In February this year at a Web Science Trust Board meeting Oshani Seneviratne made a comment that she was going to visit her family tea plantation in Sri Lanka. Little did she realise that this gave me the perfect excuse to make a visit to this wonderful country, to experience the deep history and culture, enjoy the gracious hospitality and as a bonus hold our 29th Brave Conversations.
Brave Conversations began with the challenge of
encouraging debate, critical thinking, creative design and social awareness in order to push the boundaries in terms of thinking about the World and the Web and our focus is on helping to develop “smart humans” for the digital age.
Since then I think we've achieved this throughout our events but they are only as successful as the humans who come along to participate and co-create the space.
For Brave Conversations Colombo Oshani worked very hard to find a local community who would do just this and she found it with our gracious hosts, UCSC senior lecturer Dilrukshi Gamage, Ph.D. and UCSC undergraduate student Viduranga Landers, who not only provided the space at the University of Colombo School of Computing but managed to get a sell-out event with a waiting list.
We were also ably supported by Fernando Spadea, Oshani's PhD student, who helped with facilitation and answered questions.
Brave Conversations Colombo took place within the global environment of:
The young people who joined us in Colombo were all Computer Science students eager to create new technical solutions or pursue research in the world of 'AI'. Oshani warned me that they would be introverts and it would be a challenge to get them to engage but she couldn't have been more wrong!
The group were curious, intelligent, respectful of each other and fully prepared to explore new ideas especially when it came to uncovering some of the more uncomfortable aspects of how increasingly sophisticated 'smart' systems are already changing how we live day to day, but also what the potential impacts might be.
We explored the world of transhumanism and how it might impact communities based on the Buddhist philosophies of the Five Precepts; we discussed some of the demographic changes occurring in Sri Lanka and we challenged some of the existing norms and expectations.
And Oshani learned how to use Professor Mark Moore's Strategic Triangle! As did everyone else - probably one of the most powerful tools that need to be applied when considering the development and use of 'smart' technologies.
This asks not only
What CAN we do?
What SHOULD we do?
but more importantly
What MAY we do?
Where does the authority come from to develop smart systems that will impact us all? Whose permission should we ask and who should be consulted?
This is not just the challenge of governments, it is the challenge of anyone developing anything that has far-reaching social consequences, and our digital technologies are at the centre of this today.
This is the bit that is all too often missed and it is at the CORE of what the interdisciplinary framework and academic study of Web Science seeks to bring to not only the academic debate, but the global conversation about how we want to live in a world full of 'smart machines'.
As always I learned as much as (if not more than!) the participants and my trip to this wonderful country was only enhanced by this experience.
I would like to thank everyone involved, but above all Oshani Seneviratne who really hosted me beautifully and enabled me to get a glimpse of what the younger generation in Sri Lanka are thinking and hoping for their futures.
I would also like to put out a big thanks to Viduranga Landers who rounded up his trusty band of the USCS ACM Student Chapter to help on the day.
Social media links to the event:
https://bsky.app/profile/websciencetrust.bsky.social/post/3m6kd6hjwmc2v
https://x.com/websciencetrust/status/1993724995386949782
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7398697316183986177
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7398695601195933696/
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7397265025570127872/
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