Michael Kibedi

Michael Kibedi (he/him) is a design researcher and writer of First & Fifteenth — a biweekly newsletter featuring his essays on human-computer interaction, conceptual art, and data justice. 

Michael’s design research aims to inspire audiences to adopt more critical responses to the utopian ideals prevalent in the technology industry today. 

Michael has spoken at The Conference, a technology, futures and ecology conference in Malmö; UNPARSED, a conversational AI conference in London; ffconf, a developers’ conference in Brighton for people concerned about the future of the web; and UX Camp in Brighton in 2023 and 2024, where his 2023 talk on speech recognition and accent bias "Why do Alexa and Siri sound the same?" was voted an attendees’ favourite. 
 

As empathetic practitioners, we design products and services so as many people as possible can participate in our digital economy — but what about those who choose not to engage with, or use our digital services? 

In this talk, Michael will challenge the prevailing belief that as many people as possible must participate in our digital economies. Michael will argue that corrective actions for expanding digital participation are derived from a deficit model of thinking — that the people who do not participate are in this situation because of something they lack: a computer, a smartphone, high speed internet. All of these are very real issues that need addressing, and many do heroic work — individually, team by team, company by company — to expand digital participation. But as we zoom out to consider the effect across wider society, Michael will show that it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to exercise choice towards their participation in our digital economies. 

Michael invites us to consider non-participation, or the act of "saying no", as a reclamation of agency, a declaration of individual freedom, and as a form of resistance against dominant cultural, gender, and racial norms embedded in our technological ecosystems.

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