Anniversary Science Café Reveals How Your Digital Footprint Is Used
The popularity of the English science lectures has surprised the organisers. Science Café, which was established a year ago, has attracted 60–200 participants every few weeks. The first anniversary event of Science Café explores what kind of information search engines, social media and other aspects of the digital world gather about their users.
Turku Science Café originates from the idea of Sabrina Maniscalco, the Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Turku. Doctoral Candidate Mikko Tukiainen and student Boris Sokolov have helped her in practical matters and organisation of the Café.
– I knew that people are interested in science and eager to know more about scientific topics, but I could not imagine that the numbers of participants would rise so quickly from 60 to 200, says Maniscalco.
Science Café has also inspired people to participate. The Science Café Facebook page already hosts a community of 400 people, who suggest topics and speakers to the next events.
– The excitement is also evident in that the Cafés do not end when people give a round of applause to the guest speaker. They stay and discuss the topic of the lecture, among themselves and with the expert, says Mikko Tukiainen.
Maniscalco believes that Science Café has bridged the gap between the Academic community on the University Hill – including students – and the rest of the city.
– I think that Science Café has had an impact on the way people view scientists, as they can see that we aren’t just antisocial and bizarre geeks but actually funny, cool and interesting as well as sociable. I think SC is seriously fun and we have had a lot of good laughs there too.
Your Digital Footprint Is a Commodity
Science Café will celebrate its first anniversary on 12 September at 5pm in the Aula Cafe at the Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova Museum. The guest speaker of the anniversary Science Café is Senior Lecturer in Information Technology Mats Neovius from Åbo Akademi University, whose topic is The digital <YOU>.
– Large companies, such as Google, Facebook and Twitter, have turned your digital self into a product. When surfing the web, people leave a digital footprint which the big companies sell as a commodity, says Neovius.
With the help of digital footprints, big companies can direct their online target marketing. For example, they have been able to predict the arrival of flu epidemics already a few days beforehand and made it possible to the retailers to market pharmaceuticals before the need for them manifests.
– People are not adequately aware how their digital footprint is used. For example, it would be naive to think that a smart phone does not send information about its user for target marketing. Of course, technology that makes it possible to form a digital self can also be used for positive purposes, as, for instance, Twitter was the fastest news channel in the Boston marathon bombing in 2013. In addition, pepople's videos and photos were collected during the inspection into the bombing, says Neovius.
EH/MR