Mathana

Mathana (they/them) is a Berlin-based ethicist, philosopher, activist and storyteller who is fascinated with the question “what does it mean to be human in a 21st century?'  Their work studies the socio-cultural impact of emerging technologies, and how automation and engineering shape society. Over the past 6 years, Mathana has worked at the leading edge of civic-and-social tech advocacy: creating harm-reduction frameworks within technical standards development around emotion recognition algorithms; developing mitigation strategies for Earth-orbit space junk, advocating for to responsible policy oversight for facial recognition; and publishing articles on digital identity management. 

Mathana was previously a fellow at both the Centre for the Internet and Human Rights, and AlgorithmWatch. They co-founded of the AI transparency project xplainr.ai, and for three years chaired the IEEE Standard Association's Global Initiative on the Ethics of Extended Reality, where they have brought together researchers and experts across industrial applications and facilitate the publication of a series of cohesive, best-practice white papers with dozens of recommendations for socially responsible design development and deployment of AR/VR/-based technologies and immersive experiences within the metaverse.

Mathana has studied at universities in North America, Europe and Asia, and holds an MA in Global Communication from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.