Judy Estrin
CEO, JLABS, LLC

About the talk:

Digital technologies are no longer relatively benign with bugs or design flaws which are "merely annoying". Today we are experiencing the byproducts of ubiquitous digitization--a form of digital pollution no less dangerous than the cholera-inducing industrial pollution of 19th century London. Yet our unbalanced relationship with technology --treating all new innovation as inevitable without regard for its costi--is impeding our ability to understand and mitigate the harm. The first step to reclaiming control of this relationship is acknowledging the complexity and range of impacts, the underlying dynamics of "technology capitalism", and the lens through which we view technological progress. As technologists we must take responsibility for considering potential harm in our measurement of "progress"-- to think not only of the problems we are solving, but the ones that we might create. This will require revisiting many of our cultural and economic assumptions including design choices and priorities. Leaders from all fields, from industry, government and civil society, along with individuals, will need to acknowledge a collective responsibility for what is becoming an increasingly dire problem.

Slides:

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Video:

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About the Speaker

Ms. Judy Estrin is a networking technology pioneer and Silicon Valley leader. Since 1981, she has co-founded eight technology companies and served as Chief Technology Officer of Cisco Systems. As CEO of JLABS, she is an advisor and speaker in the areas of entrepreneurship, leadership and innovation. Her most recent focus is on furthering understanding of the consequences of technology on society. She has served on the boards of directors of The Walt Disney Company, FedEx Corporation, Sun Microsystems, Rockwell Corporation, KQED, and The Medium Corporation. She received a bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science from UCLA and a master's degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1977, where she worked with a research group headed by Vinton Cerf. Estrin is the author of Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy (McGraw-Hill, 2008). Some of her more recent thoughts about the impacts of technology on democracy and society are expressed in Authoritarian Technology: Attention! and The World is Choking on Digital Pollution.