Overview
Over two days this fall, the MIT Center for Constructive Communication will bring together some of the world’s leading researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and technologists to explore the evolving relationship between technology, dialogue, and civic engagement with the goal of hearing the humanity in others.
These two days of ideation and connection will include keynote conversations, interactive demos, presentations of ongoing activities in the field, and workshops. Participants will include Audrey Tang, John Ellis, Juan Enriquez, Hahrie Han, Claudia Chwalisz, Mitch Resnick, and Yasmin Green.
Prior to the meeting, attendees will be invited to sign up to record a small group conversation to share their perspectives. Then during the event, together we will explore how CCC’s human-steered AI tools make sense of these conversations, helping to shape the day’s agenda and demonstrate the power of listening.
Preliminary agenda and speaker bios are listed below. But please check in again closer to the event for more complete information.
Agenda
May 6th
8:30 a.m. Continental Breakfast
9:30 a.m. Welcome & Opening
10:15 a.m. Keynote Conversation
11:45 a.m. Workshops
1:15 p.m. Lunch
2:30 p.m. Keynote Conversation
3:45 p.m. Open House: Interactive Demos
5:15 p.m. Reception
May 7th
8:30 a.m. Continental Breakfast
9:30 a.m. Welcome Back
9:45 a.m. Keynote Conversation
11:00 a.m. Workshops
1:00 p.m. Lunch
2:00 p.m. Keynote Conversation
3:00 p.m. Closing Remarks
Participants
Claudia Chwalisz is the founder and CEO of DemocracyNext (DemNext), an international research and action institute focused on scaling high-quality, empowered, and permanent citizens’ assemblies. She co-leads the Pop-Up Lab on Tech-Enhanced Citizens’ Assemblies, a joint initiative with the MIT Center for Constructive Communication, as well as DemNext’s work with governments, museums, cooperatives, and other organizations innovating governance with sortition, deliberation, and rotation. She has helped design the world’s first permanent citizens’ assemblies, and is the co-author or author of numerous recent papers: “AI, Democratic Deliberation, and Scale” (2025, forthcoming), “From Recommendations to Implementation: Lessons from the Permanent Paris Assembly” (2025), “The Case for Local and Regional Public Engagement in Governing Artificial Intelligence” (2025), “More-than-Human Governance Experiments in Europe” (2024), “Six Ways to Democratise City Planning” (2024), “Spatial Models for a New Democratic Paradigm” (2024), as well as DemNext’s “Assembling an Assembly Guide” (2024). Previously, Chwalisz led the OECD’s work on innovative citizen participation from 2018–2022, creating the Deliberative Democracy Toolbox. She was named a 2023 Obama Leader Europe and an International Strategy Forum Fellow, and serves on the advisory boards of the UN Democracy Fund, MIT’s Center for Constructive Communication, The Data Tank, and Design & Democracy.
John Ellis is the founder and editor of News Items, a daily newsletter that covers “the future coming at you,” in global politics, financial markets, advanced technologies and science. He has been in and around the news business for virtually all of his adult life, working for NBC News (as a political analyst), The Boston Globe (as a columnist), Fox News, (as head of the Election Night Decision Desk) and News Corp. Mr. Ellis is a graduate of Yale University (class of 1976) and was the Appleman Fellow at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard’s JFK School of Government (1989-1990). He also was a senior fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics (1991-1992) and a senior fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (2002-2004), focusing on “future threats.” He was awarded The Outstanding Civilian Service Award by the US Army for his work at West Point.
Juan Enriquez is a leading authority on the economic impact of life sciences and brain research on business and society, as well as an entrepreneur. The founding director of Harvard Business School’s Life Sciences Project, a research affiliate at MIT’s synthetic neurobiology lab, and co-founder of Excel Venture Management, he helped build the world’s first synthetic life form, programmable cells, RNA desktop printer, stapled peptides, and portable MRI reader. As a business leader and speaker, Enriquez helps CEOs and heads of state adapt to a world where the dominant language is shifting from the digital towards the language of life. Author and co-author of multiple bestsellers including As the Future Catches You: How Genomics Will Change Your Life, Work, Health, and Wealth (1999); The United States of America: Polarization, Fracturing and Our Future (2005); Evolving Ourselves: Redesigning Humanity One Gene at a Time (2015); and Right/ Wrong: How Technology Transforms Our Ethics (2020). He graduated from Harvard with a B.A. and an M.B.A, and serves on multiple for-profit and nonprofit boards.
Yasmin Green is the CEO of Jigsaw, an interdisciplinary unit within Google that builds technology to address a range of global security challenges. During her 17 years at Google, she has served in a variety of roles, including strategy, business development, and operations in Europe, the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Green is co-chair of the Aspen Cybersecurity Group, a senior advisor to MIT’s Center for Constructive Communication and sits on the board of the Anti-Defamation League. She has been named one of Fortune’s “40 Under 40” most influential young leaders, and one of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business.”
Hahrie Han is the inaugural director of the SNF Agora Institute, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Professor of Political Science, and faculty director of the P3 Research Lab at Johns Hopkins University. She is an award-winning author of five books and numerous scholarly articles. Her latest book, Undivided (2024), about faith and race in America with a focus on evangelical megachurches, was named to the New York Times 2024 list of 100 Notable Books of the Year, as well as the New Yorker‘s list of Recommended Books for 2024. She has also written for scholarly and public outlets ranging from the New York Times and the Washington Post to the American Political Science Review, Nature Human Behavior, and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, was named a 2022 Social Innovation Thought Leader of the Year by the World Economic Forum’s Schwab Foundation, and delivered the Tanner Lectures at Harvard University in 2024.
Mitchel Resnick, Professor of Learning Research at the MIT Media Lab, develops technologies and activities that help young people develop as creative, curious, caring, and collaborative learners. His Lifelong Kindergarten research group developed Scratch, the world’s most popular coding platform for children, used by more than 100 million young people around the world. The group recently launched OctoStudio, a free coding app that enables young people to express themselves creatively with mobile devices. Resnick has collaborated with the LEGO Company on the development of playful educational ideas and products, including the LEGO Mindstorms robotics kits. He also co-founded the Computer Clubhouse global network of 100 after-school learning centers for youth from marginalized communities. Resnick earned an undergraduate degree in physics from Princeton, and a Masters and PhD degrees in computer science from MIT. He is author or co-author of several books, including Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play (2017).
Audrey Tang is Taiwan’s Cyber Ambassador and former Minister of Digital Affairs. A pioneer in free and open-source software, Tang played a crucial role in shaping g0v (gov-zero), one of the most prominent civic tech movements worldwide. In 2014, she helped broadcast the demands of the Sunflower Movement, a coalition of students and civic groups in Taiwan, and worked to resolve conflicts during a three-week occupation of Taiwan’s Legislature. Tang became an advisor to the minister in charge of digital participation, before holding that position in 2016. Tang’s notable achievements include leading Taiwan’s digital COVID-19 response, safeguarding its elections from cyber interference, and spearheading digital democracy initiatives, for which she was recognized by TIME as one of 100 “Most Influential People in AI” in 2023.
Questions
Questions? Send email to deb-roy-cccevent@media.mit.edu
