UNSW Centre for Ideas

When Nila Ibrahimi posted a video of herself online, singing proudly in protest of the ban on girls over 12 singing in public, she hoped the music would inspire young girls to continue their education. It was 2021 and the Taliban’s return to Afghanistan had come down swiftly on women's freedom. The video went viral and the ban was reversed, sending a powerful message across social media – women of Afghanistan would not be erased from public life. The Taliban would, however, go on to prohibit female education and Nila and her family would have to flee her homeland. Undeterred, Nila continues to advocate for Afghan girls from Canada.

Listen in to winner of the 2024 International Children’s Peace Prize Nila Ibrahimi in her first ever visit to Australia. In conversation with UNSW’s Verity Firth, they’ll unpack how peaceful grassroots activism can empower people of all ages to challenge authority and the importance of a right to education.
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Dr Karaitiana Taiuru is a leading global voice at the forefront of Māori data sovereignty and AI ethics. His practice draws on tikanga Māori and mātauranga Māori to facilitate conversations about the ways emerging technologies must uplift, protect and empower Indigenous knowledge, culture and communities.
Hear him in conversation with Dr Sue Keay, where he explores why protecting Māori knowledge as a living treasure is one of the most exciting and urgent challenges of our tech future.
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Angie Abdilla creates video installations interrogating Indigenous deeptime knowledges, automation and AI, focusing on technology as cultural practice. Her research, artworks and films have been exhibited at premier cultural institutions, including the current Data Dreams: Art and AI exhibition at the MCA, and previously, the United Nations; Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria; the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam; the Museum of Old and New Art, nipaluna/Hobart; and the Goethe-Institut, Sydney.
Her pioneering research on cultural governance for AI has influenced governments globally. She is the founder and director of Old Ways, New; co-founder of the Indigenous Protocols for AI working group; has won the inaugural Women in AI Award for Creative Industries; and is a Professor at the School of Cybernetics at the Australian National University.
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Every day, generative AI is pumping millions of new pictures into existence. Researcher and UNSW lecturer Dr Charu Maithani is redefining how we think about the images flooding our world, exposing how they capture only the narrowest sliver of human experience. Her work reveals how reimagining the way AI is trained – what it sees, learns, and absorbs from culture – defines our visual vocabulary and reshapes our collective imagination. Sometimes, what we don’t see is just as important as what we do.

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Richard Holden | Alan Kohler
Australia, a land of sweeping plains, has one of the lowest population densities on the planet. So, how did we end up with a housing shortage?

In conversation with economist and author Richard Holden, veteran finance journalist Alan Kohler’s new Quarterly Essay, The Great Divide: Australia’s Housing Crisis and How to Fix It, investigates where things went wrong at the start of the 21st century with escalating property prices leading to a rental crisis, a dearth of public housing and a mortgage crunch.

This event is presented by the Sydney Writers' Festival and supported by UNSW Sydney.
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