Building Power Over Corporate Tech in Cities

Coordinators: Ryan G, Mariah Montgomery, Nasma Ahmed, Mizue Aizeki, and Hannah Sassaman

Large tech corporations assert a monopoly on defining our collective future, relying on a “common sense” that inevitable technological development will shape society — rather than the reverse. This is particularly true in cities where tech corporations are playing an outsized role, for example: Amazon’s aggressive lobbying in Seattle, Google/Sidewalk Lab’s proposed waterfront in Toronto, Vigilant’s License Plate Reader technologies, and Mastercard’s City Possible universal identify program. Multi-racial, urban movements have unique power to challenge these corporations. Cities are becoming valuable sites for building broad coalitions that can take on the intersectional impacts of tech corporations on communities. We need an irresistible alternative vision for the role that technology should play in cities. We are building our capacities for fighting against harm and devoting energies to defining the future we want vis-a-vis tech. We hope to use this gathering to do both.