Shobita Parthasarathy, professor of public policy and women's and gender studies and director of the University of Michigan's Science, Technology and Public Policy program, will deliver the 2023 Buchdahl Lecture. Her talk is titled "Are Innovation Systems Stacked Against Equity?"

There is growing awareness that our innovation system reflects and sometimes even reinforces social inequity and injustice. Marginalized communities rarely experience direct benefits from innovation investment. Structural biases are built into devices like facial recognition and the pulse oximeter, while many life-saving technologies are inaccessible to those who need them most. In response, governments, philanthropic foundations and the private sector have begun to support "inclusive innovation," technological development explicitly for — and often also by — marginalized communities. Parthasarathy, a pioneer in inclusive innovation, will argue that in their current form, these initiatives are unlikely to be successful. To produce significant positive change, we will need to fundamentally reimagine our approach to innovation, innovators and technical expertise.