All Tech Is Human co-hosted the inaugural Public Interest Technology Summit at Stanford University
By Ali Feldhausen
On October 11th, All Tech Is Human, Stanford’s Public Interest Tech (PIT) Lab, and McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, hosted the inaugural Public Interest Technology Summit on the Stanford campus. This student-led event — organized by the PIT Lab and Angela Ngoc Nguyen, Audrey Jin-Young Choi, and Jenny Duan – brought together 30 Public Interest Tech (PIT) organizations and nearly 200 Stanford students to learn more about PIT careers and myriad places looking for talent.
The event opened with keynote remarks from Katharina Koerner, AI Governance Lead at Western Governors University, and Tara Chklovski, CEO of Technovation. Koerner and Chklovski highlighted the circuitous paths they have taken to land at their current positions, and they stressed the importance of persistence and innovation to constantly iterate in an ever-changing digital world.
These remarks were followed by a panel discussion with Tiffany Saade, Adjunct Cybersecurity and AI Policy Fellow at the Institute for Security and Technology; Princess Vongchanh, U.S. Student Coordinator at Mozilla Foundation; Smita Bhattacharjee, Deputy CIO at San Jose’s Mayor’s Office; and Elena Mosse Investment Analyst at Lowercarbon Capital. The panel was moderated by Nguyen, and panelists shared their thoughts on everything from the digital divide to entrepreneurship.
Following the conversation, students and ATIH community members were invited to talk with tabling organizations about their work, the representatives' own pathways to PIT careers, and potentially open positions at organizations. Organizations like ICANN, Aspen Tech Policy Hub, and TechCongress (full list here) filled the room while internship and job seekers asked questions and shared their own aspirations in PIT.
The successful Summit will hopefully be the first of many annual events that brings together key PIT organizations to students aspiring in the field at Stanford University.
