 And I would like to welcome our final panelists of the day to the stage and led by our wonderful moderator, Autumn McDonald. So before we begin, I wanted to just talk a little bit about why it's so important that we think about civic engagement and what it means to be part of kind of like the civil discourse and our civil rights and our civil rights connection to our just everyday rights, right? Like everything that we need, our basic, our fundamental needs as humans. And I want you to just kind of take a moment to think about like what that means to you before we jump in here because we're making the connection in this next conversation between public interest technology and civic engagement. And I don't want us to lose for a moment what that means when we think about civil rights, a fantastic civil rights leader and not just the legacy but again the future of what's to come, what we will see and what we will help make real. I want to start by making sure that we all kind of are in touch with kind of who's here and who's in this conversation and I want to ask each of our panelists to just take a moment to introduce yourselves. I know it's written down there for you but I'd love for us to just start with a brief introduction so if you can just take a moment and then we'll jump into this conversation. Great. Good afternoon. My name is Lily Beth Genghis. I'm the Chief Tech Community Officer at the Kaper Foundation and for folks who may not be aware what we do, we focus really on helping making the tech ecosystem more equitable and creating opportunities as we've shared of what does the future look like? How do we shape it? And for me this work is extremely personal both because of how tech has changed my life, my family's life, how what I was able to work on as an engineer, what I decided to leave, why I had ethical decisions and a lot of these times almost 20 years ago to where I'm doing now which is really how do we help use technology in a way that is actually helping close gaps of access, creating opportunity, creating choices that ultimately provide us those freedoms and we are really at probably at one of the most challenging and turning points of our entire human generation to date because never have you had the opportunity of so much data, lower cost of these technologies and yet the majority of the population of the current state of the US is not reflected in who those creators are. So for me it's personal, it's professional, it's also spiritual of being able to see how the genius that has been encoded in our DNA from many past generations and ancestors is really the moment that I think we need to reconnect with to be able to really decide what is the next real innovation is going to look like and how does that impact us. So happy to be here and honored to be here as well and as a Latina immigrant there's a lot of unlearning and relearning that as well that my community it's participating and that we need to include them in this conversation as well. Fantastic, thank you. Good afternoon as well. Kevin Harris, I'm glad to be here. I'm our Executive Director of our Cybersecurity Clinics and our HBCU Cybersecurity Center at Steelman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and just having been fortunate to be exposed to technology early in my life I think one of the things that has made me kind of be a champion in this area but to make sure that I will say the exposure changes attitudes so that the more that we can do to present these new fields and we say that they're new but to what you said is when we think about the civil rights movement we think about hiding information from slavery, guideposts. When we use words today such as encryption and VPNs and routers we think about that as being a new way to secure information but really we've been securing information critically for years. Thank you, yes. I mean I don't know what to say after Dr. in Nashville, Tennessee and they were like you young then my dissertation was about gender studies and about how girls achieve they say you're young teach our technology class. I was like that has nothing to do with my dissertation but I needed the money so I did it but that was at the height I'm just being honest how talk about pathways into this work and it was at the height of the Arab summer and at that time communities were organizing through their mobile devices to topple dictatorial regimes and then that's how I actually got into the work because in the in black spaces if you're young you're gonna teach a technology you're gonna be over media ministry just because of your youth they empower you with technical skills. Y'all didn't catch that okay. Who called it? Well I can tell already this is gonna be quite the conversation and I just wanted to just back up a moment and just share my own context which is that I am with New America California and our focus has been for gosh last six seven years thinking about economic equity and thinking specifically about resident voice worker voice and just what it means to influence the narrative to influence policies such that people have the ability to thrive and there's a lot of that that has to do with civic engagement but a lot of that has to do with just all of us doing this whole thing in concert right like all of us living in concert and what that means as the way that we live continues to evolve you know you could go back centuries and the way that we live is constantly moving in different ways and what that means in terms of the tools that you need and the way you need to be conversant all of that is always changing and so that's why it's so important to have this conversation that we are having now. I wanted to jump in and ask Lily our first question which is related to the people who are thinking so deeply right now about civil rights have been going through a really important shift and that shift has been more of a focus on digital rights so can you talk to us for a moment about what are digital rights and how are they in some ways also civil and what are some of the things that we should be considering as we confront this in our lives. Yeah definitely I think if we look at the current space that we're in and the world that technology currently plays right in access to education healthcare employment and even voting information as we were discussing last night when we think about how we got here and looking backwards to the point that Fallon made through her really beautiful conversation speech today it's like we have to understand the history and specifically understanding the impact the red lining has had and continues to have in the current infrastructure in how things how different zip codes and neighborhoods are also being codified in this digital world right and so seeing the how our everyday life has changed from brick and mortar to being more digital and the types of data points the types of bias the types of discrimination and also the types of data privacy rights that we're losing the transparency rights that we're losing the awareness we're at a moment that we don't understand many of us especially in the communities that we're working with may not be understanding or realizing that they're being discriminated in this digital sphere and one of the areas that we specifically at the caper center that we worked on last year was partnering up with consumer reports to specifically help raise awareness of what are some of these ways that these algorithms are really impacting who gets the mortgage rate right who has the better healthcare access as we said during the pandemic the data showed so clearly the disparities of equity in healthcare and basic access to education to internet to jobs to safety and I think being able to leverage that moment of just really challenging times as we saw coming out of the pandemic we must make sure that we don't lose the urgency of the moment that brought us together even for an instant time and second the world stopped right and we all saw wow like no matter where how rich you were or not whether you had degrees or not for that moment the world stopped and we also realized that without connectivity and access and digital literacy a lot of the discrepancy of this redlining history was mapped and mirrored in fact actually here in in in Oakland we there was we actually compared the data of the redlining maps to the maps of digital speed and internet connectivity and it was so blatant to see right and that's how we started getting into the digital redlining conversation right and so it takes us back to this question is really important because without understanding the civil rights that many many people and leaders fought and died for we have seen those rights be digitized and a lot of that opportunity for us to fight for our rights making sure that they're not being violated are becoming more and more opaque and this is why these spaces and conversations are super critical and why that's as an example why that consumer reports three-part video series called bad input dot or you can check it out was to really start that conversation not with the technologists not with the entrepreneurs but with the community members the folks who are on the ground working with a lot of the the community that were disconnected the folks who are also specifically on it out in East Oakland working in non-English communities right immigrant communities communities that are living multifamily to one unit that even though these federal programs are coming to help them be connected they still can't reap the benefits but here they are paying their taxes and paying all their as they purchase and are living they're contributing to to the economy but there is no way for with at the current level of infrastructure for them to reap those benefits and have that access and so I think the part the first part is really looking at how we're raising awareness how do you know if you're being discriminated when all this data is being obfuscated when all these companies say they can't say why or how these algorithms work but yeah we have to we have to push back right the second part is helping us understand well how do we push back what does the advocacy look like what are the actions that we can take and this is where I think for myself this work has been a schooling in itself because I came from engineering building different types of software and hardware and like learn about business but being out in the community and seeing the faces of the kids the families being able to show like how some of these challenges are really palpable between whether they can make the rent or not it's to me drives me every day but being able to have them also understand how they can engage in the policy side through comments through calls through making sure that their experience is not being translated into words and highly you know policy initiatives but that they are the ones helping share their stories and in their own words and then the third part is like then we have to move to action right which is we have to make sure that we're staying on top of it and I think this is where as consumers as owners as builders we have to make sure that we are making we are looking for alternative models and alternative solutions but there's going to be trade-offs that we make so I think the time is important for that and so and a lot of this stuff and I'll get ready to close because it's a little long-winded but I think a lot of this stuff is to remember that our experiences are have become data points right but we have to make sure that those data points are not deciding what we want to build use apply we want to make sure that that's where especially right now at this current moment looking at the rights our data rights our data privacy is super critical to making sure that as we're thinking about what are these digital rights we understand how that is how our data is being leveraged and used with our knowledge or without our knowledge with our buying and with our without right and unfortunately a lot of the the business models of tech companies have taken advantage that we haven't had policies lost to better protect us especially as we get into the world of AI where it just becomes more obfuscated yeah so we're all in this kind of sandwich generation right now so right like many of us are experiencing where our parents are getting a little bit older and then we sometimes see things that make us wonder about how as time goes by you'll see the different technologies and the different scams and the like which are putting more people who are older at risk I was at the post office the other day and a man came in and said you know I need to get this package but I was told that I have to come to the post office or I have to you know go to this website and so forth because they don't have the right information and then that's if I give them 30 cents then I will be able to and so the woman behind the you know the the post office was like that's a scam sir and so he was like no no no it's not a scam like he was like it's it's definitely I just have to put in my credit card and then I give 30 cents and then so give me you know give me my package and she was like we never ask for your credit card information and so I was just thinking about that and what that looks like over time and building the awareness as you talked about educating figuring out how to advocate and I'm using that as a very tiny example but I think about all of the things that need to and it's only a matter of time before my kids will need to be explaining me to me all the different things that I need to be mindful of that right now you know I I can't even imagine exactly what they are but the thing that you said that I think is really interesting is that when we think about public interest technology there was a time in the earlier days where it was kind of like okay thinking about maybe how legislators the folks who are coming up with the policies and coming up with the laws can be thinking about where does technology play into that but you're pointing out how important it is for every one of us every person to be really mindful aware educated and able to advocate as it pertains to their engagement in this kind of specific realm that is really important for that to be connected and then the other thing you said that I thought was really important is just that they're able to share the stories in their own words and I think when we're changing the kind of narrative around any of these things it's so important that we recognize that we can't change the narrative without changing the narrators that's just so critical loving I wanted to move on to ask you can I call you Kevin should I call you Dr. Harris Kevin's good Kevin I would love if you would talk to us a little bit about the importance of cyber security and the in the context specifically of civic engagement what are we kind of specifically should we be thinking about in this highly digital world yeah I think when I think about those conversations currency comes to mind you know when we think about you know as you mentioned rail lining we're talking about property or before that you know when we look at the bar system or whether we're trading jewelry or we're trading pottery like that's important to the society and that's what's needed whether it's our paper currency or digital currency that we have but now our currency is data it's our information and it's information or currency that we can't get back so unfortunately if we're scammed and we lose all of the money in our bank account we can get that back you know it may take us a while you know it's going to be rough but if we give up our data which is our digital currency that we have we can never get it back potentially especially when we start talking about biometrics or you know really invasive pieces of our data that's personal and so I think we have to frame it as not information because a lot of times when we talk to people about information you know I hope people tell me oh I don't have anything to hide and I'll always say you should have something to hide even if it's just your banking information and so I think when we talk about currency if you know if we left our wallet or our purse somewhere you know we're immediately like okay where's it at how do I go get it but maybe we don't have that same urgency if we leave a external drive or a phone or a laptop somewhere or we leave our cloud platforms password is one two three four you know all that information is out there so it shouldn't be one two three four just add five but I mean I think that is the organizations that work social justice environmental justice climate justice all of this is important and that data that they have has to be protected so I mean I think that's why cybersecurity is so critical to what we're doing with social justice yeah I usually save this for the end of a session but is there anything that he just said that makes you think you being uh Fallon or Lily is there anything else that makes you think do you have like a follow-up question didn't like bring up anything for you because I think that's an interesting thread to kind of pull on I'm a little lily do that oh here I think when we think about especially the biometric data right and we've seen how some of that information especially talking about the discrimination that are embedded in a lot of these algorithms when when we think about the time of importance of policies and regulations but also the responsibility that a lot of these companies have right so what would be should I ask a question or yeah no feel free yeah so on that end I think one of the parts that we're seeing is like there are some decisions where a lot of technology to help maybe to help find our vacation great to help find you know the restaurant great but when it's a life and death type of decision right whether it's healthcare safety wondering on on that end on what are some of the current things that folks can do on the cybersecurity side that as everyday folks who understand that narrative that that part where this is a critical data point I think be involved with the design of systems so a lot of times security cybersecurity is added after systems are designed so the you know a lot of times you look at application designers and developers their main focus is on features and the operating how does the platform operate and so if you look at should we collect data like some some of that should be asked from the very beginning like is this something that we need to collect is that something that we need to share out and a lot of times it's easier to say let's collect it maybe we'll need it later but really you're putting individuals companies their lives at risk and potentially like when you talk about healthcare with wearable and implantable devices and sharing that information and sometimes I think even consumers that might have a wearable medical device or implantable device don't know the risk because sometimes the medical facilities will say oh it's okay and I think sometimes they'll even you know will say the likelihood of this device being attacked is low because someone has to be within x amount of feet 10 feet 20 feet so that makes that should make us comfortable well we're relatively close here so overextended about a time so I mean these are things that we have to think of and sometimes you know just making sure that you know people are aware of risk I think is our role in cybersecurity yeah I guess I do have one additional question if we're yeah please it makes me think about the translation for communities and I know you're doing something with cybersecurity clinics can you talk a little bit about that yeah so one of the things that we at the consortium of cybersecurity clinics and we have a clinic model at Stillman is our students are going out working and our clinic the students are working with small minority owned businesses to provide no-cost training and awareness to them and so sometimes especially small businesses they're so involved in providing their servers their product and they may not be able to fund even a cybersecurity training for their employees so the clinic model provides these services for free but it also is important because the students get that experience before they graduate because in the tech field as we know that sometimes that first job they want you to have you know one to three years of experience which is you know crazy to me that it's the entry level job but they want one to three years of experience of five years of experience and so how to get there and so the students are able to get that experience so thanks you remember that it's still been well give it up for Dr here and thank you both for asking these wonderful questions and thank you so much for having these wonderful answers to them Kevin my question for any of you now this is open is what role do you see public interest technology playing in the future of civic engagement and to some extent you've already talked a little bit about this Kevin but for any of you to add in and what I want to say as a kind of specific distinguishing point is we could talk about public interest technology impacting how the individual kind of protects their own kind of lets their voice be heard in their own protection of their like well-being and their self-interest their family what have you but when I think of civic engagement I think of it beyond just kind of like me and mine so it's not just like what do I do to make sure that Audra McDonald I am safe and that my kids and my husband and my close friends and like like my people so what in your mind is specific to like how I engage in my community or how I think about Oakland or how I think about the state of California and how I am then engaged in what's in our best interest what are some tools that I can use if I'm thinking about that connection between public interest technology and it may not be me I may not be the best example because I am not a technologist per se but oh now listen did you not hear my whole I know okay okay and you know I'm likely because I am all I gave my heart I think about justice no what what I I I push back on that slightly yeah please number one I you should never have to qualify your greatness because you were great irrespective let me just say that as a black woman saying this another black woman the second thing I will say I see andrean and I have a lot of conversations y'all and I am of the mindset the definition of public interest technology I don't know if we've yet canonized officially what it is and what it should be and I know that there are a lot of conversations on what it is not I think I so when you ask me a question how does public interest technology affect civic engagement I am at a moment of saying that for me it is the same I I cannot extrapolate them from each other because technology is terraforming our lived and democratic systems and so our response will be a public interest tech response does that make any sense absolutely and so I think about this a lot the definition of how we think about this the idea that you hosting a panel of thought leaders that you have to qualify yet again that I'm not a technical person in order to but yet you're doing the work of public interest technology you're engaging in conversations about how data and how these iterative technologies are being used to take away freedom and so I think for me to even answer your question eventually we as a discipline because that's what we're becoming we need to canonize a definition and it cannot be the current one where it's dependent upon technical expertise because you would take her off the stage and you would take me off the stage because I'm a political scientist by trade that's my professor y'all from so so that's my initial thought to it got it got it I think for me one of the concerns and I think that's such a perfect capturing of the moment we're in which it is that conversion right of what is the words have a meaning especially in tech somebody who was technically trained as a right engineering all these these are all just words that that when you think about this tech bro culture and environments and social construct they're just words that after you you basically you're like okay what does that really mean right they're like oh okay we got it we totally can be talking to a lot of the times these it's a very important time especially in community engagement to be able to making sure to meet the community where they're at and we also have to make sure that we remove some of that jargon and just like talk as clear as we can because a lot of this stuff and this technology this is not the first moment of technology advancement we've been going through we've been going through for many many times and there's been new turns and new jobs and new things we've adapted however now I do think it's one of the issues as we think about civic engagement and the loss of trust and the how the trusted messengers are some of the most important assets in our communities that we have to protect and as was shared earlier they they these are our could be our parents could be our teachers could be our professors could be our community members could be the the youth right and so I think about especially now of how are some of our youth when we take a look at the demographics of this country the big shift of going towards majority people of color and when we take a look at what is the next generation look like we have this new generation that is getting most of their information from tiktok from youtube as we were discussing last night from different ways that they're also not without the proper civic engagement education in their school in k-12 we are at the moment where some of the trusted messengers in our communities have become now these digital tools that at the moment don't have a way to have actual real content moderation right we support a lot of experts that are literally fighting day in and day out to help a lot of provide more transparency around how are these contents and myths and disinformation being combated because a lot of the youth that we want to empower and support and provide all these resources are also being targeted to be disengaged in civic engagement and when we think about what's the opportunity now I would love to see more resources and attention and empowerment towards local elections local roles starting in your city starting in your county before we think about also the state because as an example out in east oakland there are a lot of great initiatives that we're looking to support there's also new models of governance and power dynamics that I think are really helping empower a lot of these stakeholders who usually are brought in after the strategy has been decided but in good oakland energy they're like that's not going to happen here because you're not talking to us this is not happening so I love that opportunity to just engage and and build that trust at those very micro experiences because if we zoom out of the current state right now we look at us we think about just globally what's happening the role of all these deep fake type of technologies are being deployed not just in the us but across all the different different elections at this moment is really scary it's really scary of how we are losing trust in the current systems and how to actually create the new system and so I do think that this intersection is going to be super critical and going back to our communities and really looking at how to build more locally and empowering them and I love we love to have more youth be part of these panels as well so we can bring their voice but you know I'm listen those who are newly 40 I mean can still be young let me just say that yes clap it up for the newly 40 year olds we are still you I just I just want to say just to add to what Lily shared about the youth it's a long running joke for me and my family about what is if you're not 65 then you are still young but see exactly but I think what I would like to see going back to your initial question of building on what Lily shared I would love transgender not transgenerational learning spaces on media information on how do you build an algorithm I mean the work that stillman is doing with their cybersecurity clinic and breaking down concepts and training is could be a module within a larger like transgenerational learning space and let me just say this because I am a woman of history and I have to talk about it the freedom ride specifically into Mississippi with freedom schools is a great model to think about how do we democratize translation of this AI world we're building and so not only do you have people from Mississippi and you're educating them about their voting rights but they had to learn how to read and so was both the political action moment but also the basic needs and having any any AI let me tell y'all because you know just gonna let me write for tech policy press shout out to Justin I know right I'm about to just always have something to say um you don't come to me with your AI regulation agenda progressive people that I love and love and some of them fund me let me say that if you're not talking about digital equity and you're not talking about transgenerational learning spaces because you won't have a movement because I I agree with Latonya last night I wasn't you know I don't know if that was a space for me to be like yes Latonya I don't know I didn't I should have done it right but we need a social movement any major democratic moment whether here in the US or international relations course I took you know globally was fueled by social movements and so though we have to begin figuring out how to interweave that into this very technical privileged conversation we have in DC when really in order to make DC better or the Silicon Valley better it is the local and Lily does a lot of good work in the local that we need to push into so thinking about transgenerational learning spaces would be my solution that's fantastic it's interesting because I wanted to ask you all about some of the challenges and you've already laid out so many that exist in terms of some of the ways people are getting information some of the ways people are feeling like they don't necessarily have what tools they need to to come forth and kind of be part of not just a discussion or a conversation but actually the movement and the changes that they that they seek and then the other piece where as it relates to trust right like so many of these changes that we seek to see only move at the speed of trust right like so it only can become something when we can get to a place where people feel like the system is not stacked against them where they can feel like what they are trying to do that things won't be obfuscated or or turned the other way or that's there's somehow some kind of like setup but I did want to ask I want to be mindful of the time I did want to ask a question related to when you think about I'm not going to say underrepresented communities I'm going to say actively marginalized communities and you think about what it looks like for those communities to make the most of leveraging public interest technology in their best interest what are some of the strategies or maybe most effective strategies to to create the kind of inclusive tech ecosystem or just the inclusive larger community ecosystem that allows them to play I won't even say more so than they could when the language or the currency of of moving policy was different but let's let's be aspirational and say just more than ever before like what does it take for actively marginalized communities to get into and we've talked a little bit about voting and that's one way to kind of say show up in a civic engagement way but there are plenty of other ways to show up to be involved in terms of civic engagement what can we be leveraging that maybe we're not or maybe and I'll stop there because I can see you all thinking but maybe what maybe it's not like a new fancy thing but maybe that people may not be thinking of right so like what is maybe old school that well if I can go back to something you said originally and when you said your people you know and I think that's so huge because if all of us say our people and it's got so many intersecting so depending on what day of the week you talk to me or what environment my people might be different and so I mean I think that's one thing that we can all just start out is just saying when we talk about public interest technology what's the community what's my people how to make my people your people better and I think if we all have that focus then that's going to make the larger community better so we're not just looking you know we realize hey we've got some similar peoples together and so I think that's really really would help Kevin for president because I'm like when we get to get our people to actually be with the people maybe we could get somewhere right well see I'm gonna go the opposite direction and no and I listen love our people I had a thought just go with it imagine I know that we protest corporations when they do bad things right yes y'all are cool with that shake your heads okay you may not agree with this but just as a thought experiment because we're all researchers and scholars in here what would it look like to protest foundations for their lack of giving consistent funding oh you see from born to organizations locally who really could make change what would it look like to protest them I know this is a thought experiment because we need their funding but I'm beginning to think that philanthropy is part of the challenge not just our people not just our collective people it is easy to individualize behavior but systems are maintained by systematic institutions government we understand companies we understand but the missing piece of that conversation is how philanthropy the progressive ones to seed episodically into visions and then move to other visions when white supremacy systematic poverty is a consistent thing so help me understand you want us to mobilize for public interest technology to understand civic tech to understand gov tech but you do not fund black and brown organizations consistently or for hbc use you give them all the technicalities of technical assistance instead of just giving them the capital because you assume and look at them the way that you tell others should not look and assume about people that look like us so for me my thing about it is how do we get public interest technology to give the capital hold the philanthropic organizations accountable because those foundations came from companies who made their money on people that look like me I know it's quiet and they free and they fund me too don't worry but see this is why I have the substance of things not yet here because I have I have let me just say this I have I am thankful enough to have done enough work without the help of philanthropy to know that my life does not end when they decide to move on but it is a political project to hold them accountable for their in and out moments everyone all of they are all excited about AI but I tell you yet again you cannot have an AI future when the majority of Americans don't have internet you are reifying and inequity you are enshrining it with funding so that would be the people for him the system and the foundations for me I think for me it's really the ecosystem because there you go a lot of these pieces are interconnected right so to Fallon's point I work in philanthropy and I like K for they funded my first but however I do think as somebody who has has come from corporate and engineering all these different roles into coming in philanthropy I think that also created a fresh perspective right understanding that this isn't philanthropy these are investments if we use the power of language and treat our community partners and grant partners as investments right like we're investing in their work in their vision in their in the impact that they're having and I think the challenge now especially as you bring up Fallon the all these dollars and investments that are not just foundations but also venture capital dollars university endowment dollars that fund the VCs that fund the technologies right then go IPO that then start their own orgs that then go and fund some of this work right they're all interconnected and I think it's really critical going back to what I shared earlier for our awareness for all the folks who may not be in these spaces to understand the mapping of how some of these dollars run so then that way we could also have those points of understanding this isn't right we have to push back where's the transparency where's the accountability and I do think that when we think about also who's managing our pension dollars right where we think about how are some of our tax dollars also being allocated and so I do think it's all of those pieces that we need to look at it and from the caper center perspective this is why we look at it as an ecosystem k-12 computer science equity tech pathways that are alternative not just requiring degrees but looking at what are the the up the up scaling pathways right looking at what's happening inside the tech companies because we haven't touched upon the surveillance that's currently taking place in the workplace and the gig con the gig workers and the economies and the rights that we have there as well as looking at venture capital that is really fueling all of this so I would say it's we have to make sure that we have an understanding of the ecosystem and then dive in into each specific focus points for for us to have actions and outcomes I gotta tell you I could sit up here all day and chat with y'all about this this has been really edifying for me but also just it's been inspirational as well so I have one last quick question that's you know you won't be surprised to kind of call to action right what is it I'm going to ask each of you to just kind of say briefly kind of like what the one thing is and here's my little qualifier for it you've talked about some of the systems you've talked about the people you've talked about ecosystems and the like I would like specifically to hone this into the kind of what I consider kind of the unusual suspects so the everyday folks right the everyday people who don't have this as their day job right they're not thinking about these issues when they go and they do their work and then they come home and they maybe do their other work but whatever their stuff is this is not necessarily on their radar but if we're talking about civic engagement and we're making that connection between public interest technology and civic engagement we're talking a little bit about those people too those unusual suspects who are the folks who could be engaging maybe in different ways or understanding something differently so instead of your call to action being which you have wonderfully some of you already given a little bit of a call to action for some of these other folks if you think about that person the person who I'm making up his name is Ned and he's an architect and he helps people with their houses and their and their bathroom remodels what should Ned be thinking differently in terms of your call to action for where he fits into public interest technology meets civic engagement and finally please be brief because I would like to have our audience ask a few questions so this isn't actually your official last word I just knowing that you have power you have individual power your lived journey is your power and I think being able especially now where we feel that we are pieces of the puzzle that feels like that we're losing control I go back to the individual your lived experience your unique journey in your voice is actually what we need now we need more folks to stay engaged to speak up to ask questions to say what does it mean what is what happens with this is the moment for those folks and I would actually say that this all of this I hope it is for all those folks who are maybe not in the room at the moment but I do hope that they understand that you don't have you don't need the technical degree you your own live journey right now has helped has immense insight we want to make sure the folks are staying in tune with that power because we need it because it's going to be a extremely difficult year and we want to make sure at least for me personally that we don't lose folks in the in the civic engagement whether it's local elections national elections I think it's the time for folks who just feel that there's a community for them to be part of this larger power movement thank you for that Lily I mean and I guess what I would talk to net the architect but to talk about the questions you know to keep asking those questions because you think about an architect think about architect smart homes can be looked at entirely different very good from a cyber person there's a lot of risk there privacy surveillance but at the same time a smart home implementation can let somebody that's you know possibly might not be able to live on their own to be able to live independently for a longer period of time you know and so asking those questions is this the right implementation for this and not just look at it as one side of the other is it positive is it negative is just you know the same technology might be recommended in one instance and not in another so I think kind of pick it back off of yours is just ask those questions I just call sign both of them thank you Kevin and thank you Fallon thank you all so very much we'd love questions please there is a mic I think and dream has a mic if you have a question just is it a hand please come on now this is a I see a question right here the lady in the black jacket thank you thank you hello uh thank you for your panel I appreciate all of your thought and work into it I wanted to pick up a note from Fallon's keynote and that is of joy and pleasure um and I wanted to hear more about how that manifests in your work um in imagining new worlds and uh Ruha Benjamin and others talk about when we're talking about epistemic red lines redlining tech dystopia it's we're living in someone else's imagination so I would love to hear more about your imagination and your joy thank you thank you oh that's that's for is it for me I mean I was gonna go go go and Lily I got you go I think for me honestly the joy is in being able to be curious I think that we have a lot of creativity in our community that um I think of examples of how I'm seen right now in in certain parts in Oakland as well of artists starting to leverage uh these different technologies for more expansive storytelling for capturing you know their family's history and being able to share it out in a mentor reality exhibits across the nation right and shout out to Terminus AR Damien McDuffie who you shall support and we also have other uh folks like Kai Fraser who has uh curated created an uh VR and AR company that is also helping share the history of civic uh civic engagement civil rights and being able to bring those experiences leveraging technology to students who their school districts are super underfunded but yet with the creativity and imagination of something low-cost they're able to see different worlds traveled through time really right and so I think that's the type of innovation that really brings me joy and being able to see the people who are specifically black women um in the black community as a Latina right for me to also be know how to be a good ally and how to create space and investment and support that I think that also brings me joy of how I can be part of that work and also being able to help my own community be educated and um be able to identify some of our own biases as well in the Latinx community um and so I think that there's a lot of education a lot of knowledge sharing a lot of cultural especially seeing um how we can all be in breaking bread together and being able to share and have shared experiences of family of love and joy and so um I think those types of examples bring me a way that we can help remove some of those barriers that physically exist into a way that we can imagine and create new things so I think creativity art community family uh ancestry roots I think are really um important especially now I will simply say the conqueror gets the right the history we all really those who conquer get to tell you this was the beginning the middle of the end even though we know that there are concurrent stories happening in that same space and so when I hear all the dystopic movies are the dystopic dystopic conversations about AI I'm a bit of a cynic let me just say that to each of you I am like uh this is this imagination comes from people who have never had to figure out where their next meal is going to be this imagination comes from people who have not had to toil with creating um gumbo because they didn't have the best food because they didn't they can shop in certain parts of New Orleans right that imagination comes from people who have never had to share a home and so for me it is not a future it is not a that's not my future because I know what it means to have and not go cannibalize people and so and so and so for me that notion of of fear mongering and what the future is going to hold it comes from people who have not done enough self reflections on their own privilege that's the first thing the second thing I would say for me and then dream and I once again we have a lot of company we have fallouts too but then we can go back together no this is friendship it really is a true friendship um and we talked a lot about this she and I are the mindset that it is the reason why I song the reason why I talk about historical institutions and the reason why I talk about black people but I can also talk about any oppressed group of people in this globe in this world that their spiritual traditions of freedom always it's like their spiritual practices whether it's buddhism whether it feeds them seeing themselves free and I think part of the challenge for us in a highly technical world that we're beginning to build out and also among scientists and scholars empirical scholars irrespective of a discipline it's sometimes hard for us to think about the malleable squishiness of spirit which I think is joy which I think is faith but sometimes if you give me really good I think it's magic it just depends on where I am in this world um and I think we have to I do a lot of things I keep telling you this I am also a researcher I know you think I'm a preacher but I am a researcher um and part of the work that Kevin and I do is try to operationalize joy in our index on building a black tech ecosystem for me it is the dreaming I can because systems does systems do not change over time they take other systems to push them out they take social movements quicker to move systems and but I tell people when I tell you a score for your city and if it's able to create a thriving black tech ecosystem people used to get upset with me and say oh you gave me an f for my city file and said well you didn't cultivate the systems not to get an f however if you have black people doing any type of work of dreaming about a Wakanda I will take that as an empirical point in my model and score it against weighted score against the disparity of your city I know that's not scientifically true one believes that a thought can change but let me tell you it has been the creative radical imagination of black people to envision freedom that made democracy real for everybody in this country do you see what I'm saying it is the the spiritual imaginative space that we as scholars and as practitioners need to build in to our practice into our scholarship because it is the most consistent thread on how change actively happens it is a thought that is so powerful that is so powerful I appreciate that yeah are there any other questions maybe one more I see a question right back here thanks I'm hoping that maybe the three of you four of you will help me resolve what I come up against is a dilemma I'm also not a technologist I am a professor of English literature and as much as I want to tell the incoming undergraduates that I see to go into the humanities I know particularly for communities that are coming out of economically underdeveloped areas that if they want to take a path to economic success and mobility that they have to go the route of a STEM field or that they might be best served by doing that and so I'm wondering if we're talking definitionally about the future of Pitt and how we wanted to find Pitt how we resolve the idea that on the one hand we want humanistically minded people to go to tech companies and on the other hand the jobs that they will get if they go into tech companies will be the jobs that have the most precarcity that tech companies will cut first and that perhaps they would be better served to take those humanistic ideals not as a major but perhaps into themselves and then take a step root so I'm wondering if we're talking about the future of Pitt and the definition of Pitt how do you envision a kind of curriculum or a discipline that blends these two things and how can we see a future for the next generation of technologists and humanists that brings them to places where they can be economically secure as well as effective well that's a great question yes great question I can share oh well I don't know if Kevin you want to because we've been you know we've been going to talk you better talk brother all right but I think one of the things that's a good point you know because being economically secure is important for us all and maybe it's a combination of curriculums as we kind of talk about so if you're interested in going into you know a legal profession or criminal justice profession for instance that the tech skills are important I kind of someone asked me recently you know where do I see cybersecurity in the future and moving out of a individualized discipline into all of the other disciplines because it's going to be important no matter what field that you're in that you have these technology skills so I think that's what we might see when we talk about public interest technology the technology piece becomes less as a standalone discipline and more part of all of our disciplines I would agree as somebody who went through the traditional path of going through four-year engineering I majored in electrical engineering and I ended up going into software engineering hardware engineering and my first role that what was interesting was the title that I had multi-discipline engineer I was like this is so cool and what I didn't realize was that I was working side by side mechanical engineers electrical software at that time computer science was under the arts the language school so you had a mix of these humanities right and but we were all regardless of how you got in you were a multi-discipline engineer and the way that we were looking at our path was that we were going to become systems engineers and so I think what right now it's an interesting moment where it's not about one type of skill I think we all have different interests and skills and we're going to continue to become more multi-hyphenate is that the right word where we need to have that set of multi-discipline thought but it's not just one person it's a team right and so I think that that's the important part and I think that especially when I think about my own schooling back then I wish I could have had more space in my program to take those humanities classes actually my roommate back in undergrad she was majoring in polycyte and I'm like oh my gosh like she's doing like human stuff like real world stuff like what am I doing here working at this up this like it was this very disconnect I think we have seen now much many more different approaches and models of students being able to also take create their multi-discipline background right that I think we're going to continue to see more so I share that example because I do think that there are a lot of different models out there I think it's a matter of having folks also see themselves as multi-discipline regardless of where you're coming somebody that could be a lot person now is doing a lot in tech right somebody who was doing civil rights now is doing digital civil rights and combating some of the missing this information so I think that there's this continuous upscaling and rescaling and understanding that we're going to see more of and at the caper center we have a lot of different resources of how to bring in more justice-oriented computer science education as an example not just for the students but for the educators for the parents for the different types of stakeholders there that I think are are really hungry for this type of multi-discipline approach and so for me I always say we're all tech we're already all tech we've been tech for a long time now it's the part that it's really the moment for social scientists more of these multi-discipline approaches that I think are really missing from the current state of technology and I just would encourage more and more of folks who just you're already in it and so we need you to participate and be part of building and also pushing back on some of these these technologies as well I I would say just can I please please I would say I look at the data in particular for first-generation black college students they major in low earning but socially impactful majors the data is true it hasn't changed in the last five years they're human services right they are they in the in the types of careers that that engenders is they are social workers they on the high end of STEM they would be nurses right and and so they're in human-based fields when you look at the data some of the research that Dr. Ebony McGee has done and looking across various groups of students even when you like over sample for like black students in the sample and Latinx students you realize that when they say when they're in STEM fields that they don't want to be like the Marcus Zuckerberg's like white students right they want to make their communities better and so Ebony has this concept called the social ethic of care when we think about technology futures I'm just trying to start with the foundation of data right for me I don't I don't see a challenge I am a social scientist sometimes I can even think about the methodologies of the of of hermeneutics and various like religious tradition I I tell the story that in 2016 I went to code for America I was one of five black people at code for America that year and it was at the genesis of this public interest technology moment where the what they called the fence going back to philanthropy this is a philanthropy story I'm gonna write about it one day they're they're called the debt game partnership and they had a workshop with Travis Moore of tech congress I think Lori from Ford was there I'm just naming names like this nevermind I was gonna say a funny thing it's like the cat williams moment I'm about to have up here but no one called it okay well anyways you called it though good job um anyway I went to the workshop and they were talking about this concept of public interest technology and at that time I was working at American Baptist college where um congressman John Lewis went where they did the trainings for the sit-ins I'm leveling a story here so I go into this workshop I hear about this and I was like ding ding ding oh my god hbcu's students do this already that was seven or eight years ago yeah I said oh my gosh weak hbcu's can win I said Lori before give me some money to do this and she says well Fallon we're at the precipice of this moment we're not there yet but I will connect you with the K poor center in Oakland through Allison which is I've known I've known K for for like almost 10 years now what I'm trying to say simply is I don't I've always said even at the beginning of this moment of canonizing the term that it was always about social justice and the humanities because if I only relied specifically on the sciences to do this then black and latino students would not be included because they're not in the stem majors did you hear what I said if our definition going back to the praxis of this moment is based on technical skills and this is the future that we want to build this pit that you take me off the board you take my children off the board you take our community off the board because we're having to battle to be able to level say computer science for all in K through 12 so that when they come into your discipline or they come into your college they are actually in those classes that they are retained and have high attrition I just want to be mindful sorry I didn't mean to cut you I'm sorry I'm done I'm done and I was I was landing so my landing is simply this thank you we we all need to have a come the Jesus our Muhammad or whatever your spiritual practice is about what the definition and what the pathways are because yet again we'll have that type of dialectical uneasiness about what is a public interest technologist do they go into companies do they create their own space in matter of fact I'm probably at the end of it to say that they should create their own spaces their own products and their own disciplines because at this moment I don't see the current system supporting them that's an excellent point and I think that ties in because you're asking what should the direction be for for young folks who are trying to figure out what they should be doing it looks like we have a few more questions but I'm fortunately I'm I don't have the time left for us to continue on with the questions but I have so so enjoyed this conversation this has been fantastic and I hope that you will follow up with anybody that you wanted to ask an additional question to as soon as they step off thank you so much