Interview with Professor Jess Auerbach Jahajeeah, Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town
I was privileged to interview Jess Auerbach Jahajeeah who will give the opening plenary keynote at TNC25 on Tuesday 10 June. Her interdisciplinary social research explores digital inequality, knowledge systems and inclusive innovation. Her talk, “Network and knowledge futures: the architecture of imagination”, uses the physical infrastructure of the Internet as an entry point for a discussion of how contemporary knowledge infrastructure shapes imagination and possibilities.
Jess, thank you for accepting to present at TNC25 and for taking the time to talk about your field of research. What led you to explore the physical infrastructure of the internet as a framework for discussing knowledge futures?
Thanks so much for the opportunity to engage with you all! Digital infrastructure was a footnote in my PhD thesis that I just couldn’t shakeoff. I did my doctorate at Stanford so in the heart of all kinds of technological discussions, but my work was exploring social mobility in Angola after that country’s long civil war. At the time SACS – the first south Atlantic fibre optic cable – had just come online pioneered by an Angolan tech company, Angola Cables. It was so obvious what a difference increased bandwidth was making, and because so much in Angola was being (re)built from scratch, it was easy to see what changes the internet was bringing
about. This impacted everything, from commerce to the country’s emerging further education sector. How the digital quickly integrated into existing knowledge systems became something that fascinated me intellectually. It also made me realise that until that point, I’d never paused to consider how the internet actually works – it was just this magic technology I and so many others relied on.
Could you share a key insight or moment from your time aboard the cable ship Leon Thevenin that connects to your keynote themes?
The Leon Thevenin is such a fascinating microcosm of what it takes to build and maintain the internet. Connecting to ideas around the architecture of imagination, I
remember one conversation with an assistant cook very vividly. The individual was in his early twenties, and it was only his second voyage out to sea. He took the job as an assistant cook and only later found out that the ship repaired the internet. He described his absolute consternation watching the cable come out of the
ocean for the first time, and then how so many of his friends and family had not believed him when he told them the internet moved through cables, not the air. What struck me was both how critical this individual’s work was to sustain the global internet, and also how even for someone like him the internet was a space of mystery and magic. And, just to explain, a lot of people felt the chefs were the most important people on board as their work determined how everybody else felt doing the other jobs, like cable repair itself!
How can research and education networks foster equity and inclusion while navigating geopolitical divides?
In this moment, an explicit commitment to equity and inclusion is of course an important political action in and of itself. For those working in education networks, I would hope there’s an awareness that if there is not that kind of commitment, the entire global knowledge project shrinks both in terms of scale and content. What’s
important to remember is it’s not just local diversity that matters, but global diversity. In the education network space, this means ensuring that representatives from both wealthy and poorer countries are at the same table, and that digital tools are designed from the start to function in a wide variety of environments—not just in places with abundant high-speed fibre, for instance.
In your view, what practical steps can leaders in the R&E space take to ensure infrastructure serves diverse and equitable interests?
Finding ways to ensure equitable investment in different regions is of course very important. That means looking at design, ownership, control and data at all links in the value chain – from conceptualisation through to implementation, user experience and profit. All too often assumptions are made about how innovation happens in spaces where users or designers have significant resources, yet the reality is that innovation is often most interesting on the margins. It is in places where one cannot take for granted the working of “the internet” that one sees all kinds of fascinating innovation. Those in R&E should make a point of exploring how tools, equipment and ideas are being repurposed outside of what might have been originally imagined. In the face of innovation that often goes unnoticed outside of mainstream focus, it’s also worth asking what could be achieved with more investment and better resources in those spaces.
Looking at the future, how do you see imagination influencing the evolution of global knowledge networks?
We’re in a very peculiar moment in history, where it’s like we have gone back to the Middle Ages in termsof knowledge. I say this because at that time only a small subset of the population could control knowledge – then it was the priests – and they largely determined what and how the majority of people thought. With the
domination of Big Tech, we’re in a very similar place, with most of the world consuming knowledge mediated via infrastructure, software and algorithms
that few people actually understand. To really become inclusive, global knowledge networks need to re-democratise in all sorts of ways; they need to be designed,
implemented and used in ways that serve people and the planet over the corporate profits of a very small handful of companies.
Finally, what’s around the corner for Jess Auerbach?
I have a beautiful six-month-old daughter and to be honest my current priority is spending time with her. That said, I’ve established the Light Lab, a research lab at the University of Cape Town where I am assembling a team of incredible researchers who are exploring how the physical structure of the internet shapes what and how
we as people think. Building that into a space of expertise and influence is exciting work, which I do while also running a programme in Inclusive Innovation. This programme brings together incredible change-makers who believe that the problems we face are not insurmountable, and are working towards positive change.
About Jess Auerbach Jahajeeah
Jess Auerbach Jahajeeah is an interdisciplinary social scientist and Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town. She has worked across Africa and the Americas, exploring digital inequality, knowledge systems and inclusive innovation. Jess has published widely in both the popular and scientific press and has won several awards for her research and teaching. She holds a PhD from Stanford University and an MSc from Oxford University. The recording of her keynote “Networks and knowledge futures: the architecture of imagination” at TNC25 will be available on the conference website after the event.
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