The current pandemic has generated greater social dependence on digital technologies. This has consolidated the power that the big tech corporations already exercise, while accentuating surveillance and control over the public.

Undoubtedly, digital dominance under a regime of big data and artificial intelligence will further accelerate through the current crisis. The key question then is: which digital society and under what model? Will it be the model where the big tech corporations dominate, based on data extraction and exploitation with or without consent, oriented to their private profits and to the interests of their corporate or state clients? Or will it be a model under democratic citizen control, with primacy to the public interest and the welfare of the majority?

In view of the insufficient insertion in the Latin American and Caribbean public agenda of discussion about the impacts of the digital era on the aspirations of equitable progress of the peoples, as well as the scattered and fragmented character of the popular responses to this reality, the Exchange Sessions "Utopias or Dystopias. The peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean facing the digital age" aim to establish a common framework for action.

This initiative seeks to further understanding of the characteristics and current orientation of the techno-digital system and identify strategies for social struggle that are connected transversally, sectorally and territorially, and that express the demands of citizens and people's organizations and succeed in stemming the incursion on our self-determination of the big tech transnationals.

At the same time, the Sessions will seek to strengthen integral, on-going and inclusive exchange around initiatives and actions that are in progress or to be planned and to establish mechanisms for greater cooperation between them.

In addition to planning common actions and those by sector, among the fundamental axes of the proposal are the generation of public policy proposals to be adopted and the coordination of campaigns of information and awareness-raising, as well as training and joint action among collective actors.

Finally, there is a need to visualize and explore alternative development paradigms that dispute civilizational and cultural meaning.

The spirit of this project is not limited to mere denunciation but seeks to move towards technological appropriation and sovereignty. It is a cultural change. The world to come will be distinct from the one we have come from and our aim is to build the world we aspire to.

Contact: fsi-alc@internetciudadana.net