Workshop OnThe Power Of Personal Data

Professor Sudheendra Hangal, Ph.D. Stanford University, conducted an interactive workshop for students of classes XI and XII on the topic The Power of Personal Data. The workshop was held at the University of Chicago Centre in Delhi on 19th November 2015. Some schools which participated in the workshop were Sanskriti School, Venkateshwar International School and Tagore International School, Vasant Vihar. A few students from our School attended this workshop too. These were Pulkit Goyal, Prakhar Gupta, Divyaanshu Panwar and Devansh Sharma.

Professor Hangal initiated the session with a discussion on the different types of memory and their features such as short-term memory, long term memory, recall, recognition, etc. The discussion was followed by an activity to test the extent of human memory. Students were required to write about specific things they remembered from previous weekends. They were able to remember details of only two to three previous weekends. This was much less than what human memories were capable of. According to him, memories were hampered by the use of 21st century innovations such as email, mobile messaging and social media.

The next topic was on how to use personal data on the internet while keeping it private and secure. He spoke about a new type of internet browser, the Experienced Infused Browserand a new way of searching the internet, the Experienced Infused Search. These helped to browse and search the internet while using the users digital history from email and chat archives. Through this approach, the information relevant to the user gets highlighted in the search results. The results obtained are restricted only to the users personal accounts such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thus, it prevents data being manipulated by any external source. Nowadays, our personal data can be and is often accessed on the internet and manipulated by various companies for their own purposes. This poses a serious concern as our data might be misused.

The advantage of these technologies is that it let users efficiently browse textual content by highlighting personally relevant named information on the internet.

The issues raised in the session made us seriously consider the impact that modern technology has on our memory. It also made us realise the implications of the presence of personal data on the internet. It was a relief to know that there are means being developed to help control our personal data better.

It was a highly informative and interactive session that the children enjoyed thoroughly.

Ms. Kriti Chakraborty.