Faculty researchers invited to propose talks for Purdue’s 2019 Dawn or Doom emerging technology conference

Worried about what Facebook and other apps are doing with your data? Not so hot on the idea of sharing the road with driverless trucks? Hoping new medical technologies will mean you can live forever, or at least a lot longer? Looking forward to retiring to that condo on Mars?

Dawn or Doom, Purdue’s annual conference examining risks and rewards of emerging technologies, has developed a tentative series of talk tracks for 2019 and is looking for faculty speakers from any field who want to present on research related to one of the tracks.

The proposed tracks include Machines, Mind, Body, Data and Space and will examine topics such as artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles and robots; genetically based, personalized and remote medicine; social media its current effects and its future; climate change; data gathering and analytics from personal, even in-body, devices and ubiquitous sensor networks as well as smart buildings, neighborhoods and cities; the dawn of commercial space travel and the drive to land humans on Mars; and more.

Faculty interested in speaking or suggesting a colleague as a speaker can contact conference Director Diana Hancock, hancockd@purdue.edu.

Celebrating its sixth anniversary Sept. 24 and 25, 2019, Dawn or Doom is designed to create a dialogue about the effects of rapidly emerging technologies and features Purdue faculty experts and national authorities as conference speakers.

The conference on Purdue’s West Lafayette campus attracted more than 7,000 participants in 2018. They heard from nearly two dozen Purdue researchers and featured speakers including Jaron Lanier, the father of virtual reality, Nicholas Carr, Pulitzer finalist and author of “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains,” and Naomi Grewal, global head of Insights at Pinterest.

The 2018 conference also was notable for the variety of related activities it included in collaboration with units throughout campus, from technology-themed art exhibits and a common book reading program to interactive virtual and augmented reality tours and an autonomous vehicle system demonstration.

Organizers are open to new campus collaborations for the 2019 Dawn or Doom conference and also are interested in working with faculty who want to build class assignments around Dawn or Doom.

For more information, visit www.purdue.edu/dawnordoom.

Dawn or Doom '19 is one of the culminating events this fall of Purdue's Giant Leaps Sesquicentennial Campaign and its Ideas Festival. The festival connects world-renowned speakers and Purdue expertise in conversations on critical problems and opportunities facing the world.

Last updated: Feb. 19, 2019