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In his talk "Democracy & Emerging Surveillance Technology: How We Stop 2030 From Becoming 1984" Ishan Sharma discusses the future of surveillance technology. Sharma further discusses the risk of surveillance technology and the importance of democratizing technology. Ishan Sharma is a recent grad from Cornell University who enjoys imagining how emerging technologies will shape the world we live in. Like everyone else, Ishan was concerned with how uncanny targeted advertisements can be. But he decided to look a little bit further, following the data-trail to something far more powerful. After researching the globalization of artificially intelligent surveillance systems, Ishan realized the immense potential of the technology to disrupt so much of what we take for granted – our democracy, freedom, and privacy. Since then, his research has been accepted by the Cornell International Affairs Review Spring 2020 edition, and he was one of two to receive Cornell’s nomination for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Security Fellowship. 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