Current economic “languages” center on instruments such as financial currencies to represent value and meaning in exchange. How might the application of current technologies, specifically those enabled by digital data, shift perspectives described in historical economic frameworks by enabling highly detailed, and yet highly contextual, measurement, description, and tracking of complex and numerous inputs and outcomes within economic activities? The technological capabilities of digital data in the 21st century allow us to expand upon our existing economic languages and potentially use data as a means to agree upon and to communicate value, in part because of the ability to use digital data and data systems to express complex outcomes and the inputs that contribute to such outcomes. We further hypothesize that as digital data becomes a means of economic measurement and expression, digital data in and of itself may take on additional intrinsic value because of its utility as such a means of value expression.
Session Host
Jennifer Hinkel, The Data Economics Company
Jennifer Hinkel is a researcher and business leader in oncology outcomes, data, and health economics. She is a Managing Director of The Data Economics Company. She also mentors a number of health and technology early-stage companies and founders. Her past roles include as a Senior Partner in a boutique market access consultancy as well as strategic, analytic, and commercial roles at Roche and Genentech in the US, Latin America, and Europe. Prior to entering the life sciences industry, Hinkel held roles in the non-profit and public sector including at National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), the Association for State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), and as a researcher for a member of the House of Lords, UK Parliament. Ms. Hinkel holds degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology (BS International Affairs) and the London School of Economics (MSc International Health Policy). She has lectured in Health Systems and Health Economics at Penn State University and Arcadia University, holds patents in health care technology, and has published numerous articles and abstracts related to market access and oncology health services research. As a survivor of Stage III Hodgkin Lymphoma, Ms. Hinkel has a special interest in oncology innovation. To support the broader survivor and oncology community, Ms. Hinkel founded Resilience Racing, the first all-cancer-survivor sailing team, and also launched the 40 Under 40 in Cancer annual awards program.
Session Participants
Winship Varner, PhD, Professor and Department Chair, Sierra Nevada University
Dr. Varner holds a PhD in Philosophy from Purdue University, and he currently is a Department Chair at Sierra Nevada University in Incline Village, Nevada. He has a strong interest in the philosophy of Data Economics.
Arnab Chakraborty, PhD, Associate Professor at Ashoka University
Arnab Chakraborty is an Independent Scholar and Researcher. He has completed two years of PhD coursework in English at Ashoka University and is researching on the history of Spiritualism (and its techno-religious allegories), nineteenth century science and on Western Esotericism and Occultism. His work attempts to decode the semiotics of vision, opacity and enchantment in the representation and spectacle of new technologies in the Universal and Colonial Exhibitions and the epistemologies with which they contributed to the techno-religious allegories of Spiritualism. His interest in Data Economics arises from his studies on literature, science, the philosophy of technology and the histories of creating value across social and cultural ecosystems. He is applying to select Universities in Western Academia especially in the USA, UK, and Canada for Fall 2022. He completed his Master’s and BA(Hons) in English from Jadavpur University in Kolkata. Subsequently, he has worked in the private sector and has written numerous educational blogs and articles which has been published online. He is has written three articles which are forthcoming in late 2021 from peer-reviewed international journals and is also a graduate member of numerous scholarly associations related to his research interests. Presently, he is also writing for a few international conferences and has written about twenty-five semester papers for his MA and PhD coursework all of which is publishing ready. His research interests are in the Long Nineteenth Century, science, pseudo and weird sciences and occultism at the fin de siècle, the histories of Mesmerism, Hypnosis, Spiritualism, Theosophy and Western Esotericism, European Decadence and Symbolism, Speculative Fiction at the fin de siècle, the history of Exhibitions and Museum Practices, German Idealism and its legacy in contemporary Continental Philosophy, Deleuze and New Materialisms, the Frankfurt School, Walter Benjamin and Critical Theory, Imperial, Colonial and Postcolonial Gothic, Horror, Weird and the Supernatural, Tantric Traditions and Folklore in the Indian sub-Continent and South Asian and Nordic science fiction and the Anthropocene.
Dr. Kean Birch is an Associate Professor at York University in Canada, where he also serves as the Graduate Program Director of the Science & Technology Studies Program. He is the Co-Editor of Science as Culture, the Series Editor of the Technoscience & Society Book Series (Unversity of Toronto Press), an editorial board member of Science, Technology, & Human Values, and of Social Epistemiology.
Arka Ray, Managing Director, The Data Economics Company
Technology executive and computer scientist, currently leading the development of the Lydion DEOS (Data Economic Operating System) and overall strategy for the creation and propagation of Lydion Solution Platforms built on Lydion DEOS. Previously built the Sidelines and Popularium content publishing platforms, as well as helped design and launch several games and products on the Xbox Live network as a part of the Xbox and Windows Gaming teams at Microsoft.