Tech Equity and Serving the Community

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[Music]

it’s okay we’re not saving lives here

those were the words a manager at ibm

used to comfort someone who made a

significant mistake in a computer

program

that was to be delivered to significant

clients i remember listening to the

manager

recount the story to me soon after i

graduated with a computer engineering

degree

presumably to make me feel better about

any mistake i might make in the future

but instead i was left wondering why we

didn’t consider the impact computer

programs were

having on these clients lives i had been

raised to always look for ways to

support my community

and do what i could to provide for the

needs of other people

why was there this big disconnect with

my chosen profession

couldn’t we use technology to drive

systemic change in society to improve

equity

couldn’t we use technology to advance

the public interest

i genuinely loved being a software

engineer and as my career progressed i

further questioned how people

not just as potential clients but as

valuable members of society and humanity

were thought of during the engineering

process spoiler alert

they often weren’t some people may think

of code as just a bunch of ones and

zeros written by techies and hoodies in

a garage somewhere

but actually technology works best when

we realize the power that code has

on our lives it turns out i’m not the

first person to wrestle with these

thoughts

i look to one of the pioneers in public

interest technology

computer scientist and harvard

university professor dr latonya swinging

public interest technology is formally

defined as the study and application of

technology expertise

to advance the public interest generate

public benefits

and promote the public good you know how

when you google yourself you learn

there’s a lot of information out there

about you

in publicly accessible databases well dr

sweeney discovered that a computer-savvy

person

like myself and many others if they have

the time and the interest could put all

of this information together

and emerge with a description of you

your name

exactly where you live what health

conditions you have

and what your overall prognosis this

would be a problem because

not only does it probably make you

uncomfortable to think of someone having

access to that level of information

about you

but a nefarious person could use that

information to target you

or discriminate against you dr sweeney

by employing a variety of computer

science techniques

like writing programs and algorithms to

discover the available information

analyzing the structures and

reconstructing what she found

showed that this information this data

was not truly anonymized as some had

said

but could instead be used to identify

specific individuals

dr sweeney took it a step further by

working with health experts to

understand some of the data

and with legal experts to understand the

options available to control

who gets access to this information but

dr sweeney didn’t stop there

she went ahead and testified to congress

a body charged with protecting us as

citizens

and as a result of her work congress

made changes to the system

in what we know as hipaa laws when you

go to the doctor and sign the paper

stating your health information can’t be

shared

that’s in part because of her work by

relying on those ones and zeros

dr sweeney’s work truly affected lives

now dr sweeney is what we call a public

interest technologist

she didn’t just use her technical

expertise to identify and study her

problem

she also worked with non-technical

experts to put the problem in context

and understand what a productive

solution could be she knew that it would

not be enough to find a solution

there had to be a systemic change for

the solution to help the public

by advocating with policymakers to show

how information in the wrong hands could

be harmful

she translated the technology into

something that could create a positive

change in society

this work isn’t just happening by people

at universities

as i’ve pivoted my own career i’ve seen

that intentionally doing research and

designing technology

while considering the ethical and

societal consequences of tech

is not an ambition it is possible and it

is happening today

i’ve gone from being an engineer at ibm

with managers who don’t actively think

about technology impacting lives

to driving science and technology

innovation from the white house

i partnered with state and local

government agencies to develop

human-centered solutions

that their constituents use and i’ve

deployed current technology with a

variety of non-profits

both inside and outside of the us i’ve

designed with

not for communities on projects ranging

from financial inclusion

to cyber security to frontline health

workers and more

and i’ve seen that for every app for

every website

there’s someone who’s coming to those

tools to have their needs met

even as we live through a pandemic

people are using technology to go to a

website

and connect with other humans to look

for housing and to apply for government

services

it’s so important that the people who

are designing those programs are aware

from the beginning about the

implications of those ones and zeros

on lives and livelihoods when they don’t

things can go really badly really

quickly

imagine using a social networking site

and discovering you didn’t see

everything you searched for

because it had been designed in such a

way that advertisers

could prevent you from seeing certain

options based on your grace

your gender or your age but here’s the

thing

using the public interest technology

framework allows us to not just

imagine a more equitable world but to

actively build justice into the systems

that drive our world

the reality is that technology

innovations don’t exist in a vacuum

they’re extensions of our political and

social worlds

take for example the citizen clinic that

operates out of uc berkeley

it is staffed by a bunch of public

interest technologists applying their

technical skills

to organizations that serve vulnerable

populations domestic violence victims

people experiencing homelessness

exploited children refugees

these organizations have a tremendous

amount of data can you imagine what

would happen

if this data got into the wrong hands

focused on cyber security the citizen

clinic supports organizations to make

sure their clients aren’t targeted

bullied or harassed and their data isn’t

held hostage

the clinic provides critical assessments

of the organization’s technical

vulnerabilities

and offers strategies and sometimes

actual tools in the form of computer

programs

to allow these organizations to protect

people do we still think we’re not

capable of protecting lives with those

ones and zeroes

in my current role at datakind i have

the privilege of working with technical

volunteers

who like me want to translate their

technical skills in concrete ways to

impact lives

giving others access to services

security and safety

we’ve gotten to work with a number of

organizations but one of the most

exciting projects to me

was the opportunity to work with

plentiful you’ve probably seen images of

people waiting in long lines to feed

their families during this pandemic

plentiful is an app that allows families

to find food pantries and food banks and

get the food they need

without waiting in line by working with

a team of data scientists we were able

to go behind the scenes

and create an algorithm that identified

issues notified the right person at the

food bank

so they could make the appropriate

adjustments reacting to an item running

low for example

ultimately we were able to connect more

people to food

now is the moment for public interest

technologists

we face problems of massive scale the

coven 19 pandemic rapidly changing

economies

even political tensions and a reckoning

with racial disparities

public interest technologists must have

a space and every sector

so the products we use every day

products that dictate how we interact

with the world

are in the public interest the

combination of skills that public

interest

technologists bring including empathy

and long-term perspective taking

evaluation of trade-offs with an ethical

and legal framework

and consideration of societal

implications are critical

to having technologies that recognize

everyone regardless of skin tone

and disseminate true and accurate

information

it’s time we reframe our expectations of

how technology is developed and applied

the people i’ve talked about today are

computer engineers like myself

computer scientists data scientists and

software engineers

all using their technical expertise to

meet the needs of others

we are public interest technologists and

we have a new story to tell

we are going to be okay we are improving

lives here

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