Emerging digital technologies are affecting the way society communicates. These technologies have the potential to open new frontiers of innovation and tackle social, economic and political challenges, but they also have risks. Artificial Intelligence (AI), for instance, could help scientists identify the cure for untreatable diseases, but it could also lead to discrimination due to imprecise facial recognition. That is the background for the Emerging Digital Technologies Seminar, led by Mohammad Zia, a former researcher at Harvard University and Fulbright scholar, who will be a professor at FGV ECMI this academic year.  The event seeks to:

• Teach students the fundamentals of the most relevant emerging digital technologies in current times
• Challenge students to participate in debates on governance

Students will be challenged to think critically about the best way to communicate the complex dynamics of digital technologies and to analyze how these technologies affect communication media. The course will be interdisciplinary and open to undergraduate and graduate students, with a priority given to FGV ECMI undergraduate students.

The workshop will be held in 3 sessions, always from 4pm to 5:30pm:

• Session 1: April 25 (Thu)
• Session 2: May 28 (Tue)
• Session 3: June 6 (Thu)

The sessions will consist of debates based articles indicated as mandatory reading before each session. Since it is a short-duration seminar, receiving a participation certificate requires attending all three sessions.  

Mohammad Usman Zia is from the United States but has been living in Brazil for more than two years. Mohammad studied law, economics and diplomacy and has professional experience with AI, sustainable energy, data privacy, blockchain, and extended reality. Mohammad is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and completed his graduate course at Harvard Law School (JD) and at the University of Oxford (MPP).

Mohammad worked at the World Bank and is a Fulbright, Truman, and Luce scholar with experience in emerging economies, including Brazil. Mohammad first came to Latin American in order to study Spanish and Portuguese. He returned later to conclude a research funded by Harvard University.