Responsible Tech Summit coming in September!

Plus an upcoming ASK THE MENTOR!, our reading group, and so much more.

Jul 15, 2021

😺We’re planning an all-day Responsible Tech Summit to take place online in September!

To celebrate the release of our expanded and updated Responsible Tech Guide that is arriving in September, we are putting together an exciting all-day event that will be filled with talks, networking, and guidance for getting more involved in the nascent Responsible Tech space. Yeah, it’s happening.

We’ll be tapping into the diverse community we built after launching our inaugural summit in the Fall of 2018 in NYC, along with the numerous projects, events, and livestreams we have held since (check out our list of previous speakers). We are also hoping to bring on a bunch of new voices that we have either not discovered yet or haven’t had the chance to engage. We’d love your help by offering your feedback, speaker suggestions, and general suggestions through our interest form!

Responsible Tech Summit interest form

🙋 Our next ASK A MENTOR! is happening on Wed, August 4th at 1pm EDT. Join in!

We recently launched a new series called ASK A MENTOR!, which is a 45-minute AMA-style video conversation with a leading voice working in Responsible Tech. Given how nascent, undefined, and rapidly-evolving the Responsible Tech space is, we are providing a welcoming environment to learn from the journey of others who have paved their way into the space.

On Wed, August 4th at 1pm EDT we will be welcoming Savannah Badalich, the Policy Director at Discord to the ASK A MENTOR! virtual stage. Savannah has had a fascinating career that has spanned doing valuable work around reducing online gender-based violence, and previous stints at Civic Hall and Twitter.

Join Savannah Badalich on Aug 4th!

👍Our first ASK A MENTOR! happened yesterday, where AI Ethicist & Data Activist Renée Cummings delivered both inspiring words and insightful guidance to building a career in Responsible Tech.

Renée Cummings is a leading voice in the world of AI Ethics who was recently appointed the Data Activist in Residence at the University of Virginia. Sounds like a cool job. How did Renée build her career?! Similar to many individuals we encounter in Responsible Tech, Renée wasn’t invited to the AI Ethics party—she opened the door by finding all ways in. Some key areas Renée focused on include:

Always being intellectually curious and perpetually learning.
The benefits of speaking to a variety of audiences and being able to build on the exposure for future opportunities to grow her career.
Being in a state of constant evolution to adjust alongside a changing environment.

📚We are tweaking our Responsible Tech Reading Group to expand to new audiences! Attend our next event on July 29th at 12pm EDT with special guests Tara Dawson McGuinness and Hana Schank, authors of Power to the Public: The Promise of Public Interest Technology!

Join in on July 29

If you would like to be involved in expanding the Responsible Tech Reading Group, reach out to Felicia Chen and Grace Juster on our Slack. (Need to join our Slack? JOIN HERE.)

👋Speaking of public interest technology, All Tech Is Human is a partner with the NYU-led A BETTER TECH: Public Interest Technology Convention & Career Fair that is happening on October 14th & 15th.

There are so many ways for you to get involved in A BETTER TECH! Specifically, you can:

Submit your presentation ideas by September 10th for either a workshop (80 minutes), dialogue (40 minutes) or idea (10 minutes). Read this post about it from Rebekah Tweed.
Join our private channel on Slack for A BETTER TECH. (Not on Slack, join here)
Get your Karma Points balance going by sponsoring A BETTER TECH. If that is of interest, drop us a line at Hello@AllTechIsHuman.org.

🎉Australia just released a toolkit for their Safety by Design program. We spoke with their eSafety Commissioner about it.

🤯Our recent report on Improving Social Media just surpassed 10k views and was cited by Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder.

Yeah, we are pretty happy about that as well. Our goal is to bring together a diverse range of stakeholders to co-create a better tech future, and it has been great to see this hitting a nerve. In our report, we have a diverse range of 42 experts across civil society, government, and industry interviewed and a working group of over 100 people. We are cited in Aspen’s Commission on Information Disorder’s Knowledge Center that launched for their initial report (full report in Sept) around Platform Response and Accountability.

🏦Want to build a better tech future? Work in it.

We continue to add new positions weekly to our Responsible Tech Job Board! This curated list of jobs is unique in that it centers around roles for reducing the harms of technology, diversifying the tech pipeline, and ensuring that technology is aligned with the public interest. Some new roles posted from The Algorithmic Justice League, Centre for Data Ethics & Innovation, Future of Life Institute, Aaqua, Open Data Institute, Paravision, Ada Lovelace Institute, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford and more!

Do you know of a role that should be added? Ping Rebekah@AllTechIsHuman.org

📝Notes from the Responsible Tech community

“I am conducting a research study to evaluate the impact that the new EU Regulatory Proposal on AI which came out in end of April 2021, will have for public and private sector in the EU region. This new proposal is a follow up to the White Paper on Artificial Intelligence that was published in February 2020. On that first document most of the attention was given to placing EU in a good stand from a global competitiveness perspective. This new proposal on the other hand, puts European fundamental values at the core front and it is expected to be a significant contributor to changes in AI regulations for the coming decades, not only in Europe but also globally. The research study consists of 10 questions on responsibility and accountability of data governance, implementation of algorithms, transparency of the systems, testing of AI technologies, code of conduct of organizations, etc. The target audience is professionals who have experience in AI Technologies, Data Science, Digital Policy, Civil Society, Academia. If you would like to be part of my study please reach out HERE.” -Amela Gjishti

“For a long time I thought I was teaching things people didn't want to hear about or care about and in discovering this community I found so many people who care as I do. I love that people in the community highlight the positives and awesome work people are doing in the tech space while also calling out the injustices, directing attention to problems, and offering solutions.” -Anna Slavina, PhD, UX Researcher [Denver CO]