I. Introduction

The past year has illuminated technology issues facing public interest organizations in stark contrast. From biased algorithms blocking access to credit for marginalized communities to ongoing threats to our elections from mis- and disinformation campaigns, the need for a public interest lens on technology is well documented.¹

In the face of these issues, this report relays recent successes to advance the field of public interest technology (PIT) in one of its numerous key focus areas: higher education.² The report draws from interviews with many of those leading the way in academia, and updates the state of play outlined in the 2018 report Building the Future: Educating Tomorrow’s Leaders in an Era of Rapid Technological Change.³

The scope of the opportunities and challenges for public interest advocates is broad. Speaking to Kara Swisher on the podcast Recode, Decode, Meredith Whitaker, co-founder of the AI Now Institute at New York University, succinctly outlined the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to addressing issues related to technology: ⁴

We can’t be resolving these issues just from computer science and from engineering departments, we actually need a much bigger lens … We need to be drawing on social science, on humanistic disciplines, on law, philosophy, as well as anthropology, sociology, criminal justice. If you actually want to build tools that affect social institutions, you need to have experts in the room, but you also need affected communities.

In an interview for this report, Provost Bob Groves of Georgetown University recognized the imperative for academia to engage with these challenges through PIT. He said, “The rate of speed of development of technology has vastly exceeded society’s ability to absorb it. Normative structures, regulatory frameworks, and laws can’t keep up with the technological change, and we have obligations to address that.”

“The rate of speed of development of technology has vastly exceeded society’s ability to absorb it. Normative structures, regulatory frameworks, and laws can’t keep up with the technological change, and we have obligations to address that.”
–Bob Groves, Georgetown University

The 2018 Building the Future report stems from a recognition of both the need for and momentum in PIT as it connected engineers, programmers, designers, researchers, advocates, and more. The report surfaced three key findings for PIT in academic institutions:

1. Students are demanding cross-disciplinary training at an increasing rate;
2. Practitioners are racing to respond with innovative programming; and
3. Academic leaders are recognizing the importance of public interest technology.

Thirty-three interventions were illuminated in that report that could improve the health of PIT in colleges and universities, and many have had marked success since the report’s publication. With the support of the Ford Foundation and a number of other foundations and individual funders, great progress has been made toward strengthening the academic infrastructure of public interest technology. This report offers a summary of key successes, lingering challenges, and what this corner of the broader public interest technology field has learned since 2018.

This update to the 2018 report draws from interviews with 30 practitioners and leaders to highlight key features of the maturing PIT ecosystem. The Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN), then an intangible hope for the field, is now a robust collaboration that enables leaders from 21 institutions to share best practices and spur collaboration, for example. The network held its first annual PIT-UN convening at Georgetown University in October 2019, at which over $3.1 million in PIT grants were announced. And the network is poised to grow in membership in 2020 after a successful application cycle.

Drawing from examples like the PIT-UN, this report plots out key successes, lingering challenges, and potential next steps for the primary intervention points discussed first in 2018. This report may be used by PIT practitioners, institution leaders, funders, and others to plan for PIT’s future. As outlined in the pages that follow, with creative, collaborative, and visionary leadership, recent progress in the field can be cemented and scaled.