Digital Witchcraft: Magical Thinking for Digital Design - Danae Valentina | JSConf Hawaii 2020

This session present several examples of magical thinking as a design methodology for technological innovations. Did you know that hackers and shamans have a lot in common? What does the practice of Santeria can teach us about digital security? Did you know that there's an android in a temple in Kyoto teaching Buddhism? Which elements of ancestral knowledge can we borrow in order to design solutions for migrants and refugees? We will review the answers to these questions and will elaborate on the potential of magical thinking as a fundamental resource for innovation. "Magic is the mother of technology" said Peter Sloterdijk, thus we definitely shouldn't be afraid of combining this two realms in order to promote scientific innovation to its maximum potential. I've been doing this research thanks to several sources of funding, mostly through my Mozilla fellowship and other sponsors I had in the last two years. Therefore, specific parts of this session have been presented in conferences such as HOPE in New York City and the Internet Freedom Festival in Valencia, Spain. JSConf Hawaii will be the first time in which my research on digital witchcraft will be publicly presented as a finalized product. Thumbnail Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash JSConf Hawaii will return soon https://www.jsconfhi.com/