{"id":6482,"date":"2019-10-19T14:11:42","date_gmt":"2019-10-19T18:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/?p=6482"},"modified":"2019-10-19T14:11:44","modified_gmt":"2019-10-19T18:11:44","slug":"event-review-nyc-media-lab-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/2019\/10\/19\/event-review-nyc-media-lab-summit\/","title":{"rendered":"Event Review: NYC Media Lab Summit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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On September 26, 2019, I attended the NYC Media Lab Summit\nheld in downtown Brooklyn. The mainstage program took place at the New York\nCity College of Technology (City Tech CUNY) for the first half of the day. The\nsecond half of the day was dedicated to interactive demos and workshops and\ntook place at both City Tech and the New York University (NYU) Tandon School of\nEngineering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NYC Media Lab describes itself as dedicated to \u201cdriving\ninnovation and job growth in media and technology by facilitating collaboration\nbetween the City\u2019s universities and its companies\u201d (About \u2013 NYC Media Lab,\nn.d.) Pratt Institute is part of NYC Media Lab\u2019s consortium with goals \u201cto\ngenerate research and development, knowledge transfer, and talent across all of\nthe city\u2019s campuses\u201d (About \u2013 NYC Media Lab, n.d.), which also includes The New\nSchool, School of Visual Arts, Columbia University, NYU, CUNY, IESE, and the New\nYork City Economic Development Corporation. Member companies of NYC Media Lab\ninclude Bloomberg LP, Verizon, The New York Times, and NBCUniversal, to name a\nfew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Media Lab Summit held itself like a typical conference,\nwhere you check in to receive your name badge upon arrival and are treated to\ncoffee and pastries. Then everyone takes their seats before the main program\nbegins in the auditorium where the Executive Director of the program, Justin\nHendrix, makes his welcome address and does introductions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Innovation Panel discussion<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Up first was the Innovation Panel, which featured speakers Yael Eisenstat, R. Luke Dubois, Desmond Patton, and Tony Parisi. The panel featured a mix of academics and professionals who all addressed the topic of artificial intelligence, or AI. It was interesting to hear that everyone agreed that AI is the future but that they all held concerns about whether it will be accessible to all. Another potential issue that was brought up in relation to AI is what seems like our current overdependence on data. One panelist raised serious concerns about this overdependence and worried whether this could lead to the complete disregard of an innate human characteristic, which is critical thinking. All panelists agreed that critical thinking is essential and sees it playing a key role throughout the use of AI and other technological advancements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I ultimately took away from this Innovation Panel was\nthat critical thinking is needed now more than ever. I think we have always\nunderstood that critical thinking is crucial as it is what keeps us human. AI\nis capable of making decisions for us, but the ability to be able to critically\nthink about the potential impacts of our decisions and asses our judgments\nremains entirely human. This emphasis on critical thinking reminded me of the\nPhoebe Sengers reading in which she also discusses machine culture but stresses\nthat science and the humanities need \u201cto be combined into hybrid forms\u201d as\n\u201cneither is sufficient alone\u201d (Practices for Machine Culture, n.d.). Like the\npanelists, Sengers recognizes the strengths in both and how each can complement\nthe other, especially in AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next up were the showcases. The showcases were meant to\npresent and demonstrate projects, prototypes, and startups created by students\nand faculty from NYC Media Lab programs. Two of the showcases that stood out to\nme the most were a subway accessibility app for the blind and a retina\ntechnology startup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Access to Places<\/em> presentation<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Students from NYU\u2019s Interactive Telecommunications Program\ncreated an app called Access to Places<\/em> with the goal to make subway\nstations much more accessible for the blind. The app utilizes iOS\u2019\ntext-to-speech voiceover technology to provide information such the location of\nentrances and exits, service delays or changes, and arrival and departure\ntimes. Notifications also help the blind to navigate around station layouts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Retina Technologies presentation<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Retina Technologies was formed by medical students at the\nIcahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The startup aims to change the way\npeople access ophthalmologists in both urban and rural areas. Through the use\nof virtual reality headsets, the startup hopes to increase access to\nophthalmologists for those who cannot easily visit one in rural areas while\nalso improving the patient experience for those in urban areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Access to Places<\/em> and Retina Technologies both stood\nout to me the most because of the users that they were designing for. Instead\nof creating a product that catered to the majority of the population, they\nreached out to those with specific needs that often get neglected in the\nstartup and tech conversations. I immediately thought of the Sasha\nCostanza-Chock paper on \u201cDesign Justice\u201d and the discussion on who designers\nare actually designing for. The majority of startups and apps tend to assume\nthe average user is able to access or use a product without any accommodations,\nmuch like how Costanza-Chock discusses that designers \u201cassume\u201d that \u201ca user has\naccess to a number of very powerful privileges\u201d (2018). Visiting an\nophthalmologist or getting onto the subway without any trouble are privileges\nthat most designers tend to assume users have. Access to Places<\/em> and\nRetina Technologies decided to instead focus on the needs of these specific\nuser groups rather than create another app or startup that assumed they were\njust like every other user.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many innovative and creative projects were demonstrated, and\nI was in awe over it all, but it was the discussions that were held that\nenlightened me. What I took to be the overall theme of the Media Lab Summit was\naccessibility and the continued mission to make this collaboration between\nmedia and technology available to all. I still believe that technology has this\namazing potential to change and impact lives, but we must make it available to everyone\nto see it happen. The Media Lab Summit and our class discussions and readings\nonly continue to highlight this necessity and how we as information\nprofessionals cannot simply ignore it as technology advances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About \u2013 NYC Media Lab. (n.d.). Retrieved from https:\/\/nycmedialab.org\/about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Costanza-Chock, S. (2018). Design Justice: towards an\nintersectional feminist framework for design theory and practice. DRS2018:\nCatalyst<\/em>. doi: 10.21606\/drs.2018.679<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sengers, P. (n.d.). Practices for Machine Culture: A Case\nStudy of Integrating Cultural Theory and Artificial Intelligence. Retrieved\nfrom\nhttp:\/\/www.cs.cmu.edu\/afs\/cs\/usr\/phoebe\/mosaic\/work\/papers\/surfaces99\/sengers.practices-machine-culture.html.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On September 26, 2019, I attended the NYC Media Lab Summit held in downtown Brooklyn. The mainstage program took place at the New York City College of Technology (City Tech CUNY) for the first half of the day. The second half of the day was dedicated to interactive demos and workshops and took place at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,13,410,152,208,211],"class_list":["post-6482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-accessibility","tag-ai","tag-data","tag-media","tag-startups","tag-technology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6482"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6491,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6482\/revisions\/6491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}