Tech for good offers downside ups
This month’s Power & Responsibility summit put a strong focus on the solutions technology can offer society. In a series of lightning interviews, Adah Parris talks to four tech-for-good entrepreneurs about how their digital innovations provide answers to problems that tech is often seen as creating.
Emma Prest, executive director at Datakind UK, explains about how its community of data scientists and non-profits work together to harness data for more than just private gain. Datakind works with data worldwide for the public good – and Prest leads its UK community of volunteers, building understanding about what data science can do in the charitable sector.
Yoti is an identity checking system that allows organisations to verify who people are, online and in person. Julie Dawson, director of regulatory and policy, steers the startup’s ethics framework and prepares Yoti for external accreditations such as BCorporation. Here she discusses the future of digital identity and protecting yourself online.
Clinical psychologist Nick Taylor co-founded Unmind in 2016 as a workplace mental health solution to empower employees, via its digital platform, to take positive and proactive steps towards managing and improving their mental health. The platform is available to employees across clients including Made.com and John Lewis Partnership. Here, Taylor discusses the challenges of mental health and digital – and explains how Unmind helps.
Change.org allows individuals and groups to start petitions and other social change movements. Executive director Kajal Odedra explains the platform’s use of digital to deliver an age-old form of democratic participation – the petition. She says the platform uses digital to engage rather than disengage with the political process, helping turning questions about the impact on trust and participation on their head.
Originally posted here
