Responsible Computing Challenge – A Pre-Launch Webinar (United States)

Overview:

From the news stories we read to accessing information about our personal health, our everyday lives are shaped by technology. Indeed, technology creates new forms of positive connection and creativity, but it also gives rise to new challenges that can negatively affect society and disproportionately impact communities of color and marginalized groups. Today, educators, technologists, scholars, and activists across disciplines grapple with issues like digital surveillance, automated discrimination, recommendation systems that promote misinformation, and inequitable access to technology. It is not enough to just acknowledge these challenges. We need to actively address them.

The next generation of technologists must approach their work differently to redress the harms of technology, capitalize on its opportunities, and shape a better future. Building diverse and interdisciplinary perspectives into the foundations of tech development, policy, and culture will be key to this shift. The technology industry has for too long centered on those trained exclusively in computing; redefining the field to include the rich traditions of critical engagement with culture and society embraced by the humanities, for example, can help us imagine a different future for technology. We must train the next generation of practitioners to be as comfortable thinking about the societal impacts of technology as they are developing it, and we must train those who oversee and govern such technology to be able to understand and look beyond the technical minutiae of a design to see its potential impact on people.

To that end, The Responsible Computing Challenge (RCC)- supported by the Mellon Foundation, Omidyar Network, Schmidt Futures, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, and Mozilla - will fund academic teams that combine faculty and practitioners from Computing, Humanities, Library and Information Science, and Social Science fields in order to reimagine how the next generation of technologists will be educated. By reimagining and redesigning undergraduate curricula and pedagogy to be both intentionally interdisciplinary and inclusive of diverse perspectives, the goal is to support a new wave of technologists who will: 1) understand social and historical context, 2) think more critically about the design and use of technology, 3) deploy cultural sensitivity to recognize when and how technology work may perpetuate or deepen inequality, and 4) create visions for more equitable systems across the technology sector and in related fields to ultimately build more responsible and ethical tools, applications, platforms, policies, and social norms.

Learn more about the Responsible Computing Challenge.

In this webinar, the Responsible Computing Challenge (RCC) team will:

1. Share the background of RCC
2. Guest Speaker (To Be Announced)
3. Past awardee will share experience
4. Share overview of the upcoming challenge, key dates, and answers to questions

Who: Academics, researchers, librarians, practitioners, pedagogy and other experts from Computing, Humanities, Library and Information Science, and Social Science fields

Award Amounts:

Track I (up to $100,000): Track I awards up to $100,000 to a single institution for one year to support the conceptualization, development, and piloting of approaches that integrate responsible computing into existing undergraduate courses in the Humanities, Library and Information Science, Social Sciences, Computer Science, or closely related disciplines. This might look like the integration of computing topics into an existing undergraduate humanities course in ways that address the social-justice implications of relevant tech, or the integration of humanities topics into existing computing courses to highlight the kinds of knowledge needed to make responsible computing choices. Prioritized projects will broaden the diversity of perspectives in technology and represent those groups disproportionately impacted by technological harms.

Track II (up to $150,000): Track II awards up to $150,000 to partnerships across departments or institutions for one year to support the interdisciplinary conceptualization, development, and piloting of a scaled approach to integrating responsible computing into existing undergraduate courses across the Humanities, Library and Information Sciences, Social Sciences, and Computational fields. This might look, for instance, like computer science and gender and sexuality studies faculty coming together to revise multiple courses and/or allow cross-listing across departments for courses that integrate their approach to responsible computing.

Important Dates:

• Applications Open on Feburary 1st, 2023
• Send Letter of Intent (LOI) by Midnight, February 28th, 2023.
• Full Application due by Midnight, March 28th, 2023.