In order to adjust brightness and to facilitate dialogue about the role of data science, our films are selected on actual discussions in our society. Therefore, all films are introduced by a keynote speaker and followed by a panel discussion or a participative dialogue session.

Below, you will find our events, keynote speakers, and the line-up of the films.

The Rise of the Mega-Corporations

Thursday

November 3

19.00 - 20.00
Bar JADS
Walk in
20.00 - 20.30
Chapel JADS
Introduction by Ksenia Podoynitsyna
20.30 - 21:20
Chapel JADS
Start film: The Rise of the Mega-Corporations
21:20 - 21:45
JADS Chapel
End of the film and start of discussion/ dialogue
21:45 - 23:00
Bar JADS
drinks at bar

Mega-corporations like Amazon and Facebook are becoming more powerful. And their growth shows no signs of slowing down. They are in the public eye -- but are they also above the law?

The pandemic has only made the "big four” -- Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook -- more influential. Our data has become big business. But are these corporations out of control?

Experts have long watched as corporations like Apple and Amazon flout antitrust laws, while receiving special treatment: When it comes to wages, taxes and laws, these corporations seem to rewrite the rules as they go. Many critics consider Facebook and Google’s systematic data exploitation a violation of our core democratic principals. Moreover, the line between the state and mega-corporations is growing even foggier. Some states believe there is simply no way around these giants. Corporate power seems like it is here to stay. Market driven surveillance undermines our sovereignty and thus the very foundation of Western democracies. There is a storm brewing both in the U.S. and Europe. But the corporations are ready for it. Will they continue on this dangerous trajectory, or is there some chance we can still rein them in?

About Ksenia Podoynitsyna

Dr. Ksenia Podoynitsyna is Associate Professor of Data-Driven Entrepreneurship at JADS, the Joint Institute of Tilburg University and the Eindhoven University of Technology. She also serves as the Program Director for the master “Data Science and Entrepreneurship” and is the Data Entrepreneurship research unit head @ JADS. Her research focuses on the ways data allows to create and capture value through innovative business models, ecosystems, and platforms, and on risk and uncertainty management in new organizations. Ksenia is keen on doing research with clear business and societal implications, such as in Ph.D. projects funded by the EU, EIT KIC InnoEnergy, Philips, CZ, and KPNFurthermore, she has published in the leading entrepreneurship and management journals, including Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Business VenturingEntrepreneurship Theory and PracticeJournal of Product Innovation Management, and California Management Review. Ksenia got her Ph.D. from Eindhoven University of Technology (2008), and her dissertation was nominated for the prestigious Heizer dissertation award of the Academy of Management. 

One of the favorite hands-on exercises I use while teaching is to ask participants to map out the business models of Amazon. For once, this illuminates the powerful synergies between its business models, which allowed Amazon to become what it is right now. And inevitably we talk about the dangers of the big tech firms.

She selected the recent DW documentary called “Google, Facebook, Amazon – The rise of the mega-corporations” to continue the discussion on how the big tech firms impactvarious markets, businesses, and citizens. The film will be introduced through an interactive lecture based on the projectsdone by the Data Entrepreneurship research unit of JADS.

iHUMAN

Friday

November 4

19.00 - 20.00
Bar JADS
Walk in
20.00 - 20.30
Chapel JADS
introduction by Willem-Jan van den Heuvel
20.30 - 22.30
Chapel JADS
Start film: iHUMAN
22.30 - 00.00
Bar JADS
Discussion + drinks at bar

This documentary follows the booming artificial intelligence industry, what opportunities and challenges it brings and its impact on the global community.

One of the major challenges of our times is how the global community is going to deal with artificial intelligence (AI). Who will control this technology? Has the train left the station, never to be stopped? What sort of society do we want to create and live in? Who knows the destination we are heading to?

With great access to influential voices on this subject, iHuman presents a wide range of views, from tech optimism in Jurgen Schmidhuber “the father of AI,” to more cautious voices like technology journalist Kara Swisher and human rights lawyer Philip Alston. Animated computer graphics visualize a polymorphous, self-developing structure with ever-greater autonomy guiding us forward.

AI can infinitely increase our potential for great good but it is already capable of contributing towards total surveillance states and a distortion of truth. AI development is hurtling forward with tech companies affiliated to the defence industry and algorithms in law enforcement enhancing existing biases. Will we allow the use of such powerful technology to open an unchecked Pandora’s Box dictating our future?

About Willem-Jan van den Heuvel

Prof. Dr. Willem-Jan van den Heuvel is a full professor in Distributed Systems and Enterprise Computing and acts as the scientific director of the JADS DE Unit, which is a collaboration on AI Engineering between Tilburg University and the Technical University of Eindhoven (both located in the Netherlands). His research passions are to be found at the cross-junction of cloud-enabled systems, Big data engineering and AI. Willem-Jan has (co-)authored over 150+ publications, and written/edited several books, including the MIT Press on Legacy Modernization, and in 2022 the Springer book on Data Science and Entrepreneurship (in press). He has a long-lasting and very active track record in FP5-7, H2020 and Horizon EU projects (including FP7-COMPAS, FP-7 S-CUBE, H2020 ANITA, H2020 RADON, H2020 SODALITE), for which he played a pivotal role in their conception, articulation, and final acquisition, and where he has been involved as work-package leader, and scientific (co-)director.Willem-Jan holds several visiting positions including a visiting chair at the Sapienza University (Rome, Italy), and at Politechnico di Milano (Milan, Italy). Currently, he is involved in several (cyber) security related projects, including on- and offline (mass) surveillance, crowd control and security in cyber-physical systems.  
 
Choice of this documentary.
"In my work I encounter - next to many pure technical AI and data engineering issues in exceedingly heterogeneous and distributed computing contexts- a lot of governance challenges such as who has ultimate ownership of data, what does this ownership entail and how can it be enforced and audited, how can we make data exchange (markets) trustworthy, etc. The documentary iHuman sheds an interesting light on such issues, which are sometimes neglected in our enthusiasm on what is technically possible." 

Interstellar

Saturday

November 5

19.00 - 20.00
Bar JADS
Walk in
20.00 - 20.30
Chapel JADS
Introduction by Eric Postma
20.30 - 22.30
Chapel JADS
Start film: Interstellar
22.30 - 00.00
Bar JADS
Discussion + drinks at bar

Interstellar is a 2014 epic science fiction film co-written, directed and produced by Christopher Nolan. It stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain. Set in a dystopian future where humanity is struggling to survive, the film follows a group of astronauts who travel through a wormhole near Saturn in search of a new home for mankind.

About Eric Postma

Eric Postma is professor Artificial Intelligence (AI) at Tilburg University and JADS. He started his academic career in theoretical physics, prompted by Albert Einstein’s accessible book on the perception of simultaneity and the theory of relativity. After Eric realised that physics was not about perception, he switched to study cognitive science and AI. Throughout his career he remained interested in astronomy, black holes and exoplanets. Recently, he worked on the detection of exoplanets with the help of AI. The movie Interstellar, brings together Einstein’s theory of relativity, exoplanets, and AI.

Choice of this film

Eric chose the film because: "The movie Interstellar connects AI with the fundamental physics of the universe and black holes. The former is my expertise, the second is my interest. Both come together in the study of the automatic detection of exoplanets with deep learning that Koko Visser, Bas Bosma and I perform at JADS. "