resources for students & Educators

Civics of Technology (CoT) project aims to empower students and educators to critically inquire into the effects of technologies on their individual and collective lives. They conduct research, develop curriculum, and offer professional development. Their work seeks to advance democratic, ethical, and just uses of technology in schools and society.

TECH AND SOCIAL JUSTICE INITIATIVES

Algorithmic Justice League: aims to highlight algorithmic bias through media, art, and science; provide space for people to voice concerns and experiences with coded bias; develop practices for accountability during the design, development, and deployment of coded systems.

Allied Media Projects: Through hosted conferences and project sponsorship, the Allied Media Network is a nonprofit organization committed to supporting the communication media sector in creating more “just, creative and collaborative world” that is committed to social justice.

Center for Media Justice:Aims to build a powerful movement for a more just and participatory media and digital world—with racial equity and human rights for all.

Chupadatos: This project gathers stories from across Latin America about the mass collection and processing of data that governments, businesses and we ourselves carry out to monitor our cities, homes, wallets and bodies.

ColorCoded: A tech learning space that centers historically-excluded people in the co-teaching, co-creation, and co-ownership of new technologies.

Data 4 Black Lives: an group of various multidisciplinary organizers who aim to use data to “create concrete and measurable change in the lives of black people. By convening an annual conference, the group speaks to data scientists, policy makers, researchers, students, parents and more to “chart out a new future for data science.”

Design Justice: Design Justice network members rethink design processes, center people who are normally marginalized by design, and use collaborative, creative practices to address the deepest challenges our communities face.

Equitable Internet Initiative: The program’s mission is to ensure that more Detroit residents have the ability to leverage online access and digital technology for social and economic development.

Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab: Brings together students, educators, activists, and artists to develop a critical and creative approach to data conception, production, and circulation. Our aim is to rethink and retool data for justice.

#MoreThanCode, by the tech for social justice project, is a “participatory action research project intended to better understand the types of work currently being done with technology for social justice (and more broadly, in the public interest), as well as the pathways people take into this work.”

Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, promotes public participation and dialogue on police spying and surveillance, demystifying the issues and helping people relate to them personally.

FAIRNESS, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND TRANSPARENCY INITIATIVES

Auditing Algorithms: An organization tasked with the goal of producing documentation outlining “that will help to define and develop the emerging research community for algorithm auditing.”

AMC Fairness Accountability and Transparency: A multi-disciplinary conference that brings together researchers and practitioners interested in fairness, accountability, and transparency in socio-technical systems.

STATEMENTS

Data & Society “Algorithmic Accountability” Statement: This statement seeks to help assign “responsibility for harm when algorithmic decision-making results in discriminatory and inequitable outcomes.”

Data 4 Black Lives letter to Zuckerberg: urges Zuckerberg to “1. Commit anonymized Facebook Data to a Public Trust. 2. Work with technologists, advocates, and ethicists to establish a Data Code of Ethics. 3. Hire black data scientists and research scientists.”

Digital Citizen’s Bill of Rights: A bill proposed by Congressman Darell Issa outlining the rights people have in the digital sphere. For his first draft, the Congressman publicly published the bill, asking for input from all to “help [get] this right.”

Equitable Open Data: A set of guidelines for advancing “equitable practices for collecting, disseminating and using open data.”

Principles of a Feminist Internet, statement by the Association of Progressive Communications

Science for the People Statement, “calls for pickets at Microsoft, Amazon, and Salesforce offices and stores to protest these companies’ contracts with ICE.”

Tech Workers Coalition Community Guide, “seeks to redefine the relationship between tech workers and Bay Area communities. Through activism, civic engagement, direct action, and education, we work in solidarity with existing movements towards social justice and economic inclusion.”

Statement on Project Maven by Google employees opposing the company’s contact with the Department of Defense for Project Maven, a research initiative to develop computer vision algorithms that can analyze drone footage.

#NoTechForICE, petition against tech company contracts with ICE

#TechWontBuildIt Statement by Amazon employees against the company’s facial recognition contracts with law enforcement