Omidyar Network today announced a new initiative: The technology we want, a four-year, $8 million portfolio of work focused on connecting and empowering a new wave of leaders, businesses and technologies that are built on inclusivity, mutualism, sustainability, accountability and responsible innovation. The Tech We Want program is designed to create a community, infrastructure, and shared narrative in support of technologists, thought leaders, and investors seeking healthy alternatives to mainstream tech culture.
“If we want to develop a responsible technological future, we must intentionally change who and what we produce. We need to support diverse organizations and inclusive communities that are working to redefine what tech culture can and should be,” said Michele Lawrence Jawando, Senior Vice President of Programs at Omidyar Network. “As a social change company, we have the opportunity and responsibility to invest in technology leaders with lived experiences, help them build their collective power, and support their vision for a trustworthy technology future. .”
To achieve this vision, Omidyar Network has engaged a diverse group of entrepreneurs, funders, thinkers, creatives, and builders whose ideas, models, and networks have changed the way many believe technology should be. built and how the system should work. The first one 15 “Lamps” co-create a collective vision for ethical technology, systems and economies that generate value for all stakeholders, including technology creators, consumers, workers, communities and the planet. Through this partnership, Omidyar Network hopes that examples of what we – as an industry and society – want to reward and correct will emerge, and philanthropy can work in coalition to support their vision, innovation and collective well-being. .
“With moral imagination, the technology we want – and need – can be built for and with sustainable growth, patient capital, regeneration, value for ‘enough’, win-win mindsets, relationships of trust, distributed power and shared ownership,” said Aniyia Williams, Director of the Omidyar Network Lead Technology Team that runs The Tech We Want. “In contrast, today’s technological system is built on models of exponential growth, rapid capital, extraction, assumptions that ‘bigger/bigger’ is better, states of zero-sum mindset, transactional relationships and dominance have failed to deliver a healthy, trustworthy, inclusive and equitable system and outcomes.
Emilie Best: Founder and CEO of Seed&Spark, a platform launched ten years ago to make entertainment more diverse, inclusive, connected and essential. She is a filmmaker, entrepreneur, active board member of many community organizations and believes in storytelling as a critical driver to build equity and sustainability for all.
Kelly Burton: CEO of Black Innovation Alliance, a national coalition of 65 black-led organizations that support more than 300,000 innovators of color across the country. She is a political scientist, serial entrepreneur and change agent who leads with passion, determination and vision.
Jennifer Daniels: Executive Director of Talk Tech, a nonprofit focused on using data-driven stories to bridge the funding gap for black tech founders building high-growth businesses. She is also an angel investor of underfunded startup founders.
Coraline Ada Ehmke: Founder and Executive Director of the Organization for Ethical Source, whose mission is to empower open source communities to ensure their work is used for social good and in service of human rights. She is an internationally renowned engineer, speaker and activist with over 25 years of industry experience.
Lilibeth Gangas: Chief Technology Community Officer at the Kapor Center, an operational foundation at the intersection of technology and racial justice. It provides research and thought leadership, operating programs, supportive strategic partnerships and investments to increase diversity across the technology system.
Jessica Mason: Executive Director of Start.coop, a non-profit organization that cultivates the next generation of cooperative enterprises with ambitions for scale. She is an impact strategist, entrepreneur, educator and angel investor with deep experience leading innovation ventures in the social and public sector.
Andy Moss: Professor of social entrepreneurship at NYU, founder of CORMethod.org (tools to operationalize the pursuit of a goal) and member of the board of directors of the Jericho project and Govern for America. He also spent 17 years building and managing new businesses at Microsoft; founded and sold his own startup; and advised many startups.
Dr Safiya Noble: Author, UCLA professor, and director of the National Center on Race and Digital Justice – a groundbreaking effort that focuses on accountability and redress for existing and emerging digital harm. She was recognized last year as a 2021 MacArthur Foundation Fellow and honored with the inaugural NAACP-Archewell Digital Civil Rights Award.
Ifeoma Ozoma: Founder and Director of Earthseed, a company specializing in technology accountability and public policy. She is co-sponsor of the Silenced No More Act, creator of the Tech Worker Handbook and co-founder of the Transparency in Employment Agreements Coalition.
Ellen Pao: CEO of Project Include, a nonprofit DEI that collects, analyzes and shares data to recommend actions and benchmarks for tech startups. His efforts to end discrimination in the workplace led to the term “Pao effect”.
Eli Pariser: Co-director of New_Public, a project focused on building more flourishing and equitable digital spaces. He is an active author, activist and entrepreneur focusing on how to put technology and media to work for democracy.
Sun Jasmine: Co-founder and director of Reboot, a nonprofit publication and community for young technologists reinventing techno-optimism for a better collective future. She has also worked in product, research, writing and education roles at Substack, Schmidt Futures, Stanford University and beyond.
Aden Van Noppen: Co-director of Mobius, a home for people creating Liberatory Technology products, systems and stories. It supports the Mobius community with the relational, intellectual, spiritual and financial resources necessary to create a compassionate, responsible and just technological system.
Xiaowei R.Wang: Principal leader of Logic School, an organizing community for tech workers. Their work focuses on community technology and the importance of care in organizing a fairer future.
Mara Zepeda: Co-founder and CEO of Zebras Unite, a cooperative building capital, culture and community for the next economy. She also co-wrote “Zebras Fix What Unicorns Break”, a manifesto on the broken structure of technology and venture capital.
Other program partners and collaborators include:
To learn more about the Luminaries and follow the group’s progress, visit thetechwewant.com.
