We are a new network of researchers, artists, technologists, policymakers, and practitioners that challenges digital social and racial inequalities. Racism and ableism are at the heart of digital industries and are taken for granted all through its development, implementation, and user culture. 

With funding support from the Mellon Foundation, the DISCO Network connects, convenes, and sustains a national network of artists, scholars, and practitioners working on topics of racial inequality, histories of exclusion, disability justice and techno-ableism, and digital racial politics within the academy, the technology industry, and beyond. DISCO builds new digital methodologies and offers scholarly training within five research labs, mentoring and publishing opportunities, and public programming on cutting edge digital topics. 

Envisioning an alternative and inclusive digital future will require collaboration among different stakeholders in our digital world. The work and well-being of this collective is strengthened by the diversity of our network and our differences in background, culture, and experience. We are committed to ensuring that a wide array of perspectives are heard and that our research is made free and available to the public.

Network activities include:

• Creating a mentorship network for minority scholars;

• Building an undergraduate pipeline program to pursue graduate training;

• Offering training and fellowship opportunities for graduate students, researchers, and artists;

• Creating open-access courses on digital inequality that interface STEM disciplines;

• Offering lectures, roundtables, conferences, and summer institutes for training on cutting edge digital topics;

• Providing research support through five faculty lab sites across institutional members;

• Providing publishing opportunities for network members to promote research;

• Prototyping industry and public-facing rapid response writing on digital racial politics through open source models.