Day One Keynote Speaker
Merve Lapus
Vice President of Outreach & Engagement, Common Sense Education
Reimagining Civic Engagement for the Digital Age
The ubiquity of media and technology in our lives has come with far-reaching implications: a culture of cynicism, disagreement over facts, increased incivility and a rise in hate speech, resulting in a deterioration of civic engagement. Despite these challenges, we also have a generation of young people who are energized and ready to be more civically engaged than our country has seen in a long time, eager to leverage the power of technology for good.
While digital media has the power to inspire others to act, most young people are not equipped with the knowledge, skills, and habits to participate in meaningful ways. Join us as we outline the role digital media plays in engaging students’ civic life, its affordances providing them a way to be heard, join together, and work for change.
When:
May 23, 2022. 9:10 AM
Where:
Champlain College, Burlington
Day Two Keynote Speaker
Professor Josh Bongard
College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, University of Vermont
The xenobot: the world’s first computer designed organism.
AI and biology are advancing by leaps and bounds. They also merging. Prof. Bongard will discuss one such intersection point: the creation of a “xenobot”, the world’s first organism designed by an AI. Prof. Bongard will focus on the implications of this for our students: How do we prepare the next generation to live, work, and thrive in a future filled with creatures that are mixtures of living and technological components? How do we help them to cultivate respect for life, at the same time that they direct future AI systems to stretch living systems into new forms and functions?
