The Information Trade: How Big Tech Challenges the Nation-State

In this provocative presentation about our new tech-based reality, Alexis Wichowski considers the unchecked rise of tech giants like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Tesla - what she calls "net states" - and their unavoidable influence on their lives. Rivaling nation states in power and capital, today's net states are reaching into our physical world, inserting digital services into our lived environments in ways both unseen and, at times, unknown to us. They are transforming the way the world works, putting our rights up for grabs, from personal privacy to national security.

Alexis serves as Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Innovation for the City of New York and teaches government, media and technology at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Prior work includes the American Red Cross, the U.S. Department of State's Office of eDiplomacy, and the permanent mission of the United States to the United Nations. Outside government, Wichowski has worked in media impact research, information architecture development, academic book indexing, web coding, theater production, foreign sitcoms and pretzel vending. Wichowski holds a Ph.D. in Information Science from the University of Albany's College of Engineering & Applied Sciences and a BA in Chinese from Connecticut College, completed in three years cum laude. She lives in Brooklyn with her family and reads science fiction voraciously.