#rp23 keynote speaker Julia Kloiber: On CASH, innovation and visions for the future.

Julia Kloiber is the Co-Founder of Superrr Lab, a feminist research and advocacy organisation. For the past 10 years she has been developing projects and programs that promote openness, develop civic tech and help to build feminist futures.

Julia has put her expertise in technology, design and media studies to use for the Mozilla Foundation, the Open Knowledge Foundation and The Engine Room. She has been running multiple projects that foster the reuse of open data and promote transparency – such as Germany’s first Civic Tech Incubator Stadt Land Code and enjoys speaking at international conferences, such as TED, the Personal Democracy Forum or the World Design Conference. As digital strategy advisor she is working with government institutions and businesses alike.

In 2014 Julia co-founded Code for Germany and grew it into a network of over 1000+ civic tech volunteers in 25 cities all over Germany. She also helped grow Code for All, the global network of Code-­for organisations with partners on six continents. In 2016 Julia co-founded Germany's first public fund for open source software projects: The Prototype Fund.

In 2010, Julia attended re:publica for the first time and has been involved in shaping the programme ever since – such as in 2013, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. We’re delighted that she’s back this year and look forward to her contribution on the theme CASH at #rp23!

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Let's talk about #CASH. An interview with Julia Kloiber.
 

What are you currently working on at SUPERRR LAB and what role do digitalisation issues play in this?

With SUPERRR Lab, I work on feminist issues. For me, taking an intersectional feminist perspective on digitalisation issues also means dealing with the working conditions of people in the tech sector and working to improve them.

What aspect do you find particularly interesting at the moment?

One topic that is currently on my mind is social media content moderation. Together with the trade union ver.di and other civil society organisations, we organised a Content Moderators Summit with SUPERRR Lab. At the summit, 50 content moderators exchanged views on their working conditions and networked. This networking did not take place outside the summit because tech companies promote a culture of secrecy. Currently, the content moderators are writing a manifesto with demands to companies and politicians, because their precarious working conditions have to change.

What is a trend or new development in your field that we should keep an eye on?

More and more civil society organisations are starting to create positive visions of the future and new narratives alongside their watchdog and education work. Instead of limiting themselves to averting harm – caused by bad policies, politics or profiteering – they are taking a big step towards shaping it. They are sketching what the world they are working towards looks like. At SUPERRR, we are working to make this happen more often in the future. That together we create positive visions that we as a digital civil society and society are working towards. 

Together with re:publica, you invited to a community evening at SUPERRR Lab to talk about CASH and feminism. How do the two topics fit together?

Whoever has money has power. Feminism is essentially about breaking down and redistributing power. That's why it's important to talk about money and its influence. What injustices in our tax system lead to a lack of redistribution of wealth? What is the current state of the gender pay gap? Why are income and inheritance issues that we rarely talk about even with our closest friends? – These are all important questions in the context of cash and feminism.

How were these issues negotiated? 

It was about breaking taboos. Participants could anonymously write down their income and inheritance on slips of paper. We made a data visualisation from this. At the beginning, there was some fear of contact, but then everyone joined in. In the end, we stood in front of the visualisation and started to talk much more openly about income.

Which topic that is close to your heart fails particularly because of (not) having financial means?

An issue that is close to my heart is not the right term for it. A topic that upsets me fits better: the unequal distribution of wealth in this country. Which allows some to flourish, while others have to invest all their strength and energy just to survive. This week I was at an event about innovation in Germany and how we can promote it. There is a lot of talk about innovation agencies, funding programmes and so on – but conspicuously little about equal opportunities, affordable housing and a redistribution of wealth. Yet these are all things that innovation in Germany fails at every day. People complain that they lack a start-up mentality. It is always said that one must be able to fail and learn from it for the next attempt. But being able to fail means above all being able to afford to fail. When we talk about how the new enters the world, we also have to talk about the structural barriers that prevent people from tackling solutions to problems and producing innovations.

What does it take to change that?

I believe that first and foremost social measures are needed to foster the innovation potential of the many: a redistribution of wealth, educational equity and a fairer distribution of care work.

In the spirit of our motto CASH – what are your current reading recommendations? 

Three books: "Alle Zeit" ("All Time") by Teresa Bücker, "Das Ende der Ehe" ("The End of Marriage") by Emilia Roig and "Geld spielt keine Rolle" ("Money Matters Not") by Anna Mayr.