The Role of Innovation in Addressing Algorithmic Discrimination | Canopy Social Impact Series

By the European Parliament resolution on fundamental rights implications of Big Data, the Big Data sector is growing by 40% per year, creating unprecedented shifts in the balance of power between citizens, governments, and the private sector. With the increase in the influence that Big Data exert on us, the question of algorithmic discrimination arises more and more often. Nowadays, Artificial Intelligence is responsible for determination of results we get on Google, the ads we see on the websites, the interest rate that is provided to us by banks, the characteristics of insurance we can get. The main questions here are how to eliminate the prejudices of artificial intelligence when decision-making algorithms decide the fate of people and how to ensure equality of opportunities in the work of AI algorithms?

These questions and much more will be discussed at Canopy Social Impact Series: The Role of Innovation in Addressing Algorithmic Discrimination. Join the discussion on Wednesday, June 28, from 6:00 PM to 9:30 PM at Microsoft NERD, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142.

Moderator

Matt Hoey - Co-Founder, Canopy City
Matthew Hoey is the Co-founder & Managing Director of Canopy City. Prior to cofounding Canopy City, he served an emerging technology & international security analyst to the private sector, governmental and NGO based clients. Additional and most recently, Hoey was the Partnership Manager at the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge (MIT EF) and the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL).

Panelists

Panelist 1 - Kade Crockford, Director, Technology for Liberty Program, American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts (ACLU) where she serves as the Director of the Technology for Liberty Program of the ACLU of Massachusetts. Kade works to protect and expand the First and Fouth Amendment rights and civil liberties in the digital 21st century focusing on how systems of surveillance and control impact not just for the society in general but their primary targets - people of color, Muslims, immigrants, and dissidents.

Panelist 2 - Caitriona Fitzgerald, Chief Technology Officer, and EPIC Policy Director. In her capacity as EPIC Policy Director, she provides expertise to shape strong privacy and open government laws at both the state and federal level. Her work as CTO focuses on improving EPIC's web presence. Based in Somerville, Massachusetts, Caitriona is building a Boston-area presence for EPIC. She recently co-authored The Secret Ballot at Risk: Recommendations for Protecting Democracy, a report highlighting the right to a secret ballot and how Internet voting threatens voter privacy.

Panelist 3 - Brian Olson has been a professional software engineer on everything from tiny embedded computers to server farms, at tiny startups to giants of tech. His passion project for over ten years has been to maintain open source software around redistricting and elections. He has been working on Gerrymandering for a number of years and focusing on using algorithms to be perfectly fair and impartial, this work has been cited in the Washington Post, journaled articles, and presented at TEDx Cambridge. http://bdistricting.com/

Panelist 4 - Sara Cable, Director, Data Privacy & Security and Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General. [To be final confirmed] Ms. Cable investigates and prosecutes violations of the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act and the Massachusetts data breach notification laws and data security regulations. She has reviewed thousands of data breach notices submitted under Massachusetts law, regularly reviews and investigates data security incidents, works with businesses to improve their data security and breach reporting practices, and is a frequent presenter on Massachusetts data security/breach laws. She is also a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US). Previously, Ms. Cable was a litigation associate at Bingham McCutchen LLP, where she litigated commercial disputes featuring unfair trade practice, antitrust, and intellectual property claims.

Panelist 5 - Sheila A. Hubbard, Commissioner for the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) from February 2017. [To be final confirmed] Commissioner Hubbard is an experienced public and non-profit sector attorney, and concurrently serves as Commissioner of the Massachusetts Access to Justice Commission. Commissioner Hubbard was also Associate Director of the Bernard Koteen Office of Public Interest Advising at her alma mater of Harvard Law School and Senior Program Director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. After serving under City of Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn as an attorney, policy analyst and the Director of the Minority and Women Business Office, Hubbard joined the Weld Administration as Deputy Legal Counsel and was later appointed Chair of the Massachusetts Parole Board. A member of the Massachusetts Bar, Commissioner Hubbard graduated from Yale with a B.S. in Sociology and Political Science before attending Harvard Law School.

Agenda
6:00 - Doors open
6:30 - An overview of the Canopy mission & community services provided
6:35 - Presentation
7:30 - Moderated group discussion begins
8:30 - Panel Q&A begins
9:00 - EPIC.org is introduced and a 30-minute networking session begins
9:30 - Our second Canopy Social Impact Series event concludes

For more information, please visit https://goo.gl/t4f2sZ

Join us for the Canopy Social Impact Event Series on June 28!

Every quarter, Canopy will be hosting a vibrant discussion that focuses on the most pressing local, national and global issues facing us today. By bringing together local, national and internationally-renowned experts who are working towards solutions to the same problems, in distinctly different realms--such as government, academia, and the tech sector--we can galvanize their efforts and amplify their positive impact. We also believe that by sparking these untapped collaborations and this cross-pollination of ideas, we can collectively tackle our most complex challenges more efficiently and more effectively.

Creating diverse panels that are open to the public will also serve as a catalyst for reaching equally diverse audiences. Canopy's outreach efforts extend into the public schools, churches, technology companies, nonprofits, startups, coffee shops, college campuses and community centers--and are further enhanced by taking our message directly to the streets in grassroots fashion.

What is also unique is the addition of a "Canopy Featured Nonprofit" at every event. At the end of the moderated panel discussion, we will introduce our featured nonprofit, who is hitting the respective challenge head on. Attendees are then encouraged to visit that nonprofit's information table to sign petitions and volunteer forms, receive informative pamphlets and purchase merchandise.

The Canopy Social Impact Event Series model strives to:
(1) Connect people and cross-pollinate ideas
(2) Educate attendees and panelists
(3) Provide opportunities to get involved by supporting a local nonprofit either financially or through direct involvement.

So in three words, the objective of the Canopy Social Impact Event series is to:
Cross-pollinate. Educate. Activate.

All funds raised through individual event donations are split 50/50 with the Canopy Featured Nonprofit. This is intended to empower their work and to keep the event series sustainable.
We encourage you to make a contribution of any size to help us continue this mission.

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