June 1, 2021

The Power of Digital and Data to Reshape our World-Podcast

Every time you go on a website, look something up online, or use social media, your data is being collected and stored. This week on Imagination in Action, we learn how that can actually be a good thing, and how we can make data work for us instead of against us. We host Sandy Pentland, a professor at of media arts and sciences and the Director of MIT’s Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program, Claire Melamed the CEO of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, Stephen Coller an advisor for Kanopy and the Senior Program Officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, William Hoffman the Associate Director of the World Economic Forum, and Esther Dyson the Executive Founder of Wellville and the Director of Element3 Health, who speak about the power of digital data. Learn about the importance of data literacy, how we can use our data to improve our healthcare systems, and how top entrepreneurs are empowering individuals and communities to take control of their data and power away from Big Tech’s most massive players. With music from Caroline Goulding on the violin and Cory Pesaturo on the accordion, learn about how, as Sandy Pentland describes it, we’re “at a crossroads where it could go in a direction that makes George Orwell's 1984 look like it was not very imaginative or extensive” and how we can make sure that we go in the right direction.

Speakers

Sandy Pentland

Professor, MIT Media Lab, Sloan Business School, Institute for Data, Systems, and Society

Stephen Coller

Advisor, Kanopy; Senior Program Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Esther Dyson

investor, fact-checker, FORMER Yandex board member, Star City graduate

Claire Melamed

CEO, Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data

William Hoffman

Associate Director, World Economic Forum

Highlights

Show Summary

Every time you go on a website, look something up online, or use social media, your data is being collected and stored. This week on Imagination in Action, we learn how that can actually be a good thing, and how we can make data work for us instead of against us. We host Sandy Pentland, a professor at of media arts and sciences and the Director of MIT’s Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program, Claire Melamed the CEO of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, Stephen Coller an advisor for Kanopy and the Senior Program Officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, William Hoffman the Associate Director of the World Economic Forum, and Esther Dyson the Executive Founder of Wellville and the Director of Element3 Health, who speak about the power of digital data. Learn about the importance of data literacy, how we can use our data to improve our healthcare systems, and how top entrepreneurs are empowering individuals and communities to take control of their data and power away from Big Tech’s most massive players. With music from Caroline Goulding on the violin and Cory Pesaturo on the accordion, learn about how, as Sandy Pentland describes it, we’re “at a crossroads where it could go in a direction that makes George Orwell's 1984 look like it was not very imaginative or extensive” and how we can make sure that we go in the right direction.