Hi <<First Name>>,

It was nice to see some of you at our Tuesday meetup on Climate Tech. With respect to climate and civic justice, hope is often in short supply. Hence, to close out the year on an optimistic note, this week we’ll shine a light on recent examples of how tech is addressing the big (and small) problems facing people and planet. 

Three tiers to 2021,
Will 

P.s. This is my last week editing this newsletter. Thanks to everyone who joined this mailing list as it has grown from a few dozen die-hards to a broad cross-section of the movers and shakers in tech for good. We’ll have a few upcoming guest edits, followed by a brief hiatus and shiny relaunch in the new year. It has been a pleasure to write this each week - thanks for reading!

Meme against the machine 🐙

Just over three years ago, I asked a friend to send over any articles they could find about internet culture, memory and political resistance in the run up to Chile’s 2017 Presidential election. My research took a different course, but I was glad this week to stumble upon a paper and podcast on Anime Against Neoliberalism in Chile. It touches upon some fascinating themes: 

• How tech can enable non-elite narratives to transcend borders and challenge ruling ideas (a 21st Century reboot of the Chilean saying ‘the newspapers are theirs, the walls are ours… plus Dragonball Z) 

• The (perhaps) unique capacity of memes to entrench sub-rational truths and spread counter-memories (i.e. understandings of the past that challenge dominant narratives). 

• The positive flipside of internet culture’s capacity to drive political change. The documentary Feels Good Man, about Trump and Pepe the Frog, elucidate the darker aspect of this power. 

It can be so easy to get caught up in debates around big tech - such as whether Biden will embrace or stand up to Silicon Valley lobbyists - that we can lose sight of the power of grassroots civic tech to enact change. This can be to provide safety, such as Rio de Janeiro's crowdsourced apps keeping people out of the way of stray bullets, or the many ways to support good causes remotely through digital activism (which this paper defends against the pejorative name ‘slacktivism’). 
 

The question going forward is; ‘how do we amplify grassroots digital activism whilst reigning in extremism and disinformation?’. Three interesting perspectives this week are: 

• New America released a paper on how to reclaim free speech for democracy and human rights in a digitally networked world. It hammers home the point that tech platforms are not - and cannot be - neutral, and instead need effective leadership and established norms to defend democracy and human rights online. 

• Let’s avoid an Artificial Intelligentsia. Tech governance and design needs to be genuinely inclusive to avoid harming marginalised and underserved groups. This article looks at the efforts to secure inclusion, transparency and collaboration in debates around AI. 

• Francis Fukuyama (who may be familiar to recent Pol Sci grads) sets forward the case to firmly redistribute and regulate information ownership.

If nothing else, we can hope for the memes to keep flowing. 

Tech for good stocking fillers 🧦🎄

If you’re not sure how to fill out the bloated days between Christmas and New Years and are tired of getting the Guinness World Book of Records every year from your Nan, here are some tech for good reads, watches and listens to pad out your days and add to your wishlist: 

• Three books to whittle away the hours: Technoprecarious looks at the role of technology in undermining workers rights (and how to stand up to that); Banking on a Revolution argues that we need to go well beyond ‘fintech for good’ to avoid replicating and magnifying the harms generated by the financial industry; and Beyond Digital Capitalism, which is a collection of essays on everything from Solarpunk to planning alternative tech futures.

• The Anti-Dystopians shared a podcast episode called Data Flows: gender, colonization and the limits of surveillance capitalism.

• A mini-documentary on the future of the global (or perhaps China-centred) internet. 
   

Climate tech - the road to a sustainable internet 🌎🌐

On Tuesday we hosted a virtual get together on Climate Tech. The aim was to close out a somewhat miserable year on a bright note by shining a light on the world of designing and organising tech organisations in defence of the planet. We heard from the pioneering work by the people (and planet)-centred design agency Snook and the explosive success of the Climate Action Tech community.

The talks and conversations touched upon some really interesting topics - you can view the recordings here. Here’s a quick roundup (with a few nuggets from this week’s news):

• The internet is not sustainable (but it doesn’t have to be this way): The tech industry has a huge - and rapidly growing - environmental footprint. By 2040, it is projected to account for 14% of global emissions. Day-to-day activities such as streaming high-definition content rack up a large carbon bill. Here’s a quick look at how ordinary usages of the internet translate into climate impacts. Whilst incremental changes may help dampen the effects of our web-fuelled carbon footprint, the real prize lies in designing a sustainable internet for all. The Branch Magazine takes a look at how that might be possible.

• Climate Tech is booming: the stars are aligned for the tech, regulatory and funding environment required to accelerate the adoption of Climate Tech. Funding for Climate Tech has grown 3,750% since 2013, and the list of funders is growing rapidly. If this boom can be sustained, we could be in line for a swift transformation to a sustainable climate future.

• Tech workers (and people in general) are keen to engage: the quick growth of the Climate Action Tech salons, publications and movement indicated the growing appetite for tech workers to actively scrutinise the impact their industry has on the planet. This mirrors the positive accounts emerging from citizen’s councils on climate in France.

• We cannot ignore intersectionalities in climate justice: both speakers pointed out how climate justice is not a discrete category, but rather spills into various social justice issues. Namely that the people that drive climate change are not the people that suffer from climate change. Climate justice cannot be extricated from racial, social or economic justice.

• Breakthroughs are arriving thick and fast: for example, this week we’ll see cultivated meat available for consumption in Singapore for the first time. This Exponential View podcast throws light on how robotics, bioneering and machine learning are being used to generate sustainable materials for next-generation tech. 

To keep in the loop about new advancements and issues on the road to a sustainable internet, check out the Branch Magazine by Climate Action Tech. 

📣 Opportunities 📣

A summary of featured funding opportunities and new arrivals.

• Bethnal Green Ventures opened a new call for applications. They’re looking to invest and support early-stage tech for good startups. Find out more 🚀 (Jan 11)
• The Media Futures fund is looking for artists/startups/SMEs that are using data to tackle misinformation. They’re offering up to €85,000 equity-free funding for startups and up to €40,000 for artists (Jan 28)
• UNICEF opened an Innovation Fund to provide up to $100k in equity investments for tech startups helping to prevent violence against children (Dec 20)
• Making the Shift opened a call for proposals for data and technology projects to support the prevention of youth homelessness (Dec 7)
• Big Society Capital and Good Finance are seeking insights from mission-led communities into experiences navigating investment. Fill out the survey.

If you have a funding challenge, grant opening, speaking gig or another opportunity that you want to share - let us know!

What’s going on? 📅

Check out the tech for good near you map. 

• Join BGV for a virtual Q&A to find out more about their tech for good investment offer and programme (Dec 16)
• Data or Dinner? Digital Leaders Wales are hosting a salon exploring what is meant by data poverty (Dec 16)
• Trust....and tech governance - Society Inside are hosting a talk on tech governance (Dec 11)
• CityTech: The Next Generation of Urban Innovation is a report launch reflecting on the last ten years of smart cities, hosted by Nitrous (Dec 15).

Working in tech for good 💼

We’ve trimmed the job section to new arrivals and featured ads only. For the full list head to our website.

• Social Finance is an ambitious non-profits that works in partnership with government, funders and the social sector to tackle entrenched social problems. They are hiring a Technical Architect (Dec 13).
   
• The Trussell Trust supports a UK-wide network of 1,200 foodbanks. They’re hiring both a Junior and a Senior Data Analyst (Dec 21)
   
• Glimpse Protocol is bringing technological innovation to consumer privacy. They’re currently hiring a Lead Software Engineer (rolling)
   
• Color in Tech works towards a more inclusive tech industry. They’re hiring a Content and Community Manager (rolling)

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