Interview with Advisory Board member Rosanna Nazir: ‘I believe that we should have more diversity in the program.’
Nils Adriaans
The Advisory Board of CIIIC consists of over 24 carefully selected members who provide solicited and unsolicited advice to our program team on substantive main lines. As representatives of the IX community and ambassadors of IX in the Netherlands, they are crucial for the connection with the industry. But who are these members, what do they do, and - most importantly - how do they view IX?
In part 23 Rosanna Nazir, Founder Stichting Vrouwen aan het Werk en Culture Transformation Leader at Kyndryl, which designs, builds, and manages technology infrastructure and information systems.
Who are you, what do you do?
‘I am Rosanna Nazir, born and raised in Suriname with Indian roots and an Islamic faith, and came to the Netherlands as a child. I am a change expert and studied Cultural Social Formation.
More specifically, I focus on social issues that can promote humanity and focus on education and transformation of current systems. I believe that we can join forces to bring technology and humans together in this rapidly changing world.’
The three main components in my professional journey have always been people, education, and technology.
Why 'immersive', what is your connection to new content/technology?
‘Since I started working, I have become fascinated by technology and how it can contribute to a better world. I initially began at [benefits agency] the GAK where I learned how to make microfilms (as a storage medium) – and thus discovered technology. After that, my journey continued with companies like EY, for online learning, and Cisco and IBM where I spent twenty years of my life. The three most important components in my journey have always been people, education, and technology.
In 2008, within IBM I was also responsible for the omnichannel strategy of our clients where we worked with avatars from Second Life. That’s where my interest in virtual reality began.’
Why did you want to join the Advisory Board, what specifically appealed to you about the program?
‘I wanted to join the Advisory Board because I can also inspire other ethnic groups and involve them in this. I believe that we need to have more diversity in the program.’
I believe that with IX we can make all kinds of improvements in educational systems and, for example, allow young people to develop their creativity much more.
Working...
Public values play an important role at CIIIC, what is your view on that? Extra stimulating or a possible obstacle?
‘You don't just secure public values in final products, but especially in the technological stack that underlies them. As technology increasingly takes on editorial tasks and often has a geopolitical dimension, it's important that we start viewing and regulating the tech industry more as a critical media industry. This is something we should particularly address at the European level.
We need to focus more locally on the public aspects of the technology we use and, again, less on those of final products. So, don't focus on immersive experiences about inclusion, but on the use of inclusive algorithms and AI in the production and distribution of those experiences. I want to note that I currently find it more problematic that the entire Dutch government operates on American Big Tech than that we worry about the tools used in experiments.’
Finally, the Advisory Board gives advice—what is your message to the community? And how can people find and ‘engage’ you to possibly share their ideas with the community?
‘Don’t think: the more immersive, the better. Think especially about meaningful, feasible, and scalable integration of adaptive synthetic content generation in existing processes with impact. See your profession as more object-oriented modeling of worlds and less as storytelling. You are Stradivarius, not Janine Janssen. More often ask yourself: ‘Is this true?’ And realize: ‘The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology’ (E.O. Wilson, 2009).
In other words, ‘our brains are no match for our technology. So stay out of the hands of the Dark Side. And make sure you rest well. We ain’t seen nothing yet.’
*Jeroen can be reached like all other Advisory Board members via: adviesraad@ciiic.nl.*
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Composition: Nils Adriaans
Photography: Ben Houdijk