Tech For Good Live

This is the fourth in a special series in partnership with The Federation, exploring ethics in tech. In this episode, we talk about Humanity and Tech with Shannon Vallor. Shannon talks about the concepts in her book Technology And The Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting. If humanity is going to have any real hope of not merely surviving but of flourishing in the 21st Century (and beyond) then we are going to need more than just better technology. We will need to be better humans and specifically humans that have cultivated the kind of moral skills and virtues that are needed to manage our new techno-social powers wisely and well. Shannon is the William J. Rewak, S.J.Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Santa Clara University where her research addresses the ethical implications of technology. In 2015 she received the World Technology Award in Ethics from the World Technology Network.   Further reading: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Technology-Virtues-Philosophical-Future-Wanting

Dsposal are fast becoming a friend of the pod with the gang hosting their second guest from that awesome company, Sophie Walker. Join her in confusion as the gang talk through dodgy research into gender imbalance in AI research, dodgy Jungle Book references and dodgy tax suggestions.   All in all, it’s a pretty dodgy show, probably explains Bex’s random segways.   If you’d like to get in touch with Sophie: Dsposal.uk @yourdsposal   Things we mentioned: Stat of the week: https://www.wired.com/story/artificial-intelligence-researchers-gender-imbalance/ Campaigns of the week: https://www.charitydigitalnews.co.uk/2018/08/23/jungle-book-characters-cameo-in-campaign-video/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diP9Geq6er4&feature=youtu.be Tech news of the week https://www.forbes.com/sites/charlesradclyffe/2018/08/23/corbyns-plans-to-tax-tech-just-dont-go-far-enough/#47cf89feff08 Rant of the week: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/25/skim-reading-new-normal-maryanne-wolf And Finally:

This week in Tech for Good land we have regulars Bex, Jonny and Greg, who are joined by Tom Steinberg. Besides being an optimist, Tom leads on digital at the Big Lottery Fund and founded the active citizen organisation My Society which created such awesome things as Fix My Street and They Work For You.   This week the gang talk about the value of design in our economy, Jonny was delighted to discover it wasn’t zero as Greg has been telling him for years. There’s inclusive tech for older people from Hello Daisy and a look at the governments Civil Society Strategy which leads into a rant about honesty and openness.   If you want to find Tom: @steiny https://www.mysociety.org https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/   Things we mentioned: https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/what-we-do/research/design-economy https://www.hellodaisy.org/#!/about https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-outlines-vision-to-empower-and-invest-in-society https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/8/17661902/anki-vector-home-robot-voice-

The gang are almost back to full strength this week, with the exception of Greg who continues to roam the countryside on a quest for fulfilment, and also for work. This week Jonny and Paul are particularly excited to learn that they could run a marathon for charity without putting down their Playstation controllers. We explore the potential impact of how the lack of digital skills is damaging to all sectors, but mostly charities. We find out that going cashless is hurting the homeless, and we talk about Alex Jones basically being a massive, massive melt. Oh, we also do a book review, because, why not? And we have a special guest in the form of Steve Hester.   Things we mentioned: Stat of the week: Shortage of tech professionals is causing issues across all sectors: https://www.charitydigitalnews.co.uk/2018/08/06/shortage-of-tech-professionals-across-sectors/   Campaigns of the week: Marathon running just went digital: https://www.pcgamer.com/git-gud-for-a-good-cause-with-speedsouls-charity-marathon

Another change to the lineup in this holiday season, Bex & Jonny are back from their American adventure and producer Paul is back on the buttons after a trip to Barcelona (spoiler alert, Barcelona is a nice place to go on holiday, who knew!?) This week, Sacha Wynne and Fay Schofield ably deputise for Ben and Greg as the team re-visit CASTs digital principles, the rise of employee activism at big tech companies and somehow end up giving a collective thumbs up to a video game released in 2013, it's some cutting-edge tech news reporting.   Stat of the week: More on CASTS charity digital principles. https://www.charitycomms.org.uk/what-weve-learned-about-how-charities-use-digital-design-principles Campaign of the week: New York ad agencies join forces to fight climate change: https://www.campaignlive.com/article/new-york-agencies-join-forces-fight-climate-change/1488464   Tech news of the week:   Microsoft Employees question CEO over Company’s contract with ICE.   https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07

Ben is getting pretty settled into his role as presenter now is basically just winging it, let’s hope Bex doesn’t hear it. The gang are joined by self-professed non-techie Hannah Paterson of The Big Lottery Fund, she does, however, keep busy trying to do ‘good things’. One of those ‘good things’ you’ll get to hear about is a community mural project with a particularly personal note for Hannah. You’ll also hear about online safety for children, drones for good and they’ll be wondering why the press seems so focused on painting an increasingly bleak picture of mental health. If you’d like to get in touch with Hannah: @PatersonHannah   Things we mentioned: https://www.lgfl.net/online-safety/hopesandstreams https://www.facebook.com/events/191956841456846/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/23/drone-development-should-focus-on-social-good-first-says-uk-report/?guccounter=1 https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/23/young-peoples-mental-health-resilient-generation https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018

Full house on the pod this week with not one but two guests! The gang had the pleasure of hosting Andrew Smith and Vimal Bhika from the fantastic Manchester based think tank The Public Purse. And to double the fun they’ve brought their own stats thanks to their project working to make public sector procurement. And to continue the data fun there’s open data that’s just sitting there waiting for charities. The team also talk about a failed, but positive attempt by Facebook and Snapchat to deal with cyberbullying, before looking at the other side of Facebook where money is more important than children’s online safety. Rant of the month, courtesy of Andrew, is a difficult, but important topic, public sector workers and their passion for their work being robbed by a broken system, let’s hope we get to see more of those public sector super heroes. If you’d like to get in touch with Andrew or Vimal or learn more about The Public Purse: https://www.thepublicpurse.org.uk/ https://www.thepublicpurse.org.uk/projec

The team recorded this the day before something happened in Russia that we are trying not to think about, for that reason they’re much jollier than their current mood (football was never really coming home). Ben steps up for the leadership role this week, with some witty football references and we have a new member of the team making her Pod debut, Sacha! She’s more interested in the ‘for good’ rather than the ‘tech’ and brings a more youthful outlook to this usually jaded band of misfits. On the Pod this week we have positive stats for charity digital progress, water for festivals, snake oil on the web and a rant about the already frightening progress without boundaries approach in facial recognition tech.   Things we mentioned: http://hub.blackbaud.co.uk/npinsights/the-status-of-uk-fundraising-2018-benchmark-report#utm_source=CDN&utm_medium=Web&utm_campaign=npInsights18 https://www.charitydigitalnews.co.uk/2018/07/05/charity-offers-online-festival-water-ordering/ https://www.wired.com/story/th

Jonny was at the wheel this week, so expect hijinks, rambles and plenty of self-deprecation but don’t fear, Ben has returned to deliver his particular style of measured debate...mainly because he wasn’t drinking pints of gin. This week the gang discuss the benefits of playing on the Trump machine for donations, how people still don’t get how a charity works and some more positive news from one of the big tech players. There’s a rant on codes of conduct and how people just don’t know what to do with them, before we bid farewell to an old robot.   Things we mentioned: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/wildfang-raices-melania-trump-immigration-i-really-care-jacket-a8417091.html https://www.charitydigitalnews.co.uk/2018/06/28/funders-attitudes-determined-by-core-costs/ https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/ninety-percent-sustainable-ethical-fashion-charity-donate-a8200736.html https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_about_charity_is_dead_wrong https://www.charityd

This week, sometimes co-host Harry Bailey stepped in to help the team defend their cynicism against the refreshingly positive Tom Passmore of Dsposal. He’s a waste disposal and circular economy genius and luckily for him the stat of the month is all about the horrendous amounts of waste we produce and the ways tech is tackling this torrent. You’ll also hear about an interesting synergy between cosmetics retailer Lush and Bex’s favourite ethical mobile, Fairphone. Sadly there’s no rant this week, but that’s mainly because the gang got stuck in on some worrying uses for IoT devices and ran out of time. Still managed to talk about bats, bears and penguins...oh my. If you want to find Tom: https://dsposal.uk/ @Yourdsposal   Things we mentioned: https://sidewalktoronto.ca/ https://beta.lush.com/en/article/lush-lens-prototype-launches-in-first-naked-shop-in-milan https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/06/23/technology/smart-home-devices-domestic-abuse.html https://thenextweb.com/tech/2018/06/15/this-dutch-town-u

It's a World Cup Special this week! Well, Bex mentioned the world cup coverage at one point, so that's us doing our bit. Apart from that, we looked at the reduction in people using social media for news, Facebook helping with blood donations, Google taking a stand on working with the military and presenting us with their principles when it comes to AI development.   What we talked about:   A reduction in the number of people using social for news, 6% in the US: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/digital-news-report-2018.pdf   A shift in attitudes from the platforms to make changes based on ‘civic duty and fear of regulation’: https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/the-platform-press-at-the-heart-of-journalism.php/   Facebook helps blood donations: https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/09/blood-donations-in-india/   The staff at Google prove you can stand up for what you believe in when working in tech: https://jacobinmag.com/2018/06/google-project-maven-military-tech-worker

This is the third in a special series in partnership with The Federation, exploring ethics in tech. In this episode, we talk about responsibility and data with Aurélie Pols. Aurélie is a member of the European Data Protection Supervisor’s (EDPS) Ethics Advisory Group(EAG), co-chairs the IEEE’s P7002—Data Privacy Process standard initiative, and serves as a training advisor to the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). Previously, she served as data governance and privacy advocate for leading data management platform (DMP) Krux Digital Inc. prior to its acquisition by Salesforce. She teaches privacy and ethics at IE Business School in Madrid and Solvay Business School in Brussels. Disclaimer: she hasn’t watched Black Mirror!   Also joining us was the wonderful Dr Reka Solymosi, Lecturer in Quantitative Methods at The University of Manchester.   Hosted by @rebeccawho, featuring pod regular Ben White.   Produced by @paul_yakabovski   Get in touch:Twitter: @techforgoodliveInstagram:

It’s a pod of ups and downs this week, so hang onto your hats as the team drag you through the spectrum from sensible and productive innovations to the disappointing and potentially harmful. High points include using idle phones on charge for developing cancer treatments (hey Vodaphone, we have some ideas on that) and the brilliant CAST have been developing design principles for charities. The low is, of course, the rant of the week and the topic of claiming you can build an app, for a charity, in just 3 days. Spoiler, the team don’t think it can be done. But they are open to being surprised so listen out for their challenge to test this app, wouldn’t it be fun if they had to eat their words. Things we mentioned: https://www.recode.net/2018/5/30/17385116/mary-meeker-slides-internet-trends-code-conference-2018 https://blog.vodafone.co.uk/2018/05/01/dreamlab-sleeplikeahero/ https://www.charitydigitalnews.co.uk/2018/06/04/digital-design-principles-for-the-uk-charity-sector-launched/ https://www.charityd

This is the second in a special series in partnership with The Federation, exploring ethics in tech. This episode we’ll be speaking to Mary Mazzio about tech legislation and modern slavery. Mary joins us to talk about her documentary 'I am Jane Doe' which chronicles the legal battle that several American mothers are waging on behalf of their daughters, who were trafficked for commercial sex on Backpage.com. It’s a look at how tech can be an enabler of modern slavery without appropriate regulation. You can catch the documentary now on Netflix   Mary is an Attorney and Award-winning filmmaker with a B.A. in philosophy and political science from Mount Holyoke College and a J.D. from Georgetown Law. She studied film production as a graduate student at Boston University. She is a former partner with the law firm of Brown Rudnick in Boston. Also mentioned: https://www.iamlittlered.com   Hosted by @rebeccawho Featuring pod regulars: @grgashton @jonnyraeevans   Produced by @paul_yakabovski   Get in to

The fifth and final episode of our series of podcasts recorded live at Camp Digital 2018 in Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre.  In this episode we are joined for a chat by the fireside by Molly Watt. Molly is an Accessibility and Usability consultant and inclusive technology evangelist. Living with a genetic condition called Usher syndrome, causing deafblindness, Molly is completely reliant upon and benefits from using mainstream assistive technology. Consequently, she is passionate about working in the world of digital accessibility, website accessibility and usability, patient participation and healthcare. Molly actively promotes the use of assistive technologies and the importance of website accessibility and inclusivity. She has spoken widely about these subjects around the world, including at Harvard Medical school, the House of Commons, Apple HQ in Cupertino, Apple Corporate in Sydney and QCon in San Francisco alongside Sigma's Chris Bush. Molly is co-founder of the charity Molly Watt Trust, supp

The fourth in a five episode series of podcasts recorded live at Camp Digital 2018 in Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre.  In this episode we are joined for a chat by the fireside by Ben Leonard from META, discussing his views on financial services, digital ethics and privacy by design.  Ben founded META (methinkact.co.uk) in 2017 to help people help themselves. META’s mission is to accelerate how data is used to empower people. Prior to META, Ben spent 18 years in Investment Banking at HSBC leading a number of businesses. Most recently, he was Co-Head of the UK Financial Services team where he advised clients on Strategy, Operational & Regulatory change and Capital Raising. Ben also spent time working with the UK Retail Business and the Pension Fund at HSBC, engaging with Treasury & the FCA on the Financial Advice Market Review and playing a core role in HSBC's involvement in the Pension Dashboard project.   Interviewed by Ben White - Head of Delivery at pro-social digital agency, Reason Digit

This is the first in a special series in partnership with The Federation, exploring ethics in tech. This episode we’ll be speaking about bias in technology and Safiya Umjola Noble’s book Algorithms of Oppression algorithmsofoppression.com With: @safiyanoble @herahussain   And regulars: @benwhiteba @rebeccawho and producer paul_yakabovski Get in touch:Twitter: @techforgoodliveInstagram: techforgoodliveEmail: hello@techforgood.live

Classic Pod antics this week with the original gang taking time to talk about the government's lack of professionalism in their approach to research. Plus there's some more Blockchain news, developments in hearing aid tech, fingerprints from photos and an unusually brief rant.   Things we mentioned: MISSING EVIDENCE: An inquiry into the delayed publication of government commissioned research http://senseaboutscience.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Missing-Evidence.pdf   Aidchain - blockchain payment gateway https://www.charitydigitalnews.co.uk/2018/04/20/blockchain-charity-donation-platform-launched/   Next-Gen hearing aids: https://www.cnet.com/news/hearing-aids-now-theyre-internet-ai-and-health-devices-starkey-oticon-harman-bose/?sf186388622=1   Fingerprint recognition from photos https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/15/britains-first-whatsapp-fingerprint-conviction-leads-flood-new/   Jack’s dream day as a mascot for Everton: https://www.noisolation.com/uk/news/av1-everton/   Special th

As the weekly pod attendance gets more out of hand, Bex and Greg are joined by friends of the pod Kirsty Styles and Harry Bailey. The guest this week is a fantastic last minute stand in from Beth Wiltshire from the Democracy Society, self proclaimed tech novice and owner of an iPhone 3.   This week the gang are looking at whether blockchain is all that, the benefits of user-generated content, smart cities and some unplanned and fairly lengthy political discussion. Bex playing fast and loose with the timekeeping after her break.   They end the show on why social good projects should be sharing information more rather than wasting money solving the same problems and why science mistakes are great for the environment.   If you’d like to get in touch with Beth @EGwiltshire @demsoc www.demsoc.org   Things we mentioned: https://www.charitydigitalnews.co.uk/2018/04/13/report-reveals-orgs-using-blockchain-social-impact/ https://lightful.com/blog/content/how-uniteforparkinsons-is-a-masterclass-in-user-gen