Transcriber: Jiaye Wang Reviewer: Leonardo Silva
At the age of 13,
I had already resigned myself to a life of mediocrity.
I, unlike all of the boys in my eighth grade class,
had not yet written an iPhone app.
At this rate, I was never going to be the best programmer in the world.
So I figured, “Why even bother?”
Obviously, becoming a doctor would be much easier.
And believe it or not,
my medical school plan was actually my way of rebelling
against the expectations that I felt had been put on me,
not just by my parents, but also by the world that surrounded me.
I grew up in essentially the heart of Silicon Valley.
I went to school with the children of tech giants and industry magnates.
And yet, I already felt at that young age that tech did not have a place for me.
I ended up having to take my first computer science class
because it was a requirement for my psychology major.
But I had already made this arrogant promise to my first-year dorm mates
that I would never step foot in the Tufts computer science building:
Halligan Hall.
So I devised a scheme to keep up the ruse.
I would take my required computer science classes over the summer
and no one would ever be the wiser.
Unfortunately, it turned out
that I enjoyed my data structures courses much more than my organic chemistry,
and I was much better at them.
No small part of that was due to the fact
that my first computer science class was taught by a renegade female professor,
decked out in tattoos,
who had legally changed her name to match that of a superhero.
Dr. Strange made complicated concepts seem beautifully simple.
But more importantly,
she taught me that wanting to be the best programmer in the world
would be missing the true promise of computer science
and technology overall.
Because technology is, at its best, a wonderful tool.
It has the potential to solve so many issues -
not all of them.
I don’t know if it’s possible to hack poverty or hack world peace
in one 48-hour event,
but when used responsibly,
technology can make a huge impact on the world’s most pressing issues.
It seems we’re having a bit of trouble
figuring out how exactly to go about using tech as a tool for good.
We still tend to conceive of the Internet and AI
as these nascent tools that we can watch with anticipation.
But in reality, over the past two decades,
technology has permeated our social fabric at whiplash-inducing speeds.
Its surveillance capabilities are becoming increasingly clear to the public.
It’s even been weaponized to suppress the democratic process.
So right now, we are at a crossroads
between tech becoming a force for good or continuing to pose a threat to society.
I’m here to show you that the key to tipping that balance
is surprisingly simple.
In order to change tech for the better,
we simply need to put the power of technology
in the hands of a diverse group of people,
people who have never before had access to that kind of power
and people who are ready to use it in order to make a difference.
My path to this realization began this past March,
when Covid hit and lockdowns had gone into effect.
Tech companies around the country had begun to announce cancellations
of their summer internships,
which meant that students were losing their career prospects.
Around this time, my friend Wahhab,
an advocate for diversity and inclusion in tech,
reached out to me.
He asked if I wanted to help him find a way
to support underrepresented students
who had lost their tech internships due to Covid.
I obviously agreed, and from there we built the dream team.
Wahhab, Iris, Bori, Zohaib, Obum and I,
along with the help of countless others,
spent the next couple of months building InternHacks.
InternHacks ultimately became a six-week internship program
in which we placed hundreds of students on teams to build projects together.
Along the way, interns were given opportunities to interface with recruiters
and receive mentorship from industry professionals.
Many of the students came from nontraditional educational backgrounds,
over 40% identified as Black or Latinx,
and more than half identified as women.
This was really exciting to us,
especially given the fact that the tech industry at large
only reports a combined total of 28% Black and Latinx professionals.
Simply put, our little internship program,
which we had thrown together within a matter of months,
was significantly more diverse than the tech industry at large.
So the team and I were really excited to have built such a diverse cohort,
but I know I personally didn’t anticipate how it would affect the program.
A part of me expected these projects to resemble the projects
that my largely homogenous group of peers had pursued throughout college.
As one of the few women of color in many of my classes,
I struggled to feel excited about the ideas
that my mostly white male peers were coming up with.
Often, they would be apps for finding hookups
or dupes of misogynistic and even violent video games.
I naively assumed
that this was the kind of thing that people pursued for side projects,
and it wasn’t particularly interesting to me.
So obviously, I was shocked
when nearly every InternHacks project featured a civic or social impact tilt.
Now, we had not explicitly mandated that the interns pursue social issues.
These were just the problems that were at the forefront of their minds.
Remember, this program was underway during the summer of 2020,
amidst the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement
and during an ongoing global pandemic
that magnified existing issues of inequality.
During their presentations,
the interns shared how they had come up with their problem statements,
and in many cases, they had chosen problems
that either they themselves were tackling or their communities were facing.
Let me give you a few examples.
One team’s goal was to make food bank inventories
easily accessible to the public.
They called it Project Ample.
Project Ample was a double whammy
in that it provided real-time, accurate information
to both those who are in need of food and those who are looking to donate food.
The team is currently working on building up their app in New York City
as it was one of the hardest hit early on in the current crisis,
but they’re looking forward to expanding it.
Another team created a fintech solution called Ready Ball,
which provided, next of kin, a secure way to access financial insurance
and will-related information in the event of a tragedy.
It allows them to do all of this
without any legal or cost-related complications and hassles.
After hearing our interns pitch impactful and frankly refreshing projects
like these and so many more,
I realized something:
our communities have the solutions, just not the power to enact them.
Technology can change that.
If the tech industry looked anything like the InternHacks cohort,
we would see it being used to solve sweeping systemic issues
and making a positive impact.
Now, I’m by no means
the first person to call for more diversity in the tech industry,
but I do think that the motivation behind those calls needs to be re-evaluated.
Early on in my undergraduate career,
I spent one and a half years working in the Harvard psychology lab
that pioneered the idea of implicit or unconscious bias.
During that time,
I worked on diversity trainings for some of our big industry partners
that position diversity
as something that was good for the company’s bottom line.
Now, this was a successful approach in many cases,
and we weren't the only ones to try it.
I’m sure you’ve seen headlines
claiming that diverse teams improve economic performance.
And while that may be true,
the tech industry still tends to conceive of diversity initiatives
as auxiliary or even charitable.
So clearly, this old mantra of diversity being good for business
hasn’t exactly produced the results that we hoped it might.
We have to reimagine this framework.
Diversity in tech is not charity.
Diversity in tech is not even about the bottom line.
Diversity in tech is about power.
InternHacks was compelling
because we saw students from the community empowered by technology,
working for their community to build stronger solutions.
And why were their solutions stronger?
They understood their users.
It's a basic principle of technology.
“Know your user.”
“Know what they want before they even know it.”
And in many cases,
our interns understood the problems they were tackling on a personal level,
which is not to say
that any given problem in a certain community is that community’s problem.
Far from it.
It’s all of our problem.
Those who have the privilege of being in leadership positions in tech
can begin to use that privilege
by supporting underrepresented individuals,
thereby investing long term in more equitable solutions and products.
Because the burden to fix an issue
should not be put on those who are most affected by it.
But their perspective is invaluable in the path to finding a solution,
and they should get to benefit from its success.
In practice.
this looks like more diversity not only amongst those who create our technology,
but also amongst those who lead.
Without diverse guidance and ideation at that level,
the tech industry will never fundamentally change.
If everyone's going to use a product,
everyone should have a say in how it’s made.
And just as important as it is to recognize the myriad of perspectives
that a diverse group offers,
it’s equally as important
to recognize the variety of experiences within each of those groups.
For example, as a South Asian woman who grew up in the California Bay Area,
my experience is likely very different
than that of a South Asian woman who grew up in Fargo, North Dakota.
All of those nuances are important,
and we need all of them at the table
while building tools for the next generation.
So this is important to you,
even if you’re not in the tech industry and don’t ever plan on entering it,
because technology is a part of your life, no matter who you are.
It’s shaping the world you live in.
So making sure that it’s built by a group of diverse, thoughtful individuals
who care about the implications of their work
is in your best interest.
As consumers, we can make an effort to be more aware of what our tech does
or even who builds it.
But to a certain extent, technology is ubiquitous.
That’s why the public can and should demand action
and, where necessary, regulation of the tech industry.
The first step is knowing what we do and don’t want
in our tech and in our communities.
If you are part of the tech industry or you’re considering dipping your toe in,
take a moment to consider why.
What unique perspective do you have?
How can you use tech as a tool?
As you go through your education and your career,
don’t let anyone tell you that you’re just an engineer
so you should keep your head down.
Stay up to date with what’s happening in the world and, more importantly,
how your work affects it.
If you’re interested in social justice
and making the world a more equitable place,
I implore you to consider technology as a tool on your side
rather than something to be avoided.
Because technology is the future, but you have the power to shape it.
So what are you going to do with it?
Thank you.