What does it mean to design technologies as public worlds? Or, what does it mean to say that scientific knowledge and practice belongs to everyone? Dr. Marie-Claire Shanahan and Dr. Pratim Sengupta delve into the ways in which we can interact differently with code and technology in a "public sidewalk" type of community engagement and culture of public discourse. These spaces offer us a richer and more open collaborative experience as humans and technology designers in the realm of education, and offer insight on how we can create together in different ways. Dr. Shanahan is an Associate Professor of Learning Sciences at the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. She works to understand how to remake scientific communities and technological spaces to ensure access to knowledge and expertise for all. Her work brings to light how our private worlds and identities can both benefit from and inform scientific practices and the design of technologies.

Dr. Pratim Sengupta, Research Chair of STEM Education at the University of Calgary’s Werklund School of Education has been working to understand this question by designing open source and open science technologies in public spaces and public schools through unsilencing hidden narratives and bringing us together. He is the recipient of a CAREER Award (2012) from the US National Science Foundation. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx