Events

Video Recording: https://youtu.be/B2aoqSs_Lx0

This JustWaterFutures February 2026 seminar was titled AI and Water Justice: Data Centres as Sites of Struggle and explored the ways in which communities across the Americas are rising up against data centers, their failure to consult directly with affected communities, and the massive ecological footprints they leave behind.

The seminar also discussed strategy and Steven Renderos shared this incredible organizer toolkit: https://mediajustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/MediaJustice-The-People-Say-No-Resisting-Data-Center-Toolkit_January-2026.pdf

Thank you for a marvelous session, Steven Renderos and Nicolás Bejarano!

Steven Renderos is the Executive Director of MediaJustice, a national racial justice organization that advances the media and technology rights of people of colour. For over a decade, Steven led campaigns at MediaJustice that increased community access to telecommunications, challenged corporate media and tech consolidation, leveraged litigation strategies to curb tech harms, and exposed Big Tech’s role in policing and surveillance. He is an organizer, thought leader, policy expert, and coalition builder in the media justice movement. Steven regularly contributes to publications like the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Politico, the MIT Technology Review, and The Guardian. He is also a DJ and podcaster. Steven was a 2013 Rainbow PUSH Coalition Top Inspirational and Engaged Leader and a 2020 Rockwood Leadership Institute fellow. He was a 2020 advisor for Just Futures Law’s Take Back Tech Fellowship and serves on the board of Americans for Financial Reform and Upturn.

Nicolás Bejarano is an architect (Universidad de los Andes, Colombia), researcher, lecturer and PhD candidate in Architecture, Design and Urban Studies at UC Chile. Currently, Nicolas is a doctoral researcher at the Millennium Nucleus: Future of Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR), where he studies hyperscale data centers exploring how society intertwines with digital data matter in local territories. In 2023, Nicolas won the CCA “Architecture as Public concern” 2023 fellowship with Marina Otero Verzier and Serena Dambrosio for exploring environmental justice of data centers in Quilicura, Chile. In 2025, he was co-curator of the Chilean Pavilion – Reflective Intelligences – at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale with Linda Schilling and Serena Dambrosio and a member of the ECOS-ANID collaboration project SEED: Social and Environmental Effects of Data connectivity: Hybrid ecologies of transoceanic cables and data centers in Chile and France led by Martin Tironi and Antonio Casilli.