Mathana

Mathana (they/them) is a Berlin-based ethicist, philosopher, human rights advocate and storyteller who is fascinated with the question: "what does it mean to be human in the 21st century?" Their research examines philosophical approaches to space policy as well as the socio-cultural impact of automation and robotics. Over the past 8 years, Mathana has worked at the leading edge of the ethics of emerging technologies: including sustainable space exploration, harm-reduction frameworks for emotion recognition & biometric surveillance, technical standards development, and privacy of digital identity management systems.

Mathana has held fellowships at the Centre for the Internet and Human Rights and AlgorithmWatch. Previously, they chaired the IEEE Standard Association's Global Initiative on the Ethics of Extended Reality, which published white papers with ethical recommendations for socially responsible design, development and deployment of mixed-reality systems across a dozen application domains.

Mathana has studied at universities in North America, Europe and Asia, and holds an MA in Global Communication from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.