High Tech may change the world

Before I continue, I'll note that I love the internet – and some internet-colonizing companies – with an absurd passion. When I served in the Peace Corps, I spent one-sixth of my stipend on smartphone airtime because there was no local wired internet. My Peace Corps friends used to (nicely) tease me about it: After an accident destroyed most of my possessions, my Country Director first asked whether my electronics had been spared.I am now privileged to live in San Francisco and work for an internet company. From the home I share with a nest of techies in the Mission, I have a front-row seat on the clash between "high tech" and "local San Francisco."Nowadays, I pay a lot less for my internet fix. But I still recall frameworks I learned from the Peace Corps and other social justice organizations. With humility – and with the understanding that none of us have The One Right Answer – I want to outline what I see here and offer thoughts about moving forward.We already know that complex local problems need better handling. The gentrification juggernaut has led to enormous financial hardship, including unjust evictions. Local writer Rebecca Solnit recently described one eviction map as "a map of bruises, like a city being punched by money." Activists paste posters on doors and sidewalks that say: "A family has been evicted from this home."Two blocks from my home, a mural was recently constructed: First, the wall was papered with activists' family eviction posters. Then a silhouetted funeral procession was painted on top of the posters, with dark pallbearers carrying a coffin labeled "La Misión."Other activists have created angrier symbols, like by picketing the Twitter building on the day of the company's $25bn initial public offering, or publicly destroying effigies of Google's luxury buses.Gentrification is just a single, local example of how High Tech is starting to feel itself a "public enemy." And "public enemy" is a tough pill to swallow for a largely optimistic industry, where "change the world" is such a common phrase that it's even mocked and used ironically.I talk regularly to tech industry people who feel shocked by San Franciscan anger, who are struggling to figure out how to feel and what to do. A lot are trying to understand how to help. Yet signs of this clash surfaced long before any tech buses got boarded by shouting protesters. And Bay Area High Tech would have seen the signs sooner if it weren't so out of touch with the communities surrounding it.I'm not saying that everyone in local High Tech has been paying zero attention to the non-tech world. Just most of us. The buses that ferry employees of Google, Apple, Genentech and other tech corporations are potent symbols for several reasons, but the biggest thing that makes them hate-able is that they are so very exclusive. They are visibly luxurious and can only be used by the tech elite. The buses highlight class and culture separations between riders and other San Franciscans.In the Peace Corps, the main lesson that was hammered into us was that we wouldn't do any good without understanding and participating in the communities we served. You can't just move in and say you're going to Change The World. If you try, you rarely accomplish much, and also you look like an arrogant jerk.What would it be like if Bay Area High Tech, as a community, started thinking about improving its members' cultural awareness before Changing The World? I don't just mean individuals: How could companies take this on, beyond a few token donations?If we can improve our connection with the larger communities around us, then maybe we'll spot cultural problems soon enough to mitigate them, and maybe we'll see larger problems we can help with. (For a company like Google or Facebook, whose product is used by just about everybody, this could even be seen as a market-centered approach!)Real community engagement is unbelievably hard; if it were easy, more people would do it. Simply finding a starting point is hard. But one place we might learn from is the SF-based organization Code For America, which is a bit like a tech Peace Corps (although it primarily serves American cities). CFA exposes its year-long Fellows directly to the workings of various governments and local communities.Crucially, Fellows gain months of exposure before they even start thinking about solutions they can build. As Catherine Bracy, CFA's Director for Community Organizing, told me: "The point is to start with the problem and not with the technology.""My fellowship year clarified more problems than solutions," writes one Code For America Fellow in a blog post. I felt encouraged reading that, because it exalts a cautious learning process.As far as I know, the CFA Fellowship is the only program of its kind, and it's overwhelmed with applications. Hundreds of people apply for 30 one-year-long Fellowship slots. So CFA also runs a program they call the Code for America Brigade, which helps tech folks learn more about and contribute to local communities for a few hours every week. Code For America is not the only game in town, but it's worth knowing about.I often think about how lucky I am to be part of this vibrant, gorgeous, extraordinary city. I also believe myself lucky to be in this industry. Techies work hard, and sometimes create truly great things. But this industry could also be a source of great social change – if we're able to listen carefully to the worlds we're changing.(theguardian.com)ANN.Az