Making diversity tangible to computer science students
Nana Kesewaa Dankwa
Scientific Researcher PhD Candidate, Gender/Diversity in Informatics Systems, University of Kassel
Video available starting from Monday, 24th August 2020
Diversity acknowledges difference. Diversity in technology means the aspects of diversity such as race, gender are primary drivers of design and development. The computer sciences has been criticized as overlooking the diverse make-up of persons. This has had consequences on technology use and acceptability and led to e.g. biased and oppressive systems. It is important to consider diversity in the design and development of technology but how can this be made tangible to computer science students who will end up in the major tech development and research world?
In this talk, I will present the challenge as pertains to driving tech development using diversity and present examples from my lecture course “Innovating Smart Things for the Home”. In this course, the role of diversity is explored in technological innovation. We will consider other example scenarios and possibilities where diversity can be made more tangible to computer science students.
About the lecturer:
Nana Kesewaa Dankwa is currently a PhD candidate in computer science at the University of Kassel. She holds a Master of Science in Computer Science and Media from the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany and a Master of Science in Information Technology from the Sikkim Manipal University in India. Her undergraduate studies in Ghana was in Computer Science and Mathematics. Her research interests are in human computer interaction, socially responsible computing and user experience. She is currently working on the INTeGER project and has major interests in exploring participatory design methods that influence non-bias in technology innovation. She is also interested in the themes of race, culture as well as gender and diversity and its relationship with cooperative collaboration and technology innovation. Her previous research work focused on co-creation techniques and sustainability in student living spaces and understanding user motivations for playing location based games.