NYC Media Lab's Annual Summit | Kopal Dhariwal

NYC Media Lab is perfect platform for learning about innovation, media and technology. It is in collaboration with several corporations, companies & universities, which provides it a huge support and talent from across the city and country. Influenced by its vast network of design, technical, media and engineering researchers from the campuses in New York, the summit produces research, development and knowledge exchange through an open innovative and challenging ecosystem for upcoming media and technology trends in the industry. The summit has a goal of developing talent throughout the campuses in New York.The partnered universities and companies, involve and interact in events majorly about technology and new trends in media and discuss on issues on research and big data, connect with each other and with students and entrepreneurs and discuss upcoming projects that suits their interests. As an example, Hearst collaborated with a team MFA students at Parsons New School pursuing design and technology to produce mobile app prototypes. Also Verizon lately designed a project on flexible streaming video application by partnering with the electrical engineers from New York University. Computer scientists from New York University joined hands with Warner Cable to work on several computer trends and future scenarios.

Being a part of NYC Media lab Summit and attending the talks, conferences and discussions I was exposed to amazing content and talents.

• I got to meet executives from all over the city who talked about technology trends and upcoming issues with that.
• I got a chance to know new ideas from entrepreneurs and their startups.
• I experienced hands-on workshops, prototyping, interactive technology demonstrations, research and startup presentations of upcoming projects related to my areas of interest.
• I got to know and connect with many faculties, students, researchers, entrepreneurs and investors, and many great minds.

The summit kick started with an introduction from Justin Hendrix the Executive Director of NYC Media Lab. He took us through the full agenda for the day. He shared the details about their mission and why they support the upcoming technology innovations. Then the show followed up with few leadership speaks from the President of New York City College of Technology(CUNY) - Russell K. Hotzler, Vice Dean for Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship NYU Tandon School of Engineering - Kurt Becker, President of New York City Economic Development Corporation - James Patchett, NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, New York - Alia Jones.

The next was the Innovation Panel Discussion that one the best parts of the summit. There were five talented speakers in the Panel - Yael Eisenstat, R. Luke DuBois, Desmond Patton, Justin Hendrix and Tony Parisi. The discussion revolved around the topic how the advancement in human-computer interaction have resulted in change in the way we interact with information or entertainment or with each other. May it be computer or web or mobiles and any other devices there is drastic change. They further talked about what trends will influence the media and technology by 2030 and how will our lives be impacted from that.

I think going forward really understanding what it means to be human and reconnecting with that is the most important question we need to ask ourselves now.

Tony Parisi quoted. This is something we all need to ask ourselves.

The panel was really interesting and insightful but what was lacking was the discussion on climate. Although the talk was all about serious topics occuring in our society but climate is also a big factor that counts. The topics covered misinformation, deep fakes, health, marginalised groups, accessibility and jobs but what will happen when after sometime the planet will not remain habitable. We as citizens need to think about this factor as well when we talk about upcoming technologies in the future.

After the panel discussion few more speakers came and presented their works. One of the speakers, Amir Baradaran had some really good insights to share. He is an AI artist and art based researcher at Columbia University. He is the founder of a software called iBEGOO, a new development forum for experiences revolving around Artificial intelligence. It is designed and accessible for everyone, and it does not need any technical background. He tells how iBEGOO is trying to change the way people involved with storytelling. He also explains that currently there is a huge gap between what is actually happening and the big level talks about the upcoming trends in media and technology. He shares his progressive views on future for betterment of everyone. In his presentation he used a quote- “There is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons” by Gilles Deleuze which was a nice motivation for everyone. Later he gave a live public demonstration of iBEGOO.

If You design a tool that can be turned into a weapon, should you build it?

A question asked by Heidi Boisvert, shook all of our conscious from within. She is the Assistant Professor of Emerging Media Technologies at New York City College of Technology (CUNY). Her works are mostly about social change and social practices. Her goal is to help enable NGOs, cultural and educational organizations to create more impactful media. 

NYC Media Lab Demo Expo had over 80 demonstrations related to upcoming media and technology, each designed by talented entrepreneurs, faculty, students, and startups.The Demo Expo majorly featured new projects within the core technology areas of spatial commuting and future interfaces, data science, journalism, creative technology, future of storytelling etc. 

The Lost Bits by Archit Kaushisk was truly magical and mesmerising. I love how he conceptualised and put together the whole thing. It was definitely amazing and inspiring in many ways.

Screening: The Great Hack, a Netflix Original Documentary

The movie focuses on the presidential election in the United States in 2016 between Trump and Hillary Clinton. The movie emphasises on topic on the measure taken by the political parties to manipulate the voters, their opinions and their votes. David Carroll initiated the investigation against the data analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica to get his personal information back. He represents the real life victims who were taken advantage of. Britnany Kaiser, executive at the company is the main person who takes us through the whole story. All these people are interviewed in the movie and their problems are shown. A lot of cruel, harsh, hate filled messages are also seen in the movie. This documentary overcomes the challenge of combining the complicating information with extreme drama.

After attending the summit and listening to all the speakers and watching the movie what I felt and think is that “Internet - initially whose purpose was seen as beneficial for people. It was meant to be wonderful and connect the world. But now is going through a sad phase and a lot of pain. And will go on until the people control and stop the extreme social abuse. As we all are vulnerable to the same act as shown in the movie because we all are dependent on the network and technology to the greatest extent and we do not think before putting our information upfront on these platforms. There are plenty of predators preying and hungry for our information. These people are the ones who easily hack our systems, use our information, gets involved in terrorist activities and try to destroy the happy and safe ecosystem that we all wish to live in. The danger is just increasing day by day with upcoming technologies and trends in media. I think it is high time now that we all become careful and join hands and work together towards solving and overcoming this issue.”