High School Students Imagine Solutions to Big Tech Questions

The weekend of May 19-20, over twenty young people and mentors gathered at TechHub NYC to participate in a workshop co-sponsored by the Paris Center, the CGC New York team, and organized by ThinkNation, a non-profit that seeks to “humanize the impact of technology on young people by empowering them to ask big questions.”

The young people, who came from the Bronx, Harlem, Queens, Manhattan, Brooklyn and Florida, worked in small groups with mentors from public and private sector institutions, including Columbia University.

Inspired by the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, they explored four major tech topics and came up with a question articulating a challenge posed by developments in that area. Questions included:

• Artificial Intelligence: “How can we integrate AI into our society without losing human intelligence?”
• Tech & Environment: “In what ways and with what effects can Blockchain create global consciousness for environmental consideration?”
• Brain, Tech & Cyborgs: “How can Virtual Reality be used for international conflict resolution?”
• Privacy & Surveillance: “If we create UDR (universal digital rights) what would it look like at an individual, national and global level?” 

The event marks the first on an on-going collaboration between the Global Centers network and ThinkNation to advance knowledge and address global challenges associated with the impact of tech on young people’s lives. Additional events organized this spring and summer in the UK will culminate with a day-long symposium in the fall of 2018.

To learn more about ThinkNation, visit their website.