Spotlight on Public Interest Technology
Public Interest Technology is a key topic area of Responsible Tech. This umbrella term encompasses the diverse multidisciplinary movement focused on better aligning our tech future with the public interest.
All Tech Is Human is building the world’s largest multistakeholder, multidisciplinary network in Responsible Tech. This allows us to tackle thorny tech & society while moving at the speed of tech, leverage the collective intelligence of the community, and diversify the pipeline to better match the complexity of challenges we face.
Read about All Tech Is Human’s mission, accomplishments, and 2024 plan | See all of our upcoming projects and links
Our organization has a wide range of activities aimed at multistakeholder community-building, multidisciplinary education, and diversifying the traditional tech pipeline with more backgrounds, disciplines, and lived experiences. We have a Slack community of over 7k members across 88 countries, regular mixers and summits, six open working groups , a large mentorship program, a popular Responsible Tech Job Board + Tekalo (talent matchmaking for social impact technologists), thousands of people in our talent pool, our Responsible Tech Guide, and much more.
Read below to learn about ways that you can get involved with All Tech Is Human’s numerous activities focused on Public Interest Technology!
Related to Public Interest Technology, All Tech Is Human will be doing an upcoming project with Fordham University to explore Public Interest Technology competencies (funded by PIT-UN), is expanding our mentorship program with additional Public Interest Technology mentors, currently has a Public Interest Technology working group, and will have numerous gatherings and resources focused on Public Interest Technology.
Our organization has a Responsible Tech Job Board that includes PIT roles, is a partner with Tekalo (social impact roles for technologists), has a talent pool to assist those in PIT, and we have an expanding Responsible Tech University Network and multiple upskilling opportunities for individuals interested in Public Interest Technology.
"Aspiring responsible technologists, activists, researchers, artists, journalists and more are flocking to the field of public interest technology. As the field grows, it is essential to establish communities and networks that help to make relevant career pathways visible and viable across sectors. This ecosystem-building work has never been more crucial, and Ford Foundation is proud to support All Tech Is Human's efforts to convene, curate, and connect public interest technologists of all kinds." -Jenny Toomey, Director, Public Interest Technology Catalyst Fund
Did you know that Ford Foundation was the very first funder for All Tech Is Human in June 2021? In the coming days, we will be announcing new funding support from other foundations to help further All Tech Is Human’s mission.
“What always wakes my students up is that concept of legacy: What is the legacy you are designing and deploying? That brings them back to their social responsibility. Data scientists, whether we’re working on services, systems, or products on behalf of the collective, we are designing futures. What is your legacy? What is the legacy of your family, your community, your generation?” -Renée Cummings, Co-Lead of the University of Virginia’s Public Interest Technology University Network + All Tech Is Human’s Senior Fellow, AI, Data, and Public Policy, speaking to PIT Cases.
“Technology is infrastructure and the way that I think about it really is that like, I studied the built environment, right? I think about the inequities that are built into the world around us. We think about these buildings as just magically appearing. No, there was an architect, there was a patron, there was a plan, and in that same way, the internet is, whether it's virtual or infrastructure. So those same inequities are gonna be built in our virtual world if they don't get resolved in our physical world. And so I think that it's really important to think about all hands on deck ways of thinking about the future of technology and its impact on society.” -Saima Akhtar, Senior Associate Director of the Vagelos Computational Science Center (CSC) at Barnard College
Speakers from our August gathering in NYC; from left to right: Lyel Resner (Visiting Faculty and the Head of the Public Interest Technology Studio at Cornell Tech + Co-Leader of Startups & Society Initiative), Claire Liu Yang (Chief of Staff at Silicon Harlem), Elisa Fox (Program Manager at All Tech Is Human), Saima Akhtar( Senior Associate Director of the Vagelos Computational Science Center (CSC) at Barnard College), and Matt Mitchell (Senior Cybersecurity Program Manager at The Ford Foundation, well known security researcher).
Scene from our recent Responsible Tech Summit in partnership with the Canadian Consulate. Held in NYC on September 14, 2023, this gathering included speakers Frances Haugen, Sherry Turkle, Tim Wu, Nabiha Syed, Sinead Bovell, Justin Hendrix, and many more.
Learn about some of the organizations, universities, and companies represented in our large Slack community
-
Access Now
Accountable Tech
Ada Lovelace Institute
ADL
Alan Turing Institute
Algorithmic Justice League
Algorithm Watch
Aspen Institute
Atlantic Council
Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society
Center for Democracy & Technology
Coding It Forward
The Centre for Social Impact Technology
Creative Commons
Data & Society
DataKind
Digital Trust & Safety Partnership
Encode Justice
Fast Forward
Ford Foundation
Glitch (UK)
The Future Society
IEEE
Integrity Institute
Internet Archive
Internet Society Foundation
The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop
LookUp
Mozilla Foundation
New America
New_ Public
Omidyar Network
Oversight Board
Oxford Internet Institute
Partnership on AI
Pollicy
Project Liberty
Schmidt Futures
Search for Common Good
Siegel Family Endowment
Surveillance Technology Oversight Project
TechCongress
TechSoup
Thorn
TSPA
UN
UNDP
UNICEF
USAID
US Digital Response
Wikimedia Foundation
World Economic Forum
World Wide Web Foundation
-
American University
Arizona State University
Australian National University
Babson College
Barnard
Boston University
Brooklyn Law School
Carnegie Mellon University
Colorado Technical University
Columbia University
Concordia University
Constanta Maritime University,
Cornell Tech
CUNY
Dartmouth College
Drexel University
Duke University
Florida Institute of Technology
Florida State University
Georgetown University
George Washington University
Georgian College
Goethe University
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Harvard
Indiana University
Indian Institute of Technology
Johns Hopkins University
London School of Economics
Queensland University of Technology
Maynooth University
Mohawk College
New Jersey Institute of Technology
The New School
Northeastern University
Northwestern University
Norwich University
Notre Dame
NYU
Ohio State University
Oregon State University
Oxford University
Pace University
Penn State University
Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
Princeton University
Queen Mary University of London
Rhodes College
Seton Hall University
Simon Fraser University
Smith College
Stanford University
Stevens Institute of Technology
SUNY- University at Albany
Tallinn University of Technology
Tampere University
Technical University of Denmark
Technical University of Munich
Toronto Metropolitan University
Tufts
UC Berkeley
UCLA
UC Riverside
UCSD
UNC Chapel Hill
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
University of Alabama at Birmingham
University of Amsterdam
University of the Arts London
University of Bristol
University of British Columbia
University of Buffalo
University of Cambridge
University of Chicago
University of Colorado - Boulder
University of Denver
University of Maryland
University of Massachusetts Boston
University of Michigan
University of Montreal
University of New South Wales
University of North Dakota
University of North Florida
University of Pennsylvania
University of Pretoria
University of Pittsburgh
University of San Francisco
University of Technology Sydney
University of Toronto
University of Turku
University of Vermont
University of Vienna
University of Wisconsin, Madison
University of Zurich
Uppsala University
Vanderbilt University
Webster University
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Youngstown State University
-
ActiveFence
Adobe
Airbnb
Amazon
Apple
Avanade
Bumble
Cisco
Credo AI
Crisp, a Kroll Business
Dataiku
DeepMind
Deloitte
Discord
EY
Genpact
Google
HP
IBM
Intel
JP Morgan Chase
LinkedIn
McKinsey
Meta
Microsoft
Milltown Partners
Mozilla
Ofcom
Palantir
Pinterest
Reddit
Salesforce
Snapchat
Social Finance (UK)
Spotify
Thomson Reuters
Thoughtworks
TikTok
Tremeau
Twitch
Unitary
Vimeo
WebPurify
Yoti
YouTube
Zoom
10 Ways to Get Involved with All Tech Is Human focused on Public Interest Technology:
Join our Public Interest Technology working group | We currently have six open working groups that are helping curate essential information for the community and inform upcoming reports.
Participate in our mentorship program! Our previous cohort had 16 PIT mentors and 42 PIT mentees in 2023 (new cohort starting in March 2024).
Join our large Slack community of over 7k members across 88 countries. We have a Public Interest Technology channel along with a channel for university students
Read our Public Interest Technology knowledge hub and reach out to some of the individuals and organizations you read about! Many of these organizations and individuals can be found in our working groups, on our Slack, attending and speaking at our gatherings, being mentors in our mentorship program, posting roles on our Responsible Tech Job Board, and more.
Check out our Responsible Tech Job Board and search for Public Interest Technology roles! You can easily sort our job board by field (pick Public Interest Technology), region, experience level, and more.
Join our Responsible Tech Talent Pool, where we freely assist individuals with potential matches and have a significant amount of individuals focused on Public Interest Technology.
Read our Responsible Tech Guide and be on the lookout for our upcoming Responsible Tech Org List 2024. Both of these free resources include an overview of the ecosystem, profile interviews with public interest technologists (and more), and curated resources from numerous Public Interest Technology organizations.
Are you a technologist wanting to work in the social impact space?! Check out Tekalo, a free matchmaking service that All Tech Is Human is involved with alongside US Digital Response, Fast Forward, and Schmidt Futures.
Attend an in-person gathering and meet others who are involved with Public Interest Technology! Our next in-person gathering is in NYC on January 29th (in partnership with Consumer Reports) and features speakers Tracy Chou, Julia Angwin, Ginny Fahs, and moderator Jennifer Strong.
Attend a livestream! We have numerous livestreams at All Tech Is Human for our growing global audience. Upcoming ones include a discussion with Hilke Schellmann, author of The Algorithm: How AI Decides Who Gets Hired, Monitored, Promoted, and Fired and Why We Need to Fight Back Now, on January 24 (REGISTER) and a Global Majority Spotlight: Elections on January 25 (REGISTER).
*We are also having a major expansion and improvement to our university network, with an announcement to be made shortly.
Did You Know?
All Tech Is Human has held multiple Public Interest Technology career fairs. For example, we helped Stanford University, Pepperdine, and the University of Washington hold a virtual PIT career fair. Rebekah Tweed (Exec Director and Sarah Welsh (Program Manager for our mentorship program) were also heavily involved in launching NYU’s A Better Tech: Public Interest Technology Convention and Career fair in 2021.
We held 23 in-person gatherings in 2023, with Public Interest Technology being a regular topic area. We are based in NYC and also hold in-person gatherings in Washington, DC, London, and San Francisco with plans for additional cities in 2024.
Our 2023 Public Interest Technology mentors included Andrejs Berdnikovs, Jiahao Chen, Rita Antonella Cuevas, Dishit Devasia, Glenn Ellingson, Dora Heng, Faisal Lalani, Laureli Mallek, Angelina Ndung'u, Chris Piotrowski, Sylvan Rackham, Nayyara Rahman, Svenja Richter, Ellen Rowe, Danielle Thierry, and Cobun Zweifel-Keegan.
Renée Cummings, our Senior Fellow, AI, Data, and Public Policy. Professor Renée Cummings, a 2023 VentureBeat AI Innovator Award winner, is an artificial intelligence (AI), data and tech ethicist, and the first data activist-in-residence at the University of Virginia’s (UVA) School of Data Science where she was named professor of Practice in Data Science. She is also a nonresident senior fellow at The Brookings Institution and a distinguished member of the World Economic Forum’s Data Equity Council. She is also a criminologist, criminal psychologist, therapeutic jurisprudence specialist, and a community scholar at Columbia University. She also serves as co-director of the Public Interest Technology (PIT) University Network, at UVA, and is on the board of advisors of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.
All Tech Is Human recently announced 43 affiliates from 11 countries. This inaugural cohort features many leading voices in Public Interest Technology.
Our organization is a complex adaptive system that can move at the speed of tech, is highly participatory with a diverse range of voices, and promotes a culture of knowledge-sharing and collaboration.
Panel conversation for All Tech Is Human in Washington, DC featuring B Cavello (Director of Emerging Technologies at Aspen Digital), Afua Bruce (author of The Tech That Comes Next), and Cori Zarek (now Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Digital Service; spoke while being the Executive Director at the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation). Moderated by David Ryan Polgar, Founder & President of All Tech Is Human