Global Horizons Senior Fellow, SCAS.
Associate Professor of Global Digital Media, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

ABSTRACT:
Situated within current geopolitics and historical Afro-Sino engagements, this talk will focus on some of the ways that the logics and discourses of Chinese technological production intersect with African techno-imaginaries. Specifically, I will map the socio-technical practices that link Africa and China via the design and uses of AI, computing hardware, and data flows, primarily outside of state and state-sponsored projects. Through this, I provide evidence for how particular techno-futures are being made, adapted, and refused by entrepreneurs and citizens ‘on-the-ground’ amid changing geo- and techno-politics.