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In the spring of 2021, Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure (DIVD) researcher Wietse Boonstra quietly uncovered seven critical flaws in Kaseya’s widely used IT management software. DIVD warned the company within days, flagging more than 2,200 vulnerable systems across the globe. Weeks later, three flaws remained unpatched, and the REvil ransomware gang pounced. Overnight, some 1,500 organisations were paralysed, from supermarkets in Sweden to schools in New Zealand. This was not an isolated close call. In a 2023 study with the University of Twente, DIVD found that less than half of Dutch municipalities acted promptly when notified of exploitable flaws in their email systems. In some cases, local authorities ignored the warnings entirely. ...

Ten years ago, Nonprofit AF , in Weaponized data: How the obsession with data has been hurting marginalized communities, warned that nonprofits’ data obsession could dehumanise and harm marginalised communities, reducing lived experiences to reductive metrics, ignoring power dynamics, and prioritising funder dashboards. Now it’s 2025. Technology, AI, data regulation, and global politics have changed, but many threats have only intensified. What changed? What has improved Stronger legal guardrails (sometimes) Since GDPR (2018), Europe and other jurisdictions have enacted data protections that at least nominally strengthen consent and individual’s rights. Data-sharing rules and transparency mandates force nonprofits to be somewhat more accountable. ...

As AI systems gallop into the mainstream, humanity is left staggering somewhere behind, still deciding whether it is riding a horse or being trampled by one. The outcomes are not fixed. But the trajectories are becoming harder to ignore. We explored some speculative futures within the box, Human-AI symbiosis, Turbulent coexistence, and Dystopian displacement, as thought experiments and cautionary tales. Each story reflects plausible developments rooted in today’s technological, political, and economic fault lines. None are entirely fiction. And none are inevitable. ...

It is fashionable to believe that technological progress is inevitable, and that artificial intelligence will, barring catastrophe, continue its relentless march forward. But there is a future, quietly lurking just beyond the smug grins of Silicon Valley keynote speeches, where AI does not progress much further at all. Not because of some singularity, nor because we all upload our brains into the cloud, but because we collectively decide: “That is quite enough, thank you.” ...

Elena remembered when the world still made some sort of sense. Not much, admittedly, it had always teetered somewhere between absurd and unbearable, but at least back then, she could lie to herself about having a job, a future, or a say in how things turned out. Now, her morning routine involved checking two things: whether the universal basic income had landed in her bank account (it had not), and whether the nearest AI surveillance drone was watching (it was). ...

Elijah never quite knew how to answer the question, “So, what do you do?” He could say AI liaison, but that sounded pompous and vaguely sinister. He could say digital compliance coordinator, but even his mother snorted at that one. In truth, he spent most of his days arguing with regulatory software about whether the hospital’s cancer diagnostics model violated EU data transparency directives or merely flirted with them. It was 2028, and Elijah worked at a hospital that could diagnose rare cancers with 99% accuracy. The machine, he refused to call it a colleague, could parse blood data, family history, and MRI scans in seconds. It was not always right, but it was close enough that human oversight had become more symbolic than necessary. ...

Pau was late, again, thanks to the AI-run tram that insisted on pausing for precisely 12.4 seconds at each station “for optimal urban harmony.” “Urban harmony my arse,” he muttered, stepping out into Barcelona’s midday sun, which was now neatly moderated by micro-reflective paint and smart algae rooftops. Somewhere, a city-wide AI had just nudged the temperature down a degree using a predictive cloud-seeding protocol. It was not magic. It just felt that way. ...

The term “woke” began its journey not as a fashionable slogan but as a survival mechanism within Black America. Its trajectory, from literal vigilance to political litmus test, reveals how language can be both weapon and shield. Survival and vigilance In its earliest uses, “woke” carried the weight of bodily survival and communal resistance. In 1923, Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey exhorted his diasporic audience with the cry, “Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!”, a metaphorical awakening to racial oppression and collective self-determination. You can still look for him in the WhirlWind. ...

The EuroStack initiative is Europe’s ambitious attempt to reclaim digital sovereignty by building its own federated, standards-based infrastructure. In the healthcare sector, this means enabling patients’ health data (much of it generated by Internet of Things (IoT) devices) to move securely and interoperably across national borders. The goal is to make care more responsive, especially in emergencies or when people travel, without compromising privacy rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). ...

Zero-knowledge proofs are a rare and beautiful thing: deeply technical, yet profoundly human. They offer a way to engage with digital systems without handing over your soul. Like a well-trained butler, they keep your secrets while getting things done. In an age where over-sharing has become the default, they offer something radical: the power to prove yourself, without losing yourself. The pub test: The colour-blind friend experiment Picture the scene: you are at the pub with your colour-blind friend Nicole. On the table are two pool balls – one brilliant blue, the other an unapologetically yellow sunshine hue. To Nicole, they look exactly the same. She thinks you are pulling her leg. Telling her to “just trust you” will not help, and simply pointing out which is which feels like cheating. ...