36 Items

Members of the Faculty Working Group discuss the public purpose implications of emerging technologies.

Benn Craig

Report

Boston Tech Hub Faculty Working Group Annual Report 2019-2020

| September 2020

The Boston Tech Hub Faculty Working Group (FWG), hosted by former Secretary of Defense and Belfer Center Director Ash Carter and Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Dean Frank Doyle, holds monthly discussion-based meetings that explore and answer the question:

How do we resolve the dilemmas posed to public good and public purpose, created by technology’s unstoppable advances?

The Boston Tech Hub Faculty Working Group Annual Report is a summary report of findings, key insights, and outstanding questions from the discussions held during the 2019-2020 academic year.  

A visitor looks at a robotic hand powered by Kinfinity Glove, developed by the German Aerospace Center, on display at the World Robot Conference at the Yichuang International Conference and Exhibition Centre in Beijing, Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2017.

(AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Analysis & Opinions - WIRED

Help Us Recognize Tech That Protects Our Values

| Oct. 09, 2019

Technology and all of objective science are caught in a crisis of reputation. From investigations into competition practices to legislative scrutiny over the application and safety of new products, innovators are facing a reckoning for their seeming absence of principles such as privacy, security, inclusion, transparency, and accountability. But it is possible to bend the arc of innovation toward overall public purpose.

The Technology and Public Purpose Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and WIRED are excited to announce the inaugural Tech Spotlight, which will recognize products, initiatives, and policies that embrace principles such as privacy, security, safety, transparency, accountability, and inclusion—and that aim to minimize technological harms.  Nomination will be open until November 30, 2019 at 11:59pm EST.

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Paper

Boston Tech Hub Faculty Working Group Annual Report 2018-2019

| September 2019

The Boston Tech Hub Faculty Working Group (FWG), hosted by former Secretary of Defense and Belfer Center Director Ash Carter and Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Dean Frank Doyle, holds monthly discussion-based meetings that explore and answer the question:

How do we resolve the dilemmas posed to public good and public purpose, created by technology’s unstoppable advances?

The Boston Tech Hub Faculty Working Group Annual Report is a summary report of findings, key insights, and outstanding questions from the discussions held during the 2019-2020 academic year.  

Belfer Center Director Ash Carter speaks on technological change for good during a HUBweek 2018 "We the Future" event at Harvard Innovation Lab in October.

Benn Craig/Belfer Center

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Newsletter

Managing Technology's Risks to Society

| Fall/Winter 2018-2019

Making technological change positive for all is the critical challenge of our time. We ourselves—not only the logic of discovery and market forces—must manage it. To create a future where technology serves humanity as a whole, we need a new approach. Therefore, the Belfer Center has launched a new endeavor, the Technology and Public Purpose (TAPP) Project.

Photo of Mark Zuckerberg preparing to resume testimony about user data on Facebook.

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Magazine Article - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

America Needs to Align Technology with a Public Purpose

| Nov. 25, 2018

The arc of innovative progress has reached an inflection point, writes Ash Carter in The Atlantic. "Recent technological change that has brought immeasurable improvements to billions around the globe now threatens to overwhelm us. Making this disruption positive for all is the chief challenge of our time. We ourselves—not only market forces—should bend the arc of change toward human good. To do so, we must reinvigorate an ethos of public purpose that has become dangerously decoupled from many of today’s leading tech endeavors."

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Newsletter

Carter: Shaping Change for Good

| Summer 2018

Disruptive technological change cannot be stopped, but it can—and must—be shaped for overall human good. This semester, Belfer Center Director Ash Carter joined forces with Frank Doyle, Dean of the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, to launch a Faculty Working Group on Technology for Governance and Governance for Technology tackling this issue.