What Democracy Means in Everyday Life Series: Civic Engagement & Technology

At the time of the 2024 election, we found that candidates and the media never explained what democracy means to people’s everyday lives and it continues to be part of the nation’s conversation today.  To help people answer this question, the LWVMA Voter Engagement Committee has sponsored two recorded programs, in its “What Democracy Means in Everyday Life” series:

1. Voter Engagement. 
2. Intersectionality of Democracy and Immigration

We are pleased to announce our next program, “Civic Engagement & Technology.”  Our panelists discuss the challenges, complexities, and risks technology can play in citizen participation in democracy. Click here to view the program. 

Panelists

Kade Crockford, Director of Technology and Justice Programs at the ACLU of Massachusetts, leads statewide and municipal campaigns across Massachusetts on issues at the intersection of technology and civil rights and liberties. Kade has worked with coalition partners to pass the country’s first statewide regulations of police use of facial recognition technology. This led to the passage of eight municipal bans on government use of face surveillance, including in Boston, Cambridge, Worcester, and Springfield. Today, Kade works with coalition partners across Massachusetts on a range of issues including digital privacy, surveillance, artificial intelligence and automated decision systems, and free expression. 

Laura Edelson is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Northeastern University. Her research focuses on understanding the spread of harmful content on large online networks and on the use of data donation to understand social media algorithmic systems. She has also written about the need for transparency about social media algorithms in opinion writing for Scientific American and the New York Times. She is the co-Director of Cybersecurity for Democracy and the former Chief Technologist of the Antitrust Division and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

Sanya Nadeem is a rising high school senior and a Girl Scout who recently completed her Gold Award project. Sanya  is the founder and president of The V.O.T.E. Movement, a youth-led nonprofit dedicated to increasing voter turnout in local elections. After leading  civic engagement projects in her own town, she now empowers youth across the country to boost turnout in their community. Sanya has completed several fellowships and internships at the local, state, and federal levels. She is an inspirational leader in her school: the elected Student Government Vice President, President of Speech and Model UN, and Editor-in-Chief and political editor of her school newspaper.

Facilitator

Nina Shamsi is a PhD candidate in Electrical Engineering at Northeastern University, where her research has contributed to large-scale brain mapping and security of computer vision systems. She has published research from work done at both federally-funded research and development centers, including at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and in the private sector. Nina has an MSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she was selected as a member of an engineering honor society, Tau Beta Pi, and a B.A. in Biochemistry from Mount Holyoke College. Nina is also a member-at-large of the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts.