Science non-fiction and the bottom billion: Evolving fairer frameworks for the future

Our third seminar for Lent term: February 22nd, 2016

“Microfinance innovation for financial inclusion in developing economies”

Speaker: Karl Prince, Judge Business School

More information will follow soon!

The event is free, but we recommend booking a space above. If you cannot attend the seminar in person, but would like to attend the seminar online, please register on Go-To-Webinar, here. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Cambridge is a global leader in science and technology. Advances pioneered in Cambridge have made, and will continue to make, a significant impact on the lives of the world’s poorest and most marginalised people, both positive and negative. All too often though, such advances are implemented and start having an effect long before legal and policy frameworks are evolved to regulate these effects. And such frameworks tend to remain several steps behind the possibilities that technological advances enable. Examples include digital communications and concerns regarding intellectual property and surveillance, and the risks and opportunities of genomics in such fields as agriculture and medicine.

We suggest that this does not need to remain the case. Taking a case study approach, this seminar series aims to catalyse thinking in the arts, social sciences and humanities so that understanding of the political, social, economic and cultural implications of technological advances matures at a similar rate to that of the process of scientific innovation. We propose that if those responsible for evolving and implementing political, regulatory and policy frameworks are more future-ready with regard to scientific and technological advances, it is more likely that the interests of those who lack power and influence because they are poor and marginalised will be better served.

This seminar series challenges academics in the arts, social sciences and humanities to imagine futures significantly affected by work presently being undertaken in Cambridge in the physical and biological sciences and in technology. Participants will be invited to consider what such advances in science and technology might mean from the perspectives of their own disciplines, and what work could be done in each discipline to enhance the positive, and ameliorate the negative, impacts for those living in poverty in developing regions.

Conveners

Lara Allen (Centre for Global Equality previously the Humanitarian Centre)
Alan Blackwell (Computer Laboratory)
Robert Doubleday (Centre for Science and Policy)
Sharath Srinavasan (Centre of Governance and Human Rights, POLIS)
Bhaskar Vira (Department of Geography)

This seminar is part of a series titled "Science non-Fiction and the Bottom Billion: Evolving Fairer Frameworks for the Future", which is funded and hosted by the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge.