Dr. Wendy Wong is a Professor of Political Science and Principal’s Research Chair at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan (located on Sylix Okanagan Nation Territory). She received her PhD from the University of California, San Diego, a top political science program in the United States. She is the author of the book, We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age, published by MIT Press. She has written two other award-winning books, Internal Affairs and The Authority Trap (with Sarah S. Stroup), both published by Cornell University Press. She has penned dozens of peer-reviewed articles and chapters, and has appeared in outlets such as the CBC, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, and The Conversation. Dr. Wong has been awarded grants from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, among other granting agencies.

In a discussion about Wong’s book, attendees will gain insight into:

• Challenges posed by datafication on personhood: Participants will understand how data about our daily, minute-to-minute activities fundamentally changes the human experience.
• Applying human rights in the digital age: Participants will see how “plug and play” methods to apply human rights in analog situation to the digital context do not work well, because of the nature of data about people.
• The role of corporations as governors: Participants will understand how “Big Tech” is big beyond financial terms, and what this means for various social and political institutions
• Why data literacy can help create data stakeholders: Participants will learn the link between data literacy and stakeholdership, and why AI governance needs us all to engage with both of these activities.