The Just Tech program foregrounds questions of power, justice, and the public impact of new technologies, investigating evidence of bias and harms while imagining and creating more just technological futures. Through the Just Tech Fellowship and digital platform, the program creates a new ecosystem of research and social engagement, one that enriches public discourse, informs public policy, and radically imagines just futures where social and public interests drive technological change, instead of the other way around.

Goals

Champion vital research that enhances collective knowledge about technology’s impacts and potential, illuminates the biases and harms created by some novel uses of technology, and identifies solutions that advance social, political, and economic rights.

Center the perspectives of historically marginalized researchers and practitioners, whose work is often undervalued or underrepresented in the academy as well as policy and tech sector decision-making.

Sustain a diverse, cross-sector, and collaborative community of researchers and practitioners who can critically engage with and challenge status quo voices and institutions in every sector where technology is produced, deployed, and integrated into daily life.

Reimagine what resources are necessary, not only to support a researcher’s work, but to invest in the entire person and to build a community of support and collaborations.

Our Work

Show Completed Initiatives/Projects

People

Salome Asega
NEW INC at the New Museum
Stephanie Dinkins
Stony Brook University
Alex Gil
Columbia University
Clementine Jacoby
Recidiviz
Charlton McIlwain
New York University
Desmond Patton
Columbia University
Nabiha Syed
The Markup
Matthew Tamayo-Rios
OpenLattice
F. Javier Torres-Campos
National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures

Values

Justice and Equity

Technology's harms and benefits must be better understood. Just Tech is committed to supporting work that engages with questions of social justice and equity as they relate to the development and use of technology in society. To move toward more just technological futures, we must not only critique current injustices and inequities, but intentionally imagine and create the societies and communities we want and need.

Collaboration

Just Tech builds on the SSRC’s legacy of exchange and collaboration and fosters diverse and cross-sector communities of engaged research and practice. Our fellows, alumni, collaborators, and staff support each other in co-creation, learning, support, and opportunity.

Public Impact

Just Tech supports innovative, experimental, and entrepreneurial work that advances positive social change. We endeavor for knowledge to be free, open, and accessible to all, and we bring together leaders from different fields to develop a holistic vision for change.

Healthy Communities

Just Tech believes that healthy communities provide spaces through which people can investigate problems, generate solutions, and build together. Just Tech invests in the entire person, as well as their community at home and the cross-sector community of researchers and practitioners we endeavor to build.

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