 Hello everybody, this is this panel is priorities for pit funding Philanthropy has played a role in organizing formalizing publicizing and funding the field of public interest technology Five years on from pit UN's inception We have a number of successes to celebrate from poof of concept projects to Interdisciplinary research centers to pit degree programs and many more of the things that you've heard over the last day and a half as we look forward however What priorities should guide funders next steps as we seek to leverage the Networks and the infrastructure that have emerged in order to grow and expand the field That's sort of the driving question for us in this conversation In this panel funders from across the public interest tech ecosystem We'll discuss key learnings from their grant making journey thus far and what values and priorities should guide the next phases of philanthropic investment and I was deliberate in saying the public interest tech ecosystem because Some funders may not even name it public interest tech on their space and we've been talking about translation and as Some fund raisers in the audience know and I'm saying this because I was a grant writer You have to figure out how to translate What you are doing to the priorities that you see listed on Various applications, so the pit ecosystem framework was helpful for me to say that and so we'll start with Jenny to me and for Yeah, we're gonna ask you to introduce yourself and Talk a little bit about the aspect of your work that is connected to our theme So hi, I'm Jenny to me and I am the director of something called the catalyst fund at Ford Which was a three-year fifty million dollar? Fund that was set up just to build the field of public interest technology We think of public interest technology along the lines of investments the foundation made in the 60s Which was public interest law And we looked at the different quadrants and we think of academia as one which is training people differently to be effective in other places than just the private sector and academia And then the other three quadrants are kind of more like the demand side How do you get the right kinds of really good-paying and powerful jobs in government in civil society? And even in the private sector and I can talk more about that later. So that's all right good Katie Hi, I'm Katie Knight. I'm the president at Siegel family endowment Which is a private foundation focused on the impact of technology on society and I'm sure in this room It'll be no surprise. That means we do a lot of different things We're focused on learning workforce and infrastructure and the ways in which technology can be leveraged for good But also the ways in which we can mitigate the risk and harm of pervasive technology across society public interest tech for us is both an Interest unto itself and also something that we consider part of our infrastructure work. So when we talk about infrastructure It's really about not just roads and bridges But the physical digital and social connections that sort of underpin a thriving society where people have access to opportunity And in that frame it of course public interest technology and the idea that we need to be Building tech for the public good and in the interest of the citizens Makes a lot of sense as we think about the ways to shore up and reinforce our infrastructure So when Jenny came to us several years ago now With with Darren and Ford and said hey, we want to think about public interest tech the way we think about public interest law The only thing negative thing we had to say was that pit was not a good acronym We are we're guilty of sometimes calling it pie tech because our German likes that better but we've acquiesced we've given in to pit at this point and It's been really central to our grant-making interests ever since and it comes in many forms I think as a a funder that tries to be more flexible I find myself seeking out, you know to Andrew's point the many different names and phrases that people are using to describe public interest Tech so whether it's responsible computing or ethics and computer science or you know Anything else that in the university space might be a consideration Not just of how to build it, but why and what we're building and what impact it has is of interest to us So hot Thank you so much Katie and on the topic of responsible computing and translation My name is yet Borat I'm a fellow with the responsible computing challenge at the Mozilla Foundation, which for those of you who might know Sets on top of the Mozilla corporation I think the Fox and Firefox in general and what the responsible computing challenge does Attempts to embed ethics in computer science and data science ecosystems and as a pedagogical intervention And I say this as a as someone who has a political theory background Also a recovering professional in the industry space in telecoms in particular I was looking for something like this when I was in those spaces I came into political theory looking for ethics looking for thinking about the ways in which I was deploying Technologies into the space and seeing that in the university environments. I wasn't quite getting that So what we do is we make grants across universities. I oversee the US implementation With PIs and professors to embed ethics into their core curricula and empower students to be able to think about these things more Critically because that's actually something to bring the loop circular is something that I wish I would have had in my in my undergrad experience Especially when I was in some of these spaces So the work in which we're doing and the way in which we're partnering with our other co funders with the Schmidt Futures Mellon Foundation Craig Newmark Philanthropies the Omidyon Network and Rockefeller Brothers to do this is quite a party as you can imagine But it's important work because it's a root cause intervention as we see it and To andreans point to Katie's point to Jenny's points And this is all an exercise in translation really because we are working in this in similar fields with a lot of overlap And there's so much scope to collaborate here Shayna. Good morning everyone. What a beautiful day to talk about Pitt So my name is Shayna Cromley. I'm the director of impact data science at the MasterCard Center for inclusive growth So it's a yet a different but unique I think way to have social impact happen within a company So we sit within the company of MasterCard as a social impact and philanthropy hub separate from the foundation which is outside and so because of that we're particularly I think aligned with the business strategy and priorities and we're able to draw on the expertise the data the people the Networks of the company to pull it into the social impact space when we started the center about 10 years ago now The the remit was to focus on building an inclusive digital economy. We know how to do Economic growth really well, but looking at inclusive economic growth was the focus of the center. So that's Mostly been focused in financial inclusion Small business growth and then my portfolio which is impact data science We came into impact data science because we are a data company We have a lot to offer and to draw on but also because we had worked for so long with small businesses with Networks of entrepreneurs with CFIs And all of these institutions across the social and and civil sector and public sector There was always a common thread of a need for more data capacity more data expertise knowledge tools Funding and resources and so we focus specifically on impact data science for that for that reason I think it dovetails with with pit because The way I like to think about it This isn't the written strategy, but I like to think about the supply and demand of data for social impact. So on the supply side Really educating and creating a workforce of future data scientists who are engaged and plugged into social issues We've been talking about this this whole this whole conference So creating those education opportunities, which is a large a large part of what we do here with pit And then on the demand side also preparing the social and civil and public sectors to receive that data science talent So preparing those organizations to reskill up skill higher And carve out that that data capacity have the resources and tools and house to be able to utilize their data and utilize social data to To improve outcomes and and impact. So it's kind of the way we think about it We're really focused on the data science side of everything but when it comes to pit I think more more generally trying to build up that field of data social impact as it intersects with with education with More general social impact. I think is how we've been thinking about it. Thanks, Shayna Um, I think you've already started tackling a bit of what I wanted to ask next Which Jenny left an opening for so I'll start with you, which is how has Ford found its grant making niche within public interest tech. Shayna started so you can continue Yes Well, I've been at Ford for a very long time So like almost 16 years and I think probably one of the reasons I love to come to the public interest technology University Network conference is because Many of you who are around like my age or older have a similar journey where you were working in a discipline And you could see there was this little piece that was missing and you were trying to tell everyone around you like there's this little gap we need to fill together and You probably weren't getting tons of help from the institutions where you had been trained to work, right? And what I love is like I feel there's this kind of joy in this space largely because I mean one of the panelists yesterday I talked about like I found my family I think there's a little bit of this people who feel like they're now beginning to have a Little bit more support a little more structure to do the collaborative work They've seen in their brains needs to have been done for quite a while, right? And some of you in the room by the way have been beneficiaries of the work that you guys have done other ones of you have done So I'd love to see like the next generation Having an easier easier path and building even more complex bridges than the ones that we built originally When I first came to for it I was brought in to do work on media or cultural policy and we had a brand-new president from McKinsey and he was Narrowing the focus because the foundation has ten offices around the world and works on so many issues And it's been around for 80 years and so he wanted a cleaner mission and he said you can only work on one Do you want to do media policy or do you want to do cultural policy? And I said I want to do internet policy and he said what's that and I said Oh, it's like the rules to protect the public in the internet environment And he said oh, but all those rules have been figured out already You know I you know because he had been working at McKinsey with some companies who felt like the rules had been figured out I said no no none of the rules have been figured out and I was just so lucky that you know I was such so small potatoes like teeny budget brand-new person at the foundation. They just said okay You know make a case for that so I did that in obscurity for a long time Maybe five years and I was really lucky then that Darren Walker who is the current president of Ford Foundation came in and he was my I Directly reported to him for about a year and a half and in that environment He realized that if we don't get it right if we don't figure out what are the rules to protect the public in the internet environment Everybody that we are trying to protect through our programs around immigration rights through our programs around Reproductive rights and health through our programs around criminal justice if we're not actually thinking about the way technology is Threading through all those spaces and if there aren't clear rules to protect the public then everyone will be hurt in that environment so PIT didn't really exist back then I mean, I think I think many of the civil society organizations we funded who woke up every day to try to put those rules in place They are PIT I guess, but they were media advocates or they were policy advocates And one of the things they said to me when I first got the job at Ford is like please help us get some technologists Because they all came from backgrounds where they knew the danger of media consolidation they knew the danger of Propaganda they knew what would happen when some people had access to the internet and other people didn't But they didn't understand what was around the corner or what the technical fix for some of these problems were which meant they were always just Yelling about bad technology or responding to like explosions but not anticipating harms or preparing for them and so We began with tech fellows programs. We work with Mozilla We actually stole a page from the Knight Foundation Who's also been a partner in this work over the years and we stole a model they had created with Mozilla to put technologists into into newspapers and TV, you know journalists Institutions and we thought can we do that can we put them in our civil society organizations and what we found was Our first attempts were kind of poor because we just said Oh, well, they have technical background. They're gonna come in and they're gonna be great and What we found was no it wasn't sufficient just to have people with technical background the more rigorous and deeper their technical background Maybe in some ways the less purpose-built they were to be effective in something as you know bureaucratic as a policy environment or as sensitive as a civil society organization and so a Lot of the work that we were able then to do with new America with Ann Marie Slaughter and Ultimately with andrean was figuring out. Okay, so how do we actually? invest in Training technologists to be more effective in these different environments and then more importantly, how do we help really, you know crisis? Crisis dealing everyday institutions like governments or civil society organizations to say I know you've got that fire You want to fix right now? But we're gonna have to take some of your cycles and some of your time to begin to think about how to do your works differently or to bring different kinds of intelligence into your teams So you can cover the entire territory that's been completely transformed by technology. So the good news is like We have had true believers and partners along the way within the foundation It's a lot easier. Whereas like I started by talking about how lonely it felt It doesn't feel lonely at Ford right now There are all sorts of grants being made in other areas of the foundation that we don't touch at all that actually have this kind of Intersectionalist attention to making sure they're thinking about the technology landscape But it's nowhere near sufficient and then one last thing I'll say is almost everyone I've seen on these panels is like a superhero Like they're doing this incredible work in all these places There's sometimes the first people doing that work and I love that But if we think we're gonna solve the scale of problems that we're facing by a handful of superheroes We're really kidding ourselves Which is why it's so important the work that you're doing which is building out and normalizing and institutionalizing The you know the kinds of degrees the kinds of pathways the kinds of projects and the value of this work because we need it more now than we've ever needed it and And it's the fact that you exist is not sufficient to the task at hand Thanks for that Jenny That's a kind of a nice history and Potentially kind of an evolution of how some people have come to see pit UN and also should hopefully have given you a sense of Why we frame the discussions the way we have for the last couple days? But I want to get to Katie because Katie has really been focused on sort of infrastructure Challenges around pit. So how did you find your way into that framework? Yeah, well, I think picking up on some of what Jenny said, but there's just this incredible need to move beyond the You know superhero technologists the techno utopian perspective One of the things that has been really striking to me as a funder in With a with a mission-oriented around technology is that so often people come to us thinking that you know The thrust of our mission is about putting hardware in schools or doing things with technology that will you know Benefit people because of course technology is the answer to everything and trying to explain Risk mitigation and harm and the work that we were doing to try to think differently about how to orient the development of technology really Wasn't going anywhere and I had to come to terms with the fact that not only that but we just you know We don't have enough money on our own to solve this problem. And so while I've been someone Historically opposed to most funder collaboratives the two that I find the most valuable are a pay you and and The pit infrastructure fund because we do need to be working together from these different angles Different approaches to the problem, but kind of pooling the resources So that we can have even a fighting chance of building the sort of infrastructure that we need and that includes you know career pathways it includes some sort of regulatory frameworks and decision-making that will happen You know at the government level it includes the private sector being oriented differently It includes more technologists in the public sector all of these things matter for the infrastructure Because until we have those things in place and we can connect those dots We're not going to be able to sustain public interest technology on its own, you know The thing people say in philanthropy is you should and non-profit is you should want to put yourself out of business You should aim to not be funding things out after a certain point And I don't know what how far into the future it looks like that we wouldn't be funding these things But I think ultimately trying to build what will what will last and making it so that We don't have to be the man behind the curtain kind of pulling the strings and connecting the dots and Making the phone calls and saying you should talk to this person and that person should talk to that person Here's $50,000 and please figure this out and here's $25,000 and please figure this out that the the network can sort of Be unto itself making those connections can be a space where there are not just a few dozen people who are The names that that we're all making phone calls to to try to get things done and put people together But that it is so robust that where it's sort of beyond the scope of our imagination And so our journey into this and the space that we're trying to inhabit is to be in it at the core Which still includes being around the edges So when I can step away from the edges and know that the core is really built Or when the core is really built and then I can go back to the edges and explore and find things that you know I didn't know about before I'll feel like the work is closer to done. Thanks for that Katie So hot I want to you know ethics has come up a bit here Would love to have you talk to us about how you've seen that related to public interest technology Ethics is you know the core of this intervention that we're doing in the responsible computing challenge But that that also needs to include questions of politics and justice and social justice in particular And so that's something that we're definitely emphasizing as we move forward Not just in what the topics are that we need to get a handle of and that students who are working in these spaces and Technologists who are working in these spaces need to get a handle of but who they are as well All right So some of our investments at this stage now are looking increasingly at minority serving institutions and HBC use as well Because we've seen that you know these are chronically underfunded institutions. These are institutions who At the same time offer some of the best models for reducing inequality and transforming people's lives So who gets to sit at the table is just as important in the question of ethics when it comes to be responsible computing public interest technology as What is being taught in these spaces as well? And that's something that we definitely have realized another thing to mention I think also speaks to some of the points that have been raised as well and Jenny I the point about lonely Ness and finding family. I think it just just on a personal note is it's So it resonates so deeply with me in terms of this community that you and has been building To find folk who care and are committed to making things happen in that space One of the the other areas of ethics is also increasingly holding ourselves to account as funders right and as funder collaboratives, right? grantees awardees We need to be in a constant state of iteration and reflective and critical thinking about the political economy of the world in which we live in Ruma talked about this earlier today, right? It's uncount there are uncomfortable truths that we have to face as funders in terms of how the work gets done and how it gets funded In Mozilla, we have you know a corporation. We have a different structure. We sit Above a corporation that helps to fund some of the work that we can do and we are constantly in Interrogation with that corporation and with ourselves in the foundation about who our funder co funders are what what what projects we invest in How we do so the answers are never perfect, but we encourage that open dialogue We encourage that ethical reflection and we encourage our grantees and awardees to do the same thing as well So there are a bunch of different ways in which ethics shows up in this in this In the funding conversation it's not just in the curricula interventions that are the The ambit of the work that I do in responsible computing But also who gets us at the table and how we're doing the funding and how we constantly and iteratively reflecting on those funding political economies Shayna I'd love for you to sort of pick up that thread because You wonderfully led the private sector conversation You have an interesting relationship in terms of what you indicated before about there is an existing foundation as well as a corporate side I'm curious about how you all found yourself in the pit space as well And what's kind of your philosophy you gave a hint of it, but I'd love for you to unpack that a little bit more Yeah, I think I Mean there's a lot in there to unpack So I think that when we came to this work originally it was a really interesting opportunity to be a test bed For solutions to building use cases that test the theories and the theory of change of what it means to build a field of data for social impact Or just in general to to drive inclusive growth, which is the the broader philosophy I think at that point in time the the opportunity we we've talked to a lot the last couple days about whether this space needs more definition or less and more structure or less and I think In it's in that some of the whole of the parts Metaphor, right? I think that if we are able to maintain the the diversity of perspectives and disciplines and Even terminology, I think maintaining that that difference while also being able to create a sum together That's where the magic is supposed to happen. So for us coming in It was meant to just start to map out some of those possibilities perhaps Do the test bed thing and then also the network piece. So we Want to be a network of networks as a company But also I think this space only works because of that that network effect, right? And so at the very beginning with Pitt it was that opportunity to create a network of Separate incredible, you know conversations happening to individual institutions across the country But applying that one blanket statement that this is all under whatever Pitt means at the time, right? and so I think driving that kind of momentum forward whether that continues to be through testing use cases or if it turns into a You know a an opportunity for scaling some of these things across the network or within the network Perhaps engaging students more perhaps engaging civil society and government. So thinking about it from that network effect Approach I think that's the that's the initial reason We got into this work and this the space and that's what we'd like to see continue Yeah, thank you for that and I know since we're always thinking in our fundraising hat And this is a donor collaborative that you've all found helpful And it's always great to add more people into the mix I'm I'd love for each of you to sort of talk about the challenges or successes you have found in evangelizing your particular pit frame With other funders. What are what are other kinds of foundations outside of this existing circle? should we be looking to bring in and Let me do the reverse. I'm gonna start with Katie and then go to Jenny and then we'll come back around wild card Just get to say what Jenny said I think I so for us, you know, I I harp on and on about infrastructure and People get tired of it and I think there's a world in which you can absolutely talk about public interest tech and not talk about infrastructure Right, like I think people want to hear about things that are doing tech for good or think about product development and tech regulation And infrastructure is boring infrastructure is underground infrastructure is not something that gets people excited But without it we quite literally would have nothing and so when I I think just a challenge and sort of Evangelizing this has been really trying to encourage other funders in particular But our partners across the board to think about not just their piece their program the work that they want to see sort of at the end result but to think about how we all have to Contribute to funding the core that I talked about that if that doesn't exist if we're not willing to contribute the money then Whatever program you fund will be short-lived whatever grant you make is going to only exist in that in that context And it's not going to be able to be a part of a sustainable Networked long-term approach to solving like the root cause of these challenges and that has been really one of my Driving motivators and being involved and staying involved in our public interest technology work and trying to bring in other funders That being said I think the way that we bring in other funders now is to really help them see how their specific issues are related to and going to be served by the public interest technology infrastructure we're building in academia and in you know the infrastructure sort of public sector private sector at large Because if you care about you know young people's mental health Which is something that brought pivotal foundation to the table with us and have has had them really invested in public interest technology You care about the development of of tech moving forward if you care about health in general You care about public interest technology if you care about Education if you care about homelessness if you care about any of these things you have to think about the ways in which technology can Help or is harming the the work that you're trying to do and the populations you're trying to serve So I think there's a really strong opportunity for us to now take the incredible work That so many people in this room and outside of it have done to say look we are building the core We have done all these really great proof points and join us to See how the proof points that you need to really shore up your work to really think about the future of what you're trying to do can be enhanced by Focusing on technology in the public interest So hot I'll come back to you. I think One of the easy successes is just to be able to talk about Responsible computing and put to be honest with you there's so much interest especially as as we've heard today A couple of times and in the age of AI there's so much interest in the space and Recognition that more needs to be done that getting funders on a call and co-funders on a call to say hey This is important that work is already almost been done, right? It's how do we actually make those changes to the best of our abilities with the best kind of impact? That is actually really the challenge and there's a couple of things that I'll offer Along those lines one of them is you know as we get to kind of collaboratives with funders We start to see a lot more requirements that sometimes don't make sense for grantees, right? We start at Mozilla one of our Core DNA principles is working open. We need everything to be public access We need things to be open and that doesn't always gel well with you know what other funders are seeking Right. There's all the it when you when you work with Collaboratives of funders it becomes more and more tricky the other is about capacity. There's a very important integrity integrity transparency and accountability mechanisms are involved in the fund and grant making process which is always Intention with some of the capacity constraints that we you have particularly with grantees who don't have resources, right? So funding always gets directed to those who do have the grant makers And the grant making teams and that that's a challenge, right? The capacity constraint is real and it shapes the direction in which funding operates And so solving for that and getting funders to realize that this is a real challenge that we need to be not just investing in the program Itself in terms of its outcomes, but also in developing competencies and capacity around being able to even receive Funding in the first place is really really important Thanks for that The capacity challenge is all one that we encounter as well as we try to shape the application process in a thoughtful way We're not always hitting it out of the park though Shayna Yeah, I think to look at To look at some of I guess you're calling them successes I think some of them are they're still opportunities But one thing that we've been getting a lot of momentum and traction with is the idea of focusing on the data science piece specifically I think we've seen that across the network as well where data science is seen as interdisciplinary in some ways it Happens in different places across campus than your traditional computer computer science might or then some of our other our programs and so Taking that Interdisciplinary nature of data science and also the urgent nature of data science I haven't met very many folks who don't understand or Want to kind of get more involved in data science or see the impacts I think it's easier to translate into societal impacts sometimes from data science than it is from technology in general at least at this point in time and so we see that as an opportunity area for us to that can kind of be a catalyst for the Existing ongoing conversations about pit that you know, maybe maybe technology or a pit in general is difficult to define and Visualized from a project standpoint or a funding standpoint, but digging deeper into specific areas of data capacity building day of standards data Network building we've seen that that be successful in terms of leveraging Leveraging impact and interest But to that's a great transition to some of the challenges one of the challenges for me in trying to translate this work is the The time horizons piece. I think we mentioned that yesterday Latanya Sweeney has said that government thinks in years and technology thinks in months Well, the private sector and financial services also thinks in months or days or quarters, right? And so trying to translate how we can have an impact that is going to be at scale some day society-wide network-wide, but doing it in a way that's You know, we can fund something that's tangible and we see insult impacting results and kind of we can Take that impact and iterate and grow Translating between those two. I think Perspectives is difficult and so I've been really excited about some of the experiential learning approaches that that you have brought up I think also being able to batch things into projects batch them into the labs model. We've talked about I think I've seen a lot more Traction with those ideas when I bring this work up to other out to other stakeholders So timing is it's not even time. That's the issue. It's the translation of time That's a good note for some of the writers in the room Fundraising of Jenny that question about translating it to other funders. Yeah, so I think I've learned a lot about it We have to do two things at once It really is important to continue to use the public interest technology Framework and to be as inclusive with it as possible Because it is an intersectionalist field and if you don't actually have a big enough umbrella where you can put the thing the established hybrid, you know Curriculum under the bigger umbrella, then you don't get the pathways that go all the places they need to go Right and that's why I love laws as you know a metaphor because you can't imagine any entity That doesn't have some lawyers some guardrail lawyers who make sure every contract you sign is saying exactly what you expect it to and some visionary lawyers who think about how say Changes to the government system or changes to what's happening in society You know, we'll have ramifications for the work you do But we don't have those guardrail Technologists and those visionary technologists incorporated in entities outside of largely the private sector or academia And that's where these huge gaps are happening. So yes, everything we've talked about today About building that field is really important, but I'm going to just give you some more tactical Advice because of what I've learned in the last number of years of trying to Sell this work to my peers. Let's say And while it's gotten a little easier the challenge is and this is like an uncomfortable truth of philanthropy is That Philanthropies are trying to be efficient. They're trying to be accountable and they're designing programs Maybe a three-year program. Maybe a five-year program Maybe a ten-year program and they allocate funds towards that commitment and the people who run those programs Largely don't have a technology background and those people design and write up what they're going to do and tech is in it But they've committed to it for three years or five years or ten years and when you come to them and say Hey, come do this public interest technology stuff if your care is mad enough and you you have your stories And you convince them the value of it enough you can get them to say Yeah, I've got a little bit of money over here in my like discretionary budget And I'm gonna come over and help a little bit But this is not part of my core mission because my mission is homelessness or my mission is Whatever We need to talk more about how PIT isn't just a field But it's an approach and it's an approach that's filling gaps everywhere I really liked Larry on the first panel talking about building those trust between you know People in different disciplines who can understand the value of collaboration and building that trust There are far more foundations funding criminal justice than there are the future of technology and frankly there the ones who are Largely funding the future of technology stuff are gonna be tech solutionist So in some ways you might be considered that guardrail lawyer that they don't want to have around they want to have you know The person who's just gonna unlock innovation and impact without you know without any sort of consequences for what that actually means And for who who is being impacted for that? So more and more I would I you know Andrean has been at the very beginning as part of the PIT UN and as funders We wanted to protect the ability of the network to develop in a way that was useful To the universities that took the risk of committing to be part of it So we're pretty clear that any donors that came into that first table weren't allowed to You know ring fence their funds and put it just towards things that were in their program area that you had to be allow them Allow the network to grow based on what was useful to the institutions But at this point I think the network is robust enough that we should be thinking about horizontal challenges Where we're recruiting? Foundations that care about specific issue areas and thinking about how access to the 63 Universities can give them a better reach for actually achieving their goals at the intersection of that historic philanthropic area and tech So like the simplest way is like I'm a journalistic fund foundation How do we get all the J schools across the PIT UN competing to build the future of journalism at the intersection of public interest in tech Right, and you could do that with any other issue area and the reason I'm saying that to you is because You know the people I've been able to work with Many of them at this table have been so generous and so flexible It's like a game of twister justifying this work into their programs because those programs Hadn't factored this need in so you both need to make the clarity of the value and of these gaps and filling them Really really clear But you need to work with what people need done and it's funny I always go back to Paulo Freire and his like basic organizing principle Which is if you're organizing a community start with what they need most and then bridge from what they need most into what into the Systems that are failing them So if that's like we're organizing construction workers and they need hard hats figure out how you use your skills to help them Get hard hats, but then talk about what are the systems that are making it? You know consistent that they don't get hard hats and how do you fight the bigger fight after you've demonstrated the value of the collaboration? So it makes the work a little more complex But it also makes it richer because you're not coming in as we're solving your problem It's more about we've got a piece you've got a piece How do we solve it together and who are the people who are going to give us the rocket fuel to transform? All the disciplines that have yet to retrofit themselves to understand the change that's happened in the world Yeah, and I think just as a helpful frame as you think about all of the people that you've encountered in the room and the Projects that you've heard about in some ways that awareness is a as kind of informed the grant making for pit UN is Some proof of concept projects we funded across a range of disciplines a range of ideas and subject matter and Issue areas for them to serve as inspiration about how you do that translation I know that's a tricky road to go down because you're saying oh, I'm not able to Institutionalize this one thing but in many ways we were trying to and hoping to shape an environment where you had some examples and Models and pilots to be able to say this is how public interest tech intersects with the thing that you care passionately about So I hope that we have been somewhat successful in that and so that's kind of a helpful tip about what we were thinking when we're Doing this grant-making. I know this is always Important for us to say this and I'm curious about this from Katie and Sahad What key questions ideas and grantee needs should funders consider as they are thinking about How they might adopt new grant-making strategies that will take pit to the next phase I would love for your insights on that because we've talked about the collaboration And we've talked about how do you've been really clear about the constraints and the challenges so funders you're interested in the space What should you be thinking about what should be considering from the grantee side? a Lot of my grantees experience. There's a huge demand to think globally Especially across the institutions which I work with in the US. There's this just a global Thirst for wanting to be connected on a on the scale with the work that folk are doing How do you do that? That doesn't necessarily mean you suddenly scale up your projects to an extent and require huge amounts of funding We spoke earlier today for example about how investments in local government and municipal government is really important We shouldn't underestimate the fact really shouldn't actually underestimate the fact and the case study data points that those provide in radiating change not just within a Is a country but across different cities Around the world but grantees being plugged into those spaces is a need that I have I've come across quite a lot I've been asked how can you help us develop community partnerships specifically from my academic grantees, right? I can make academic institutions right there is this recognized need which has come up a couple of times just today To rethink the idea of an ivory tower to a public square comes up all the time But because of the kind of imperatives that we find in in academic cultures and requirements It's not always some front and center in terms of the work of academics and researchers Who are driven to to publish will perish in in in certain cultures So assistance in helping finding community partners making community partners more prominent to Academic partners in the work that they do is critical, right? This is that's that that comes up all of the time And increasingly as well how to develop community partnerships and academic partnerships on a global scale So those are those are aside from the capacity constraints that I've seen those are things that have been coming to me Through my grantees quite often. I'm increasingly so with increasing further Katie and yeah, I mean I would add to jazz points that the global Perspective is also important as we think about the sort of US Western values centered approaches We take to developing technology and the ways in which plugging into global networks can be not just you know encouraging for grantees for their ability to to scale or to Create the sort of community partnerships But also to learn from the global context and what other what people in other places Value and how technology development might look different from those different perspectives Which I think also brings me to sort of the two things that I would consider important in thinking about kind of grantee considerations And this work is context and capacity So context I think just so often we look at this work and don't stop to contextualize it to localize it to make it Make sense, especially when looking at community partnerships and partnerships between academic institutions and communities We don't always pause to say okay What is what is it that I'm trying to bring to the table and is it actually something that people need in this context or even better Before I think of anything I want to bring to the table What do people need in this context and how can I learn from them to serve them better? And so I think as we're thinking about priorities for Funding this sort of work to think about about context and to think also about Capacity on both sides to make the space to do that sort of learning I think often our our pilot programs will look really good And you know something will seem like it makes a ton of sense in the vacuum that we've built it in and then We sort of take it out into the world and realize that we don't actually know how to Execute it at scale or operationalize it with people in their real lives And that if we spent just a little bit of time and resources on the sort of you know Human-centered design processes that can inform Different tools being built to actually serve people's needs that we would be better for it I think also on capacity particularly in the nonprofit space When talking about public interest technology I think we can very quickly get into the weeds or get into this big macro picture of What we want the world to be and all of these complex and nuanced Challenges that we're facing but going back to what I said earlier a lot of Organizations communities and folks out in the world are are still looking for someone to get them computers right into their into their spaces And so thinking about where people are and being able to meet them where they are and being able to Bring the sort of resources that then enable them to participate fully right? It's not just about the seat at the table It's about the fully actualized realized opportunity for people to engage meaningfully in these conversations and in this work and So we have to help sort of shore up their resources to do that and that I think is also something that we often forget The global frame came up a bit And I just want to give Shane a chance to jump in because I know that's something that is a Staple of your work. So wanted to give you an opportunity. Yeah Yeah, I was nodding emphatically. I Think when I think it's a global framing It's partly someone mentioned the knowledge sharing just as much as sharing a peer-to-peer learning of if you will understanding what techniques work in different places and how we can sort of share the the The playbooks if you will But I think we're also when we talk about building the field of impact data science and data for social impact We're really trying to think about it at that holistic view of what kinds of How does that look in different regions? I guess and so far it has been a process of trying to bring in more and more We traditionally apply our Western Principles our definitions of technology our definitions of what data science needs to be and to look like For the civil and you know social impact organizations worldwide And so trying to take the approach of listening instead bringing in the global South and and I mean a lot of university partners at that point Bringing in that perspective when it comes to saying what do we mean by the field? What do we mean by capacity and what do we mean by needs in this area? And so I think one thing that's been really really successful in that area is working through data.org is one of our partners They were here yesterday. I Don't think I'm here today, but they've they've tried to take that convening power Globally all at once to where they're building nodes of data science talent in different cities across the world And then going into that that location. So for example with that Building university partners there also building government stakeholder partnerships also building up Resources and training programs for local data science talent and social impact So doing that ecosystem approach, but locally node by node and then connecting them all to each other I think that could work really well in the pit space as well, right? We could learn so much from from developing local networks, but then connecting them to each other Convening of course is a big a big part of that But I think the other thing I was gonna say about that was In terms of of questions and granting needs and the global perspective is there's a need to invest in Untested in new ways of doing what we've been doing. I think something that's worked really well is is Contributing funding to new hiring mechanisms. So with Howard University who is also going to be here today. I think Hi, Amy Talked to dr. A she's she spearheading the masters of data science at Howard University But we've tried to do something called a cluster hiring initiative I have talked to a few faculty members from other universities where we're trying to fund Positions that are across schools, which is harder than it should be I think But trying to create carve out positions that are tenure track So that's a long time horizon one from a funding perspective But carving out positions of people who are doing that translation. So they have a data communications and data social justice computing Positions where people are placed across schools and so I think investing in models like that There's a need for that but there isn't a lot of appetite yet from a grant-making perspective because it does take more time It is a little more experimental And then trying to connect those to each other is a bit of a challenge. So Trying new things I guess Well, thank you. I've got my signal We're a time and I I think what you have done though is make a case for a couple of things that Folks have been hinting at already which is this sort of regional approach to your work the cluster hiring model across a cluster of Schools feels like it would be ready made for that And also the sort of piece that Katie had brought in which is sort of what is sort of the local Versions of what you're doing and how do you make sure that it's really meeting the need where folks are at? I think that's part of the rationale for this We've been charged with thinking about building a field which can feel really broad and expansive and wonderful and energizing But I think what we're also beginning to really crystallize on is that you now have partners across many Institutions and it may be time also to go deep So there's deep and wide all of those things have to happen at the same time So I just want to thank the panelists for