Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication will host Data Power 2017, the two-day international conference will explore the critical power of big data as well as the consequences of its pervasiveness in our daily lives. The event will feature leading keynote speakers and expert panels on a wide variety of pressing issues including impacts to security, surveillance and governance.

The conference will address key questions such as how society can maintain data autonomy, methods to mobilize data for the common good and how data can be harnessed improve the way we live.

The conference will explore timely topics including smart cities, global finance trends and analytics, as well as how data affects our lives in areas of law, privacy and more.
Keynote addresses include:

• Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Reconciliation, presented by Gwen Philipps, Director of Corporate Services and Governance Transition, Ktunaxa Nation and BC First Nations Data Governance Champion
• Profession, Piecework, PR, or Propaganda?: Futures of Journalism in an Era of Automation, presented by Frank Pasquale (University of Maryland), author of The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms that Control Money and Information
• Knowledge Infrastructures Under Siege: Environmental Data Systems as Memory, Truce, and Target, presented by Paul Edwards (University of Michigan), author of A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming
• Redefining Citizenship: Toward Socio-Technical Theory of Agency in Datafied Societies, presented by Stefania Milan (University of Amsterdam), author of Social Movements and Their Technologies: Wiring Social Change