mapping techniques to analyze and visualize spatial information.
The workshop will take place every Wednesday morning from 8-10am, and it’s organized into two main parts. The first four weeks will be dedicated to GIS education using QGIS, a point-and-click interface that provides a foundational understanding of spatial data analysis and its correlation with news events. No experience is necessary to participate in this program. This hands-on workshop will allow participants to recognize and visualize geographical patterns that often play a vital role in news reporting. The following four weeks will shift focus towards more reproducible mapping techniques, taught exclusively in Python, where participants will delve into scripting and automation to conduct spatial analysis and visualization.
Bagels will be served for those able to get out of bed in time, and attendees are invited to bring their beverage of choice. Hosted at the Brown Institute in Pulitzer Hall, this recurring workshop series offers not only a theoretical understanding but also practical skills that will elevate the participants’ approach to journalism.
Register at https://brwn.co/map-registration
For more information, write mkrisch@columbia.edu.

Points Unknown - QGIS 02
2023-09-27 08:00 - 10:00 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States

Using FOIA
2023-09-29 12:00 - 13:30 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
A Talk and demo of MuckRock, a website empowering citizens and journalists to write, file and track public records requests online, and its new FOIA Logs tool
Led by Derek Kravitz, MuckRock
REGISTER TO ATTEND
This talk and demonstration is an invitation to play, experiment with, and learn about MuckRock, an open-source web transparency platform that assists citizens in preparing, filing, and tracking public record requests to government agencies. The site enables users to access government documents and data covered by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and state open-records laws, ensuring that citizens can acquire information vital to the functioning of their government. As part of the training, participants will be given a tour of a new service launching from MuckRock called FOIA Logs, which allows users to lookup, review, and download previous FOIA requests placed to various departments and agencies across the government. Learn about the interface, discover how the site integrates NLP and Machine Learning principles, and understand how the tools might impact your workflow as a journalist and storyteller.
Leading the session is Derek Kravitz, MuckRock’s investigations and data editor. With an illustrious career that includes roles as research director at ProPublica, and stints at The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, and The Washington Post, Kravitz brings a wealth of experience. He has been recognized multiple times for his contributions to journalism, being a two-time Livingston Award finalist, participating in three Pulitzer Prize finalist teams, and having projects he edited or reported on receive numerous accolades. Derek’s endeavors also extend to grant-funded initiatives through Columbia and Stanford’s Brown Institute for Media Innovation, as well as the founding of the Documenting COVID-19 project and the MISSING THEM project at THE CITY.

Points Unknown - QGIS 03
2023-10-04 08:00 - 10:00 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States

Points Unknown - QGIS 04
2023-10-11 08:00 - 10:00 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States

Generative AI Dine + Design
2023-10-11 18:00 - 21:00, 2023-11-08 18:00 - 21:00, 2023-12-13 18:00 - 21:00 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
In the last year, new generative AI platforms have made headlines. Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Bard, LLaMA and claude have been compared on their abilities to perform

knowledge and reasoning tasks (answering questions, solving problems with external tools),
language manipulation (generating summaries, translating text, “reversioning” stories), and
common data analyses (structuring data, tagging and clustering data, writing and fixing code).

Unlike AI applications of the past, these platforms performed these tasks reasonably well “out of the box,” without a lot of extra training. This means prototyping a new AI task can be as simple as typing a prompt into ChatGPT.
Do you have a computing idea you would like to try, perhaps related to some data you’re looking at? Or some documents or a web site? Do you have an idea to engage audiences around some AI application? What about tools for local newsrooms?
The second Wednesday of every month, join us at the Brown Institute from 6-9pm for a dine-and-design event — open time to explore, to ask questions, to socialize with other students and practicing journalists, all interested in generative AI. A light dinner will be served.
We’ll talk about good design approaches, and about the strengths and weaknesses of these models. What works and what doesn’t? How do we make sure the platform is performing as we expect? What are the ethical concerns?
A light dinner will be served and perhaps a 10-minute presentation will kick off the evening with an inspiring example.
Students with all technical backgrounds are welcome. Come, build!

Data Visualization Workshop with The Pudding
2023-11-04 10:00 - 16:00 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Graphical (or pictorial) presentations of data have become an almost essential part of journalistic practice. Data visualization helps us see patterns in data and is an important tool for finding stories. Over the past decade, major outlets including The New York Times, Washington Post, and Reuters are publishing data visualizations that push the idea of storytelling, creating new data-driven ways to inform and entertain. Alongside these graphics are newsrooms based entirely on data visualization, including the Kontinentalist and The Pudding.
In this day-long workshop co-sponsored by the Brown Institute and Barnard Vagelos Computational Science Center, members of The Pudding will immerse participants in their tried-and-true design process, segmented into four stages: story, data, design, and development. The session will begin with Story, a throughline that should resonate with all participants of the program. As we’ve all experienced, the strongest visualizations are those with equally strong narratives. Diving deeper, students will be introduced to the realm of Data. Using curated datasets around key topics, students will seek to uncover the nuances of integrating specific, meaningful data with their narratives. The emphasis then shifts to the visual canvas, focusing on the core elements of Design. The goal is to ensure that every story is captivating both visually and narratively. And culminating the day is a glimpse into Development. While the intricacies of programming might remain in the backdrop, attendees will understand and appreciate the development scaffolding that turns their narratives and designs into dynamic interactive features.
Apply to Attend
This workshop will only be able to accommodate 24 students. Applications are due by 12pm on Wednesday, October 25. Notices will be sent out on Friday, October 27.

About the Presenters
Caitlyn Ralph is the Studio Director at The Pudding’s in-house data journalism agency called Polygraph, where we do the same type of visual storytelling work with the same team for different brands and organizations. Her BA is in Computer Science, her MS is in Data Viz, and her prior professional experience is in magazine journalism. She spends her working days explaining this practice as clearly as possible to clients with varying backgrounds, managing projects and the team, and crafting future strategy for both Polygraph and its sister publication The Pudding. She spends her non-working days running, taking film pictures, and on a K-pop group called Stray Kids.
Alvin Chang is an assistant professor of Journalism and Design at the New School. He’s a data and visual journalist who has worked in several newsrooms, most recently as Head of Visuals and Data at Guardian US. His work as a journalist often combines deep reporting with data analysis to help readers clearly understand the world around them. His stories often show how small decisions accrue into invisible problems like discrimination, segregation, and ultimately dehumanization. And he makes those things visible using data viz, interactives, cartoons, and videos.

Rethinking Crime Reporting
2023-11-09 18:30 - 20:00 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
The crime beat has long been leveraged by American newsrooms to drive traffic, generate revenue, and fulfill the duty of informing the public. While the familiar narrative of perpetrators committing crimes consistently captures the public’s attention, these stories rarely produce the safer communities promised by being better-informed citizens, especially for the individuals and communities historically narrativized as criminals.
But some journalists are reframing their focus on policing to tell stories about public safety. And in turn, they’re undertaking the big task of rethinking the journalist’s role in shaping public perceptions of safety and the stories we tell about crime.
Join the Brown Institute for a discussion that rethinks what crime coverage can look like and how journalists can better create work that gives the public what it needs to know.
Featured Speakers
Kelly McBride, Poynter
Matt Stroud, Better Government Association
Chenjerai Kumanyika, UnCivil Podcast
Moderated by Todd Whitney, Brown Institute

Register to Attend
Drinks and snacks will be provided following the discussion

News Products and Entrepreneurship Weekend!
2023-11-11 - 2023-11-12 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Register to attend!
Join the Brown Institute for a unique opportunity to learn about the latest trends in news product development! Our weekend-long event, taking place November 11 and 12, is led by industry leaders Dalit Shalom, Lead Product Designer at the New York Times, and Justin Hendrix, CEO and Editor of Tech Policy Press.
Background

The Brown Institute’s mission is to push the boundaries of storytelling, and this event is a perfect opportunity to do just that. By participating, you’ll work in teams to develop ideas that can be proposed to both the Magic Grant program and the Brown Institute Venture Competition, two funding opportunities offered by the institute. The Magic Grant program awards teams between $10k – $150k to pursue project work for up to a year. The Venture Competition has cash prizes and a paid fellowship to attend Brown’s Summer Entrepreneurship Program.

Apply now and be part of a unique learning experience!
Saturday: News Products, led by Dalit Shalom, Lead Product Designer at the New York Times
This news product sprint is open to journalism, data science, and computer science students, and will provide hands-on training in the creation of innovative news products. Through interactive lectures and lab sessions, you will learn about the key concepts and practices of product development, design, engineering, and business. You will work in teams to iterate, prototype, and pitch products that engage and retain audiences and tell stories in new ways!
Sunday: Venture Clinic, led by Justin Hendrix, CEO and Editor of Tech Policy Press
Are you considering a new journalism or media venture? How do you go from an idea about a service, technical solution, or other product concept to evaluating its potential to be sustainable as a business? What quick tests can you run to identify and interrogate your core assumptions? This session will offer a mix of instruction and exercises for those thinking about how to build a new venture, with special consideration given to the complexities and challenges of doing so with projects related to journalism and media in today’s market environment.

Presenter Bios

Dalit Shalom. Dalit’s work lives at the heart of editorial, research, ideation and prototyping, and she believes in design as a vehicle for helping people understand and navigate complexities. In her current role, she leads teams that focus on Community, AI, and Trust and Credibility, interfacing with multiple desks and teams across the newsroom and working closely with the Masthead to define key moments to help clarify The Times’ journalism to readers. Previously, Dalit’s work included consulting and bringing projects to life for NASA, This American Life and The New York Public Library, to name a few. She holds a BDes from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, and a Master’s degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at NYU. Dalit teaches design thinking classes at NYU and at the Columbia School of Journalism.

Justin Hendrix. Justin Hendrix is CEO and Editor of Tech Policy Press, a new nonprofit media venture concerned with the intersection of technology and democracy. Previously, he was Executive Director of NYC Media Lab. He spent over a decade at The Economist in roles including Vice President, Business Development & Innovation.

Venture Challenge Information Session
2024-01-23 17:00 - 18:00 | Brown Institute at Columbia, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY, 10027, United States
The 2024 Startup Columbia Venture Challenge is open for submissions! For the past three years, Brown has sponsored a “Media Track” for this competition. This is designed for students, recent alumni and faculty who are interested in starting a new venture. These might be for-profit or non-profit and should involve journalism, media and technology in some way.
Join us for an information session on Tuesday, January 23 to learn more about this opportunity! Submissions for the venture challenge are due February 9, 2024.

You can also join this information session virtually on Zoom.
Maybe you have an idea about how AI can help reporters in small newsrooms
Maybe you’re interested in encouraging new forms of collaboration between reporters
Maybe you want to make working with data on your beat easier
Maybe tools for the verification of images is important
Maybe you’re imagining a single-subject news site, or maybe it’s a tool or platform, or maybe is a consultancy
The Media Track of Startup Columbia consists of two rounds of “pitch sessions” in which you prepare a short presentation about your idea and deliver it to a group of judges. After your first interaction, you refine your pitch (maybe sharpen your idea) and have the chance to present for a second round. After that, in mid-March, we name three winners who receive cash prizes. The winners also receive scholarships for the Brown Institute’s 2024 Summer Entrepreneurship Program where they really work through their ideas. At the end of the summer we will have one final competition for the three challenge winners, this one possibly ending in a grant for up to $100k!
Ah but you will not go it alone. We have four Entrepreneurs in Residence who can help you refine your idea. And the Brown Institute staff is always around to lend a hand! Good luck!

Exploring AI Threats to Electoral Integrity
2024-01-24 17:00 - 18:00 | Livestream and SIPA
2024 will be a landmark election year in at least two ways. First, more than a quarter of the countries in the world, representing a third of global population, and comprising several of the largest democracies, including Indonesia, India, and the United States, will cast ballots. Second, this will be the first large election cycle since the release of a new suite of advanced AI tools and systems that enable the generation of text, images, sound and video, and will potentially change the landscape of political communication and behavior in profound ways, including through so-called hallucinations, deep fakes and voice cloning. In the face of these challenges, we have deep information asymmetries and a critical need for transparent broad-scale testing of AI in real-world scenarios. This panel will explore known and unknown threats to election integrity and introduce a new initiative, the AI Democracy Projects, that aims to publicly benchmark the performance of AI chatbots that are becoming a popular source of public information.
Join AI Democracy Projects founders–award-winning investigative journalist Julia Angwin and Alondra Nelson, professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, who led the development of the White House Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, and the Honorable Francisco V. Aguilar, Nevada Secretary of State, for a conversation with SIPA Lecturer Camille François about the potential risks and benefits to the US election ecosystem presented by AI, and how policymakers, AI experts, and journalists can begin to test AI tools for electoral-information integrity in a way that provides education, information, and accountability to the public.
This event is cosponsored by the Institute of Global Politics (IGP) at Columbia SIPA and the Brown Institute for Media Innovation at Columbia Journalism School
About the Institute of Global Politics (IGP) at Columbia SIPA
The Institute of Global Politics (IGP) convenes leading scholars and practitioners to advance policy solutions to today’s pressing global challenges. IGP brings together experts—from the public and private sectors and across the political spectrum—to foster civil discourse and create evidence-based policy strategies for local to global impact.
About the Brown Institute for Media Innovation at Columbia Journalism School
Established in 2012, the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute is a collaboration between Columbia and Stanford Universities, designed to encourage and support new endeavors in media innovation. Our partnership operates as an academic venture forum focusing on three distinct areas: granting, offering over $1M in grants each year to support innovative media projects by students, faculty, and alums; research and teaching, providing technical instruction to students and to the community; and research and development, where our Local News Lab develops AI-powered tools to assist local newsrooms.
Speakers:

Julia Angwin, award-winning investigative journalist; founder of Proof News; best-selling author; contributing writer, New York Times Opinion; and Fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School.
Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor, Institute for Advanced Study; Distinguished Fellow, Center for American Progress; former Deputy Assistant to President Joe Biden and Acting Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Francisco “Cisco” V. Aguilar, Nevada Secretary of State; former General Counsel for Agassi Graf and the Andre Agassi Foundation for Education; former Special Counsel to the Chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Moderator:
Camille François, IGP Affiliated Faculty
_____
Please note:
Check-in begins 30 minutes before the event and early arrival is strongly recommended, as this registration does not guarantee a seat. IDs and CUIDs will be checked at registration. We will release seats to the waitlist at the start of the event.
Recording and photography:
This event will be photographed and filmed. By being present, you consent to Columbia University using such photographs and video for educational and promotional purposes.
Guests with disabilities:
Columbia University makes every effort to accommodate individuals with disabilities. Guests with disabilities can request assistance from the Office of Disability Services at (212) 854-2388 or disability@columbia.edu.
