The Vice-Chancellor's Annual Democracy Forum featuring Meredith Whittaker

The Vice-Chancellor's Democracy Forum (VCDF) is UTS’s premier public lecture series. Each year, the Vice-Chancellor invites significant thinkers across various fields to engage in open dialogue on topics crucial to today's society and its advancement.

UTS is pleased to welcome Meredith Whittaker, President of Signal and a member of the Signal Foundation Board of Directors, as the first speaker for our 2024 series.

Attendees will have the chance to hear directly from Meredith and a distinguished panel, explore the intersection of technology, ethics, responsible AI development, and their impact on our shared future.

Signal is the world’s most widely used truly private messaging app. Privacy is not a marketing slogan for Signal– it’s at the heart of everything they do. Because we know that journalism, dissent, and communication that can question and thus change our world for the better requires privacy. Signal is organised as a nonprofit, guided by their privacy mission, not shareholder expectations or volatile tech trends.

Date: Wednesday 19 June

Time: 6:00pm - 7:30pm (doors open 5:45pm)

Location: The Great Hall, UTS Building 1, Level 5, 15 Broadway Ultimo NSW 2007

RSVP: Please register your attendance to this special event by Friday 14 June

This is an event that you don't want to miss - register now!

Speakers

Meredith Whittaker (keynote speaker) has over 17 years of experience in tech, spanning industry, academia, and government. Before joining Signal as President, she was the Minderoo Research Professor at NYU, and served as the Faculty Director of the AI Now Institute which she co-founded. Her research and scholarly work helped shape global AI policy and shift the public narrative on AI to better recognize the surveillance business practices and concentration of industrial resources that modern AI requires. Prior to NYU, she worked at Google for over a decade, where she led product and engineering teams, founded Google's Open Research Group, and co-founded M-Lab. She has advised the White House, the FCC, the City of New York, the European Parliament, and many other governments and civil society organizations on privacy, security, artificial intelligence, internet policy, and measurement. And she recently completed a term as Senior Advisor on AI to the Chair at the US Federal Trade Commission.

Professor Ed Santow (moderator) is the Co-Founder and Director - Policy & Governance at the Human Technology Institute, and is leading a number of major initiatives to promote human-centered artificial intelligence. From 2016-2021, Ed was Australia's Human Rights Commissioner, where he led the Commission's work on artificial intelligence & new technology; refugees and migration; human rights issues affecting LGBTI people; national security; and implementing the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT).

Associate Professor Ramona Vijeyarasa (panel speaker) is Director of the Juris Doctor Program at UTS, and is one of the leading global scholars on gender-responsive legislation. She is Chief Investigator behind the Gender Legislative Index (GLI), an online tool that uses human evaluators and machine learning to assess whether domestic laws meet global women's rights standards. Her scholarship has been recognised by the American Society of International Law, the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law and the Letten Foundation. In 2022, she was named the Australia & NZ Woman in AI in the Law Category and 2nd Runner-Up for the Woman in AI Innovator of the Year. She brings to her Associate Professor position at UTS a decade of experience working in civil society as a women’s rights lawyer and activist. She is author of two monographs and over 40 journal articles on women’s rights, including “Gendered harms and the regulation of AI” published last year in the Notre Dame Journal of Emerging Technologies.

Professor Peta Wyeth (panel speaker) is Dean, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at UTS. Peta is internationally recognised in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and is at the forefront of research into emerging tangible, mobile and embedded technology for education and entertainment. Peta is at the forefront of research into emerging tangible, mobile and embedded technology for education and entertainment. Her research career is typified by interdisciplinary collaborations addressing real world problems.

We hope to see you at this exciting event.

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