Participatory technology assessment emphasizes that the people (you, me, us) who fund technology development (through taxes and consumer purchases), and who live with its positive and negative consequences, but are not otherwise formally engaged through advocacy, can and should play a role in technology assessment.
On December 6, 2012, Science Cheerleader Founder, Darlene Cavalier, will join her colleagues from ECAST (Expert and Citizen Assessment of Science and Technology) to describe recent efforts to pilot a distributed, collaborative and non-partisan 21st century approach to participatory technology assessment that integrates citizen participation, deliberation, expertise, and assessment into government policy making, management, research, development, informal education and dissemination at the national and international levels. Cavalier will also speak about the history of technology assessment in the U.S., more recent, international developments in this area, and describe opportunities to harness the power of citizen scientists and new technologies to create a smarter, faster, sharper and more inclusive process to shape science policy.
12/6 Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars event
12/7 Dupont Summit event at the Carnegie Institution for Science
Both events are free but you’ll need to RSVP (see links, above).