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campusreview.com.au
Java for data
The cafe giving students free
coffee in exchange for information.
W
ould you give major
corporations your personal data
in exchange for coffee? While
this may not be an attractive proposition to
the average adult, for many – often money
and sleep-deprived students – it is. So much
so that Shiru Cafe exists for this purpose.
The Japanese-owned chain operates near
28 university campuses in Japan, India and
the US. University staff and students are its
only permitted customers, and while staff pay
with cash, students pay with another form
of currency: their personal information. This
is then on-sold to partner companies like
Microsoft, PwC and Accenture.
Using students’ information, such
companies perform targeted advertising
(including online and on coffee cups),
conduct market research, host in-store
recruitment events, and even instruct baristas
to chat to students about working for them.
In July, it even hosted a Global Idea
Throwdown – a competition inviting
submissions on how to use technology to
solve problems relating to natural disasters,
for the chance to win $300.
According to the cafe’s website, 76 per
cent of Brown University students are active
customers. Though this is its only current US
base, it is working on expanding to Harvard,
Yale, Princeton and Amherst College.
In a May 2018 letter to the editor of the
Brown University student publication,
The Brown Daily Herald, two students
proposed a boycott of the cafe, though not
on information privacy grounds.
“According to The Herald’s article about
the Shiru Cafe, ‘last year, 40 per cent of
JPMorgan Japan’s new hires were Shiru
Just a
scientist
Female Nobel Prize-winning physicist
doesn’t want your gender pity.
C
hances are, either you or someone you know has had
laser eye surgery. But if it weren’t for Canadian Nobel Prize
winner Donna Strickland, that wouldn’t have happened.
Yet others seem to be more interested in her gender.
In an interview, NPR reporter Ailsa Chang interrupted Strickland’s
explanation of her scientific breakthrough to ask: “How does it feel
to be the third-ever female Nobel Prize winner [in Physics]?”
Strickland didn’t miss a beat. “I was surprised when someone first said
that to me this morning. It hadn’t occurred to me,” she breezily replied.
“I do live in a world of mostly men, so seeing mostly men doesn’t
surprise me either.”
Cafe patrons’,” Harry August and Julia
Rock wrote.
“As the cafe’s first location in the United
States, Brown should send a clear message
rejecting the cafe’s stated desire to draw
smart and talented people to work for large
corporations, whose principles are frequently
at odds with those of our community.”
Aside from disagreeing with the ethics
of Shiru’s clients, some have raised privacy
concerns associated with the cafe’s use
of students’ data, including the fact that
it could be intercepted while students are
using the cafe’s Wi-Fi.
“I wonder if, over the short time it takes to
order a coffee, it’s possible to understand
the full scope of what’s happening to your
data,” contemplated Dr Matt Beard of the
Ethics Centre, which is currently producing
a paper on the ethics of technology.
“To explore the ethical elements of this,
we would want, for a start, to see some
evidence that the cafe was training its staff
to make sure they were able to accurately
and clearly communicate the full extent of
data usage, appeal rights, safety measures
and how they might be targeted with
advertisements going forward.” ■
When a BBC reporter asked, “You’re the first woman to win this
prize in 50 years. Is that important to you?” she responded: “I’m sure
it’s relevant, but I don’t think it’s the main thing, and I don’t want to
take away from the two men that won.”
One of those men is Gérard Mourou, who supervised her PhD in
1985. The prize-winning breakthrough was based on that research.
At a ceremony at her university, she implied further disinterest
in the gender angle. “Did I ever think, ‘Oh, I should be doing
something to help humanity?’ No, I just think we all do what we’re
really good at.”
Some say that despite winning the prize, the fact that she is not a
full professor at Ontario, Canada’s University of Waterloo, and that fact
that she doesn’t have a Wikipedia page, is evidence of gender bias.
BBC interviewer: “Why aren’t you a full professor given
your eminence?”
Donna Strickland: “[Silence] … I never applied.”
— Beatrice Cherrier (@Undercoverhist) October 2, 2018
Wikipedia rejected an entry on Donna Strickland, one of
today’s physics Nobel Prize winners, in May because she
wasn’t famous enough.
— Dr Paul Coxon (@paulcoxon) October 2, 2018
Perhaps because she is literally at the top of her game, being
an outnumbered female doesn’t appear to bother her, like it does
other academics. Given this, maybe she would rather we celebrate
her achievement, “generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical
pulses”, not her gender. ■
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