Public Interest Technology Mentors in the 2023 Responsible Tech Mentorship Program
This year we’re joined by 115 volunteer mentors and 375 mentees from nearly 35 countries. Mentors work at startups, non-profits, in government, at large companies, and even run their own organizations. Many of our mentors are returning for a second time, and some have been with us since the very first cohort in 2021.
Mentorship pods have been divided into subgroups by speciality, and here you’ll find a list of all the mentors in Public Interest Technology (with includes Tech & Democracy, Data Privacy, and Digital Governance).
Our Public Interest Technology Mentors are linked by their shared commitment to leverage technological advancements to address critical public challenges and empower individuals within the digital landscape. It encompasses initiatives aimed at strengthening democratic processes through digital tools, fostering transparent and accountable digital governance, and ensuring that individuals' personal data is handled ethically and securely (to name only a few).
Read about the mentors leading this charge in 2023 for All Tech Is Human (listed in alphabetical order):
Dr. Andrejs Berdnikovs
Tech & Democracy
Dr. Andrejs Berdnikovs is the Head of the Technology Business Center of the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA), Latvia’s delegate to the European Space Agency’s Industrial Policy Committee and Latvian Space Office’s representative in downstream and deep tech business support. He deals with the incorporation of responsible technology principles into public programs supporting innovation, aligning them with standard methods, criteria, and metrics for product novelty assessment and the evaluation of the degree of innovation.
The programs Andrejs works with cover a wide spectrum of technologies and therefore require the implementation of responsible tech principles in many areas, including AI ethics, algorithmic justice, coded bias, risks related to sociotechnical control systems, challenges, uncertainties and precautionary principles in bioengineering, medical interventions, and various aspects of Genetic Ethics, Neuroethics, and Bioethics. One of his research interests is the use of deep tech innovations as a liberating tool in community empowerment and in the fight against hyper-automation-driven control machines in non-democracies. As the national delegate to the European Space Agency, Andrejs is also increasingly involved in space sustainability and the economics of space debris.
Jiahao Chen
Digital Governance
Jiahao left an academic career at MIT for industry in 2017. At that time, the deep learning revolution was in full-swing, but many of the impressive advancements were not in universities, but in companies. He became a Senior Manager of Data Science at Capital One focusing on machine learning research for credit analytics and retail operations. Jiahao shipped his first models in production—based on logistic regression and naïve Bayes—and felt like he’d suffered a bait and switch. Instead of the latest and greatest in neural networks, why did he ship a model based on decades-old statistics that he used to teach at MIT?
It turns out that banking regulations require models have behaviors that are understandable to humans, and must be proven to be non-discriminatory before they can be used. Jiahao became interested in fairness and explainability in AI/ML, and how to use state-of-the-art research techniques to address compliance needs. Jiahao started the responsible machine learning group at Capital One as a result, and brought those interests to JPMorgan Chase as a Director of AI Research. By the time Jiahao left in 2021, he was part of the leadership that oversaw the department’s growth to almost 70 full-time PhDs, as well as developing new techniques for fair lending compliance review and model risk management for AI/ML systems. Jiahao then co-founded a startup where he developed new risk management techniques for employment decision systems, and closed his first revenue sustaining customer just six months into the startup.
When still in academia, Jiahao was a Research Scientist at MIT CSAIL where he co-founded and led the Julia Lab, focusing on applications of the Julia programming language to data science, scientific computing, and machine learning. Jiahao has organized JuliaCon, the Julia conference, for the years 2014-2016, as well as organized workshops at NeurIPS, SIAM CSE, and the American Chemical Society National Meetings. Jiahao has authored over 120 packages for numerical computation, data science and machine learning for the Julia programming language, in addition to numerous contributions to the base language itself.
Rita Antonella Cuevas
Digital Governance
Rita Antonella Cuevas is an Argentine lawyer (UNNE) currently writing her thesis for her second bachelor degree in International Relations (UNSAM). She has been researching and working since 2015 in topics related to human rights, regulation of AI, Data Governance, digital platforms and other ICT innovations in the digital society from a Latin American and multidisciplinary analysis.
Dishit Devasia
Tech & Democracy
Glenn Ellingson
Tech & Democracy
Dora Heng
Data Privacy
As a trained economist turned technologist, Dora Heng is focused on building responsible technology for our collective future. She currently works at Visa within the Global Data Office, leading projects around responsible innovation, building trustworthy and accountable data systems, and data partnership for social impact. Dora has an MPA in International Development from Harvard, and a BA in Economics from Cornell.
Faisal Lalani
Tech & Democracy
I’m Faisal, a researcher, activist, writer, and technologist. I’ve engaged with lots of different studies, from doing fieldwork in rural Nepal on progressive education, to developing community wireless networks in South Africa, to analyzing celebrity influence on politics in India for Microsoft Research. I also worked on designing machine learning algorithms to support community health programs in different countries for Dimagi. I am currently heavily involved with a number of different tech companies, research institutions, collectives, and social justice groups on intersecting AI ethics principles in non-Western contexts, organizing deliberative democracy sessions for civic participation in generative AI discourse, understanding how discrimination experienced in early childhood amplifies mental illness, creating national strategies for immigrant and faith-based communities to help improve low-quality schools around the US, and dismantling casteist, racist, and sexist structures impacting South Asian communities globally. I am also an avid traveler, reader, hiker, climber, adrenaline junkie, ballroom dancer, poetry enthusiast, and amateur microbiologist.
Laureli Mallek
Digital Governance
Laureli Mallek is the Director of Security & Privacy at Art Blocks. She is responsible for building security and privacy into all aspects of Art Blocks by owning strategy and controls that span the product, systems, and employees. She also contributes to organizational effectiveness improvements across the company to improve delivery capabilities and enable scaling of people and services by leveraging her strategic planning and execution skills gained from managing complex programs. Before Art Blocks, Laureli held roles at Atlassian, Google, Fastly, and NCC Group where she worked across security, privacy, and program management. Outside of work, she is completing an MS at Northwestern University in Learning and Organizational Change and coaches people through significant changes. Away from the computer, you’ll likely find her outdoors or reading a book from her long reading list.
Angelina Ndung'u
Tech & Democracy
Chris Piotrowski
Public Interest Technology
Sylvan Rackham
Public Interest Technology
Research Fellow at ToftH and University of Cambridge MPhil Technology Policy graduate - using philosophy, policy, art, and jokes to explore how we conceptualise, shape, and are shaped by technology. Sylvan's current focus is on how AI can be collectively understood and developed as a medium through aesthetic iteration. Find out more on Sylvan’s website.
Nayyara Rahman
Digital Governance
Nayyara Rahman is a technology management professional with a focus on digital civil rights, specifically data protection and privacy. Her work in translating data protection via a tech-driven solution was selected for Pakistan's second AWS AI/ML reactor and was also selected for presentation at the International Anti-Corruption Academy's Regional Alumni Conference 2022. Nayyara Rahman was also chosen as a Program Envoy for ITU's 'Women In Cyber' Program, to make technology, and specifically, cybersecurity more inclusive and diverse. She is also active as a researcher, speaker and university faculty member. She is the author of a number of white papers which analyse the applicability of data protection laws in context of realities within the applicable population. Her core interest areas, transparency and accountability, have also been addressed through the lens of data management and high-tech solutions which combine concepts of governance, policy, technology and experience design. Nayyara Rahman graduated from Pakistan's most prestigious business school, the IBA.
Svenja Richter
Public Interest Technology
Ellen Rowe
Digital Governance
Ellen Rowe is a foreign cybersecurity policy analyst for the Government of Canada (GoC). With her high-level understanding of emerging technologies, Ellen writes policy, leads workshops and presentations for GoC executives and staff. She regularly attends webinars and presents her research at conferences. Ellen completed a BA (hons) in Canadian and Indigenous History and World Languages at Queen’s University as well as a Master of Public Policy at McGill University. Ellen’s master degree research project on AI revealed gender challenges including bias and stereotypes in AI systems. Upon learning of the gender gap, where less than 25% of women globally work in cybersecurity and AI, Ellen’s desire to decrease gender inequalities grew. Ellen volunteers her time as a member of Women in AI, Hackergal, Women in Cyber Intelligence, and has mentored young adults as part of the All Tech Is Human movement since summer 2021. In her spare time, Ellen rows and cycles.
Danielle Thierry
Public Interest Technology
Cobun Zweifel-Keegan
Data Privacy