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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