by Kevin Schofield
This weekend we have a pair of studies looking at the impact of social media on both our personal health and the health of our democracy.
Continue reading Weekend Reads: What Social Media Is Doing to UsTag Archives: Technology
Seedcast: Indigenous Filmmaking, Using Technology to Adapt to COVID
by Ben-Alex Dupris
Indigenous peoples and communities have long used stories to understand the world and our place in it. Seedcast is a story-centered podcast by Nia Tero and a special monthly column produced in partnership with the South Seattle Emerald about nurturing and rooting stories of the Indigenous experience.
I recently directed a tribal honoring segment for All In Washington: A Concert For COVID-19 Relief. It was aired live on local television and now lives on Amazon Prime. The celebrity-filled virtual event, which included Coach Pete Carroll, Macklemore, and Pearl Jam, raised 45 million dollars for local organizations struggling desperately to provide support to Washington State residents during coronavirus. It was an exciting opportunity to get paid for creative work in the middle of the pandemic.
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BIPOC Founders Disrupt Tech Bro Narrative
by Beverly Aarons
The quintessential Tech Bro is a powerful archetype in the American imagination. College-educated, middle-class, white, male, armed with a STEM degree, and frequently seen sporting khakis/jeans and a fitted t-shirt emblazoned with the logos of top American tech firms: Google, Facebook, Amazon, or some scrappy startup you’ve never heard of. Tech Bros are the “revenge of the nerds” come home to roost. But what if I told you that Tech Bro culture was experiencing a disruption — a sort of fissure? What if I told you that a new archetype is emerging? One that is sometimes Black, Brown, immigrant, and/or female.
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Virtual Reality Engineer and Game Designer Evie Powell Breaks the Social Boundaries of Games
by Beverly Aarons
Imagine yourself in a cathedral-sized classroom. You are surrounded by thousands of classmates from all over the world — Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, and beyond. There is a multitude of languages — a cornucopia of cultures. Now imagine an instructor standing at the helm of the class, her pen racing across a whiteboard. She speaks French or Spanish or Mandarin. Imagine that what language she speaks doesn’t matter because everything she writes and everything she says is instantaneously translated into the language you speak and the language that your classmates speak. And THAT is the future of technology according to Evie Powell, PH.D.
Continue reading Virtual Reality Engineer and Game Designer Evie Powell Breaks the Social Boundaries of Games