Looking Forward, a Busy Month for the IDH

The Institute for Digital Humanity is gearing up for a busy month, they will be headed to South by Southwest (SXSW) and the MALSB conference. SXSW is a well-known conference in Austin, Texas that features many speakers and artists and the IDH fits right in. All types of social, digital, and economic issues are discussed and it is a great opportunity for the IDH to boast previous accomplishments as well as strong partnerships they continue to acquire. 

The IDH is currently partnered with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to create a high school curriculum that informs younger generations on digital and algorithmic issues. This curriculum will soon have “potentially millions of kids hitting the website to learn about that” (IDH Curriculum Page). The IDH is also developing a curriculum catered to higher education through their partnership with Indiana University.

The IDH does not only fight from the sideline, they have been collaborating with students from Stanford to get the use of facial recognition banned in Minneapolis. Aided by the IDH’s push, city officials announced that the use of facial recognition software will be banned from use by the police force. For more information on facial recognition software look here on the IDH website.

Another feather in the IDH’s cap is their partnership with PBS’s Coded Bias. A film that dives into the harms of algorithms and their potential biases, which the IDH happens to be experts on. The IDH also plans to present a paper on algorithmic bias in the employment process at a conference hosted by the Midwest Academy of Legal Studies in Business. To be more specific the paper focuses on the use of algorithms during certain stages of the hiring process that can often lead to harmful biases. 

Watch a panel on algorithmic bias that includes Coded Bias’ director and the IDH’s own Thomas Freeman.

To learn more about algorithmic discrimination visit www.institutefordigitalhumanity.org