Boyer Lectures: Fast, smart and connected: What is it to be human, and Australian, in a digital world

Research background The Boyer Lectures have been delivered by esteemed professors, politicians and public intellectuals since 1959 through the national broadcaster. They are intended to spark national conversations concerning key issues facing Australia at the current moment. The 2017 Boyer Lectures, delivered in four parts by Distinguished Professor Genevieve Bell, aims to examine what it means to be human and Australian in a digital world through a creative, multi-media format. Research contribution The 2017 Boyer Lectures address a lack of public understanding of Australia's role in the history of computing, and how this can inform a future of technology in Australia with humanness at the centre. The work compiles and draws upon secondary sources, as well as interviews with key pioneers in the field of computing, recordings contributed by the public and auto-ethnographic reflections from Bell as the presenter. In doing so, this series makes a critical contribution to the fields of distributed computing and human-centred computing (HCD) by historically contextualising them in the Australian context. Research significance The significance of this research lies in the observations and lived experiences of the presenter, Professor Bell, an Australian who spent over two decades working in Silicon Valley as an anthropologist at the epicentre of technological change. Furthermore, the scale and prestige of the Boyer Lectures enabled widespread intellectual impact and discussion. The lectures were broadcast on ABC Radio National, and the final episode on national television, and all four lectures were released as a podcast and CD.