School of Cities Knowledge Café: Data, belonging, and the algorithmic city

In this session, Ahmed Ilmi will explore how Black Muslim Somali youth navigate belonging, racialization, and identity within increasingly data-driven urban environments.

Drawing on research with Say-Walahi youth in Toronto, it examines how algorithms, digital platforms, and political narratives shape experiences of surveillance and exclusion while highlighting youth-led digital resistance, creativity, and transnational forms of connection.

About the speaker

Ahmed Ali Ilmi is a sociologist and interdisciplinary Black Studies scholar and Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Development Studies at the University of Toronto Scarborough.