With the global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, CBI’s Symposium: “Just Code Power, Inequality and the Global Political Economy of IT,” has been rescheduled. It will be held, Friday and Saturday, October 23 and 24, 2020, as a hybrid physical and virtual symposium, or entirely a virtual symposium/conference, based on pandemic developments in the coming months, the policy of our university and others, our authors/speakers’ preferences, and with the safety and well-being of all as the foremost consideration. More than 70 people had registered for the May event, and we will poll those registered closer to the event to see if they will be attending/virtually attending, and will reopen registering to others.
In addition to tremendous and generous support from the College of Science and Engineering, the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Program, and University Libraries, we received major support from department and centers from five different colleges. This includes our Principal Department Co-Sponsor in Computer Science and Engineering, and Primary Co-Sponsors: The China Center, Minnesota Center for the Philosophy of Science, Writing Studies Department. We are grateful for this tremendous support.
These University of Minnesota colleges, departments, programs, and centers, as well as others, coupled with our stellar program of speakers on our highly competitive program, strengthened CBI’s proposal to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to seek additional, substantial funding to support travel and provisions for the event. We were delighted to learn a couple months ago that the Sloan Foundation fully funded our proposal (Sloan Grant G-2020-12686). We look forward to an impactful and engaging symposium in October.
Jeffrey R. Yost
June 2020