On 20 October 2024, Dr Ruha Benjamin gave her talk «Who Owns the Future», which I had the pleasure to chair. In her talk, she introduced the liberating power of imagination. Her reflections include theses such as that harmful systems such as white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism and eugenics all arose from the human imagination and have real, often deadly, effects. To combat harmful systems and create a world in which all people can flourish, we must begin to imagine things differently.

Building on work that critically engages with technology-mediated injustice and grassroots approaches to viral justice, Ruha Benjamin offers a pragmatic and poetic approach to shaping the world that calls on each of us to reconsider the role we play in maintaining or changing the oppressive status quo.