This session examines how the convergence of artificial intelligence and biotechnology is accelerating new forms of digital biopiracy, reframing biodiversity as data, and entrenching corporate control in the emerging bioeconomy. Presented by Jim Thomas
We are pleased to invite you to a two-part series of roundtable webinars hosted by ETC Group to discuss the findings of our latest research on digital justice, exploring how emerging technologies are reshaping power, equity, and rights in food and biological systems. The two case studies focus respectively on the emergence of AI-driven biotechnologies, which is accelerating biopiracy and redefining how biodiversity and genetic resources are governed, and the digitalization of agriculture which is transforming farming into a data-extractive model that reinforces corporate control.
Each session will feature a presentation by the authors of the case studies, followed by a short series of invited comments and an open discussion among participants from across the fields of food sovereignty, data justice, and technology governance.
Session 2 – December 3, 2025
Commons to Code: How Platforms Seize Data, Rewire Agriculture, and Reshape Power