Making diversity tangible to computer science students

Diversity acknowledges difference. Diversity in technology means the aspects of diversity such as race, gender are primary drivers of design and development. The computer sciences has been criticized as overlooking the diverse make-up of persons. This has had consequences on technology use and acceptability and led to e.g. biased and oppressive systems. It is important to consider diversity in the design and development of technology but how can this be made tangible to computer science students who will end up in the major tech development and research world?
In this talk, I will present the challenge as pertains to driving tech development using diversity and present examples from my lecture course “Innovating Smart Things for the Home”. In this course, the role of diversity is explored in technological innovation. We will consider other example scenarios and possibilities where diversity can be made more tangible to computer science students.

The talk is available online. For further information visit the Informatica Feminale website. Find out more about Dankwa's research on our website.