Impactful for All

Ask a child what they want to be when they grow up, and chances are you’ll get a number of popular answers: actor, scientist, doctor, veterinarian. One day, however, that list may include the title of public interest technologist — at least if the founders of Impactful have anything to say about it.

Impactful was launched earlier this year by a team of four students – Ivy Li and Larissa Nguyen – both of Yale University — Ivonne Lemuz-Guzman of California Polytechnic State University and Nithi Subbaian of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. The quartet met via the 2019 Impact Coalition program, a program that matches students with strong software engineering experience with more than 30 companies that are working towards the public good.

“The fellowship was the first time that I learned that public interest tech as a thing existed. I know my co-founders had the same thoughts. We were just so happy to find that there are others out there — this whole community out there – who wanted to be public interest technologist, too,” explains Subbaian. “Up till that point, we had just been gathering our own little resources. We all had our own spreadsheets, and we're like, ‘Wow, instead of all of us having our own resources and collections, let’s compile it all together.”

And that is the essence of Impactful’s main goal: Creating a pipeline and resources for early career professionals who want to enter the public interest tech space. To that end, the organization compiles a list of different job opportunities and student fellowships as well as an online discussion space moderated through a Slack channel, a LinkedIn group, and weekly discussion calls. These aren’t just limited to students, either. Anyone with an interest in public interest tech can join one or all of the above. In the future, Impactful team hopes to offer mentorships and other networking opportunities, which will benefit its members and outside employers, Li says.

“We're hoping to get students and entry level career people connected with those who are already mid- or senior-level. We’re also building out our platform so people who might not be looking to find a career or job opportunity, but want to just do something on the side can find projects to work on on the side,” she says.

This week, Impactful’s Li will speak on a panel at the 2020 Convening – Career Pathways in PIT – along with student experts from Olin College of Engineering to discuss the various pathways in PIT and how PIT can fit into a student’s career goals. She expects that the panel will be very interactive, she says, with people stepping up to talk about what it means to be a PIT practitioner, how they are progressing in their own career trajectories, and that there’s more than one way to enter the field.

“There isn’t just one way to get into public interest technology, and often the path is winding. We really hope people leave the panel with the impression that there are so many more opportunities than just working at the handful of companies that we hear about all the time like Amazon, Apple, or Google, and that it’s more than just technology roles. There are also roles like policy, design, finance and research. Many people do have a computer science background, but just as many people may have had a career in polisci, anthropology, or research.”

Going forward, Impactful’s team will continue its work with PIT-UN to identify potential PIT opportunities in the workplace and help employers integrate early career candidates into their folds. Explains Subbaian: “The goal throughout this entire project is to essentially compile a report that addresses what’s going on and offers solutions that can help both ends of the pipeline reach the other side.”

The Career Pathways in PIT panel will take place on Friday, November 13 from 5 until 6 p.m. Eastern.