Programming Our Future: Creating a Racially-Equitable Digital Economy

Virtual Event RSVP: go.umd.edu/AFAM_ABRI-BHM2022-reg

Description:

This event will be an in-depth conversation with experts and policymakers about the educational, economic, and environmental future of African American communities. Guest panelists and moderators will discuss the digital divide, the dearth of African Americans in Silicon Valley, and what impact the new Infrastructure Bill will have on job creation and health. Additionally, the panel will explore how technology could be one factor in the creation of wealth for Black families.

About The Panelists:

Dr. Nicol Turner Lee is a senior fellow in Governance Studies, the director of the Center for Technology Innovation, and serves as Co-Editor-In-Chief of TechTank. Dr. Turner Lee researches public policy designed to enable equitable access to technology across the U.S. and to harness its power to create change in communities across the world.  Her work also explores global and domestic broadband deployment and internet governance issues. She is an expert on the intersection of race, wealth, and technology within the context of civic engagement, criminal justice, and economic development. Dr. Turner Lee comes to Brookings from the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC), a national non-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting and preserving equal opportunity and civil rights in the mass media, telecommunications, and broadband industries, where she served as vice president and chief research and policy officer. In this role, she led the design and implementation of their research, policy and advocacy agendas.

Dr. Jennifer D. Roberts is an Associate Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. Her scholarship focuses on the impact of built, social and natural environments, including the institutional and structural inequities of these environments, on physical activity and public health outcomes of marginalized communities.  She is also the Founder and Director of the Public Health Outcomes and Effects of the Built Environment (PHOEBE) Laboratory as well as the Co-Founder and Co-Director of NatureRx@UMD.

Congressman Ro Khanna represents California’s 17th Congressional District, located in the heart of Silicon Valley, and is serving in his third term. Rep. Khanna sits on the House Agriculture, Armed Services, and Oversight and Reform committees, where he chairs the Environmental Subcommittee. Additionally, Rep. Khanna is the Deputy Whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus; serves as an Assistant Whip for the Democratic Caucus and is the Democratic Vice Chair of the House Caucus on India and Indian Americans. Rep. Khanna is committed to representing the people and ideas rooted in Silicon Valley to the nation and throughout the world.

About The Moderators:

Dr. Rashawn Ray is Professor of Sociology and Executive Director of the Lab for Applied Social Science Research (LASSR) at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is also a Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution. Ray is one of the co-editors of Contexts Magazine: Sociology for the Public. Formerly, Ray was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Health Policy Research Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley and he currently serves on the National Advisory Committee for the RWJF Health Policy Research Scholars Program.

Dr. Jason Nichols is an award winning full-time senior lecturer in the African American Studies Department at the University of Maryland College Park and was the longtime editor-in-chief of Words Beats & Life: The Global Journal of Hip-Hop Culture, the first peer-reviewed journal of Hip-hop Studies. He co-edited La Verdad: An International Dialogue on Hip-Hop Latinidades (Ohio State University Press). Jason Nichols has been recognized by the University of Maryland community for his tireless effort to help students develop.  In 2018, the Office of Multicultural Student Education gave Dr. Nichols the Academic Excellence Award for Outstanding Faculty and the Student Success Leadership Council awarded him the M. Lucia James Impact Award. In 2015, Dr. Nichols was given the Faculty Advisor of the Year Award by the UMCP NAACP.