Technology has been hailed as a great enabler, allowing people to talk from opposite sides of the world, businesses to run faster and for us to understand data as never before. Unfortunately, technology comes with many downsides that we must manage too.

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Taking the mantra that “Digital is our society and our society is digital,” Mike Kubzansky, CEO at Omidyar Network describes how, despite the valuable integration of tech in our lives, we’ve allowed digital technology to become unmoored from any societal vision for it:

“It's used to target children for advertising, for racial profiling and algorithms that are difficult to unpack. There is a dangerous concentration of power in our digital economy. Technology always builds on itself and there is a vibrant ecosystem that supports different technologies, but that shouldn't be a reason to not have the institutions and structures in place to start to channel that in the right direction.”

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Kubzansky says that Web3, crypto and quantum computing as well as the unknown future developments demand stewardship:

“What's less important is how new technologies will develop; we need to focus on the architecture that we're going to put together as a democracy, society, and philanthropy, to make sure that technology develops in a responsible and non-harmful direction.”

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Omidyar Network is a social change venture that encourages a reimagination of the structures, institutions, frameworks, norms, leaders, and incentives that have defined a generation of technology.  They do so by supporting a diverse range of nonprofits, technologists, academics and researchers, advocates and movements, business leaders, and creatives with lived experiences, deep expertise and bold ideas.

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Michele Lawrence Jawando, SVP of Programs at Omidyar Network points out what drives Omidyar Network’s mission and its three, interrelated focus areas:

“We believe that capitalism can be reimagined. We are technologists who believe that technology should be a force for good. We are journalists and business people. We are lawyers and humanitarians. We are creatives and artists.We believe that there are certain values that we would like to see in the world: fairness, equity, inclusion. How do we foster responsible technology? What does it mean to build a culture of belonging? And finally, what will it take to reimagine capitalism? We should think about technology connecting every part of the society that we live in and our goal is to make it more equitable. Change happens in a lot of different ways and our approaches will differ depending on the challenges we aim to solve.”

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Wafa Ben-Hassine, Responsible Technology Principal at Omidyar Network stresses how digital technology can support inclusive and equitable societies:

“The makers of technology have to imbue the values of trust, transparency, and accountability into the technologies that they create to allow technology to actually work in the interests of their users. This is something that we believe can only be achievable when we have a more diverse set of stakeholders and a more equitable decision-making table that helps lead those decisions forward.”

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An example of how Omidyar Network supports a healthy digital tech system is the UK-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to safeguarding human rights and reversing the rising tide of polarization, extremism and disinformation worldwide. Ben-Hassine explains why Omidyar Network supports their research:  

“We see so many harms being proliferated across communication technologies. But we also need to protect privacy. ISD is helping identify methodologies that both respect human rights and the right to privacy, to study the harms of disinformation and where they emanate from.”

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Ben-Hassine says that everyone should have a role in positively shaping the future:

“We call on all technologists, nonprofits, academics, government officials, everybody who has a stake in society to help shape the future of technology. We need to collectively leverage our moral imagination in helping understand what are the potential harms that could lead to significant impacts on our societies.”

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Kubzansky says philanthropy is uniquely equipped to support more responsible tech at a systemic level:

“We shouldn't overstate philanthropy's role, but it does have a couple of advantages. Philanthropy doesn't have to make a quarterly profit, it can convene people and can take the long view. Philanthropy can take a step back and define that positive vision for the role that technology has in our society, how we produce prosocial outcomes and minimize the harms.”