Meet Selene Hernandez, Masters of Social Work candidate at Columbia University

Please welcome Selene Hernandez to the All Tech Is Human team. Selene is doing her field placement work with our non-profit through May 2023!

Tell us a little bit about yourself:

I am a proud daughter of immigrants, born and raised on the land of the Tongva people, also known as Los Angeles, CA. I am a Masters of Social Work candidate at Columbia University. Prior to attending graduate school, I worked at a federally qualified health center primarily focusing on building community relationships to gain a deeper understanding of community needs. My undergraduate education influenced my approach to work in that I consistently consider the impact of the environment – the physical, social, political, and cultural environment – on community well-being. 

Outside of graduate school, I am also a community organizer within the rock climbing space. I organize BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) climbing nights and outdoor adventures to curate a space for folks holding intersectional identities to feel safe, seen, respected, and uplifted while climbing indoors and outdoors.. 

What drew you to the Responsible Tech movement?

Over the course of my pursuit of my Masters in Social Work I have had the privilege to learn from great minds like Dr. Courtney Cogburn. Dr. Cogburn played a major role in shining a light on all of the ways that emerging technology has and is harming us. Dr. Cogburn not only made me intimidated by the power and impact of technology, but she sparked a curiosity and drive within me to want to learn how to inject myself into the tech space to help shift the trajectory of our future. 

When I learned about all of the ways that communities of color are surveilled without our knowledge or consent, I immediately knew that I could leverage my education to operate as an advocate for the well-being of immigrant and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities that are impacted by surveillance technologies as used by policing institutions. 

What does your ideal tech future look like?

I don’t think that a single person can have a vision of the tech future that truly aligns with the wants and needs of all communities. With this in mind, I envision a tech future that is like a 1,000 piece puzzle; where there is a puzzle piece for all of our individual and community needs and when all of our puzzle pieces are put together, they make one big beautiful masterpiece. 

To get to this big beautiful masterpiece, I envision a tech future that empowers us to tap into our imagination. I envision a tech future where our imagination guides us to a way of existing and thriving outside of the systems, conditions, and norms we have learned to survive under.  

Our work at All Tech Is Human is improving the Responsible Tech ecosystem so we can better tackle thorny tech & society issues and align our tech future with the public interest. In your opinion, what more can be done to get a wider variety of backgrounds involved? 

I believe that the Responsible Tech ecosystem is in dire need of social workers. As a social worker, I have learned that my role is never to act as a problem solver but to act as a community organizer, an information translator, and as an advocate. Through all of these roles, social workers can aid in the diversification of the Responsible Tech pipeline by organizing and engaging communities in a dialogue to gain an insight into the barriers that are preventing folks from engaging with the tech space.

A social worker perspective is needed to maintain the responsible and ethical aspect of the tech space in that social workers operate from a transdisciplinary background that leverages the intersectionality of an individual or community identity. From this perspective, social workers translate information that may be unfamiliar to communities while balancing the non-academic or non-traditional knowledge that exists within communities in the process of knowledge production. Lastly, social workers are advocates that work to build bridges between communities and institutions/forces of power. As advocates, social workers build and support platforms that create space for community voices and needs to be heard and respected. 

How can people stay in touch with your work?

Folks can connect with me via LinkedIn to stay tuned into my work within the responsible tech space. Link here: Selene Hernandez | LinkedIn

For folks interested in my organizing work within the rock climbing space, feel free to follow my collective’s instagram: @bipocclimbingcollective