When Big Tech rules universities: reclaiming academic freedom through digital sovereignty

  • Panel
  • Maritime
  • Thursday 21.05 — 16:00 - 17:15

Organising Institution

AlgoSoc

Netherlands

AlgoSoc is a program of ground-breaking research into the relationship between technology and society funded by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW). It investigates how we can ensure that automated decision-making systems respect and realise public values and human rights in the Algorithmic Society (AlgoSoc) .
  • Academic 3
  • Business 1
  • Policy 2
Digital infrastructures are essential resources enabling research and education. Now, however, universities that have long made themselves dependent on cloud services provided by BigTech are additionally incorporating a variety of AI-tools that it offers. This does not only come with risks to privacy, data protection, and security, but also threatens the very core of universities: academic freedom. Firstly, such freedom – next to scientific advancements and institutional autonomy – may fall victim to changes in transatlantic relations. Secondly, though less manifestly, academia may become shaped by economic rather than public values, such as research integrity. This panel will consider whether the use of alternative research infrastructures by universities – opposing Big Tech’s dominance – is feasible and can preserve universities’ independence by enhancing digital sovereignty, which is a prerequisite for academic freedom in the age of AI and cloud computing.

Questions to be answered

  1. How deeply does infrastructural dependency affect academic freedom?
  2. What are the obstacles to digital sovereignty for universities and research institutions and why it is so difficult to to choose alternatives?
  3. What could make a change? What tools do we have and are they actually helpful?
  4. Which is the one thing that policy makers and/or regulators must do?

Moderator

Maria Luisa Stasi

Article 19 - Europe

Head of Law and Policy for digital markets at the fundamental rights NGO ARTICLE 19, with extensive experience in the digital governance debate.

Speaker

Cecilia Rikap

University College London - International

Associate Professor in Political Economy and Head of Research at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at UCL, London. Her latest book “The Rulers: Corporate Power in the Age of AI and the Cloud” is coming out later this year and I hope she will tell us more about her research in Brussels

Speaker

Natali Helberger

University of Amsterdam - Netherlands

Distinguished University Professor for Law and Digital Technology, with a special focus on AI, and co-founder and director of the Algosoc consortium, a consortium of 5 Dutch universities and 75+ researchers to do research into the realisation of public values in the algorithmic society

Speaker

Wladimir Mufty

SURF - Netherlands

Program manager at Surf, the Dutch IT cooperative of Dutch education and research. Wladimir is a vocal proponent and driver behind initiatives at the Dutch universities to develop alternatives to Microsoft that is currently dominating the Dutch educational sector. He is also one of the masterminds behind setting up with us the NextCloud pilot of the Algosoc project

Speaker

Frank Karlitschek

Nextcloud - International

Frank Karlitschek is a long time open source contributor and former board member of the KDE e.V. He founded Nextcloud in 2016 to create a fully open source and decentralized alternative to big centralized cloud companies. Frank was an invited expert at the W3C to help to create the ActivityPub standard. Frank has spoken at MIT, CERN, Harvard and ETH and keynoted LinuxCon, Latinoware, FOSSASIA, Campus Party and many other conferences. Frank is the founder and CEO of Nextcloud GmbH. He is also a fellow of Open Forum Europe and an advisor to the United Nations regarding Open Source. Frank won the European SFS Free Software Award 2023 and the Acteurs du Libre European Award 2023.