“The Tech We Want (and need) can be built for and with sustainable growth, patient capital, regeneration, value for ‘enough’, win-win mindsets, trusting relationships, distributed power and shared ownership, and sharing.”
—Aniyia Williams, principal of Responsible Technology at Omidyar Network and lead for The Tech We Want
The Tech We Want is four-year, $8 million portfolio of work focused on connecting and empowering a new wave of leaders, companies, and technologies that are built on inclusivity, mutualism, sustainability, accountability, and responsible innovation.
The Tech We Want program is designed to build community, infrastructure, and a shared narrative in support of technologists, thought leaders, and investors who are pursuing healthy alternatives to the dominant tech culture.
To realize this vision, Omidyar Network has engaged a diverse group of entrepreneurs, funders, thinkers, creatives, and builders whose ideas, models, and networks have changed the way many think tech should be built and how the system should operate.
The first 15 “Luminaries” will co-create a collective vision for ethical technology, systems, and economies that generate value for all stakeholders, including technology creators, consumers, workers, communities, and the planet.
Through this program, Omidyar Network hopes examples of what we—as an industry and society—want to reward and correct will emerge, and philanthropy can work in coalition to support their vision, innovation, and collective well-being.
To learn more or connect with the Luminaries, please contact us. To engage in a virtual or live event, register or view here.
The Tech We Want Luminaries (2022-2023)
Emily Best
Founder and CEO of Seed&Spark
Emily is the founder and CEO of Seed&Spark, a platform that makes entertainment more diverse, inclusive, connected, and essential. She believes storytelling is an essential driver to build equity and sustainability for everyone. Seed&Spark’s platform and national education program have helped thousands of bold storytellers raise millions to bring to life entirely new stories. Seed&Spark delivers those stories into enterprise through Film Forward, a platform that builds the skills for psychological safety, innovation, and equity. She serves as a mentor for Techstars, PlugIn South LA, Start with 8 Hollywood, Square One Startup School, and on the Advisory Board for Aleria Tech, Raddle, and Endcrawl.
Kelly Burton
CEO of Black Innovation Alliance
Kelly is a political scientist, serial entrepreneur, and change agent who leads with passion, purpose, and vision. She is the CEO of Black Innovation Alliance, a national coalition made up of 65 Black led-organizations which support greater than 300K innovators of color across the country.
Find her on LinkedIn.
Jenifer Daniels
founder of detroit human capital
Jenifer Daniels designs, builds, and invests in Black innovation. She is the founder of Detroit Human Capital; an advisor to tech startups; and manager of an angel investment portfolio of under-resourced startup founders. Jenifer has delivered talks at TEDxCharlotte, CUNY, and Net Impact. Jenifer’s words and photos have been featured in SiriusXM Progress, The New York Times, Mashable, HuffPost Live, BBC News, Essence, BELT Magazine/Publishing, and Detroit Stock City.
Coraline Ada Ehmke
founder and executive director of Organization for Ethical Source
Coraline is at the forefront of the debate on ethics in open source. She is an internationally recognized engineer and activist with over 25 years of industry experience. In 2014, Coraline created the Contributor Covenant, the first and most popular code of conduct for open-source communities. In 2018, she addressed the United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights on human rights abuses in the tech industry. Coraline authored the Hippocratic License, one of the first ethical, open-source licenses, and is the founder of the Organization for Ethical Source.
Lilibeth Gangas
chief technology community officer at the Kapor Center
Lili is the chief technology community officer at the Kapor Center, an operating foundation at the intersection of technology and racial justice, providing research and thought leadership, operating programs, supporting strategic partnerships and investments to increase diversity across the tech system—from K-12 education through entrepreneurship and venture capital. Lili leads the Kapor Center’s Mobilizing Communities work with a focus on inclusive technology policy with special interests in closing the digital divide, scaling new tech workforce models, advocating for responsible technology as well as providing foundational support across civic engagement issues and tech enablement of civic organizations.
Jessica Mason
executive director of Start.coop
Jessica is an impact strategist, entrepreneur, educator, and angel investor with deep experience leading innovation ventures in the social and public sector. She is executive director of Start.coop, a nonprofit organization cultivating the next generation of cooperative businesses with ambitions of scale. Prior to joining Start.coop, Jessica founded and led The Social Impact Studio, a strategy and design consulting firm that partnered with non-profit, foundation, and government clients to spur social innovation. Previously, Jessica worked at Harvard University where she directed a portfolio of social innovation labs in Latin America and served as the technical expert on innovation methods. In addition to her role at Start.coop, she is a coach and advisor to a number of startups and is an elected board member at Ampled.
Andy Moss
professor at NYU and founder of CORMethod.org
Andy is a seasoned technology executive/entrepreneur, who currently serves on several nonprofit boards including The Jericho Project in New York City which provides supportive housing for homeless families and veterans and Govern for America which trains young leaders for positions in state government. He also founded/leads the development of a methodology for entrepreneurs and organizational leaders to operationalize the pursuit of purpose called Culture and Organizational Resolve (COR). Andy teaches on social entrepreneurship at the NYU Wagner School of Social Policy and is on the Steering Committee for the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology. Previously, he was the Entrepreneur-in-Residence and Director of the Blackstone LaunchPad at NYU with the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute. He also spent 17 years developing/managing new businesses at Microsoft, launched/sold his own startup, and has served as an advisor/mentor to numerous startup ventures.
Dr. Safiya Noble
professor and co-founder of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry
Safiya is a professor of gender studies and African American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where she serves as the co-founder and faculty director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2). She holds affiliations in the School of Education & Information Studies and is a research associate at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford where she is a commissioner on the Oxford Commission on AI & Good Governance (OxCAIGG). In 2021, she was recognized as a MacArthur Foundation Fellow for her ground-breaking work on algorithmic discrimination. She was recently the inaugural recipient of the NAACP-Archewell Digital Civil Rights Award. Dr. Noble is a board member of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, serving those vulnerable to online harassment. She is the author of a best-selling book on racist and sexist algorithmic bias in commercial search engines, entitled “Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism” (NYU Press).
Ifeoma Ozoma
founder and principal of Earthseed
Ifeoma is the founder and principal of Earthseed, a firm advising organizations on the issues of tech accountability and public policy. She is a tech policy expert with experience leading public policy partnerships, content safety, and policymaker engagement at Pinterest, Facebook, and Google. Ifeoma is a co-sponsor of the Silenced No More Act. This legislation, signed into law in 2021, allows every worker in California to share information about discrimination or harassment they have faced on the job, regardless of an NDA. Ifeoma is also the creator of The Tech Worker Handbook, a collection of resources for tech workers looking to speak out on issues in the public interest. Ifeoma co-founded the Transparency in Employment Agreements Coalition, which is working to scale the protections in the Silenced No More Act to workers across the globe through shareholder engagement.
Ellen Pao
CEO of Project Include
Ellen is co-founder and CEO of the award-winning, diversity and inclusion nonprofit Project Include. Project Include collects, analyzes, and shares data to recommend actions and benchmarks for tech startups. Its reports on workplace harm since the Covid-19 pandemic are changing work culture. During her two decades as a tech leader and investor, Ellen was the first head of a major social media platform to ban revenge porn, unauthorized nude photos, and harassment. Her efforts to end workplace discrimination have led to the term “Pao effect.” TIME hailed her as “the face of change.” She has written about her experiences in her memoir “Reset” and for The Washington Post, TIME, The New York Times, and WIRED.
Eli Pariser
co-director of New_Public
Eli is an author, activist, and entrepreneur focused on how to make technology and media serve democracy. He has served as President of MoveOn.org, wrote the bestselling 2011 book “The Filter Bubble”, introduced the term to the lexicon, and co-founded the media startup Upworthy. With Talia Stroud, he currently co-directs the New_Public project, focused on building more flourishing and equitable digital spaces.
Jasmine Sun
co-founder and director of Reboot
Jasmine is a writer, researcher, and community builder. She is the co-founder and director of Reboot, a nonprofit publication and community for young technologists reclaiming techno-optimism for a better collective future. By day, she works on product research at Substack. Previously, she worked in tech policy and studied Sociology at Stanford University, where she led curriculum for the Public Interest Tech Lab.
Aden Van Noppen
co-director of Mobius
Aden is the co-director of Mobius, a home for people creating Liberatory Technology products, systems, and narratives. Aden supports the Mobius community with the relational, intellectual, spiritual, and financial resources needed to create a compassionate, accountable, and just technology system. Before starting Mobius, Aden was a Resident Fellow at Harvard Divinity School exploring the intersection of tech, ethics, and spirituality, and a Senior Advisor to the US Chief Technology Officer in the Obama White House. Aden was also on the founding leadership team of The Sanctuaries, a racially and religiously diverse spiritual community rooted in the arts and social justice.
Xiaowei R. Wang
lead steward of Logic School
Xiaowei is an artist, author, organizer, and coder. They are the lead steward of Logic School, an organizing community for tech workers. Their work centers community-based tech and the importance of care in organizing for a more just future. They are the author of “Blockchain Chicken Farm”, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and their most recent project, “The Future of Memory”, received a Mozilla Creative Media Award. Their collaborative project “FLOAT Beijing”, an Index Design Awards Finalist, created air quality-sensing kites and neighborhood workshops to challenge environmental data censorship. Other projects have been featured by the New York Times, BBC, CNN, and elsewhere.
Mara Zepeda
co-founder and managing director of Zebras Unite
Mara Zepeda is a co-founder and managing director of Zebras Unite, a co-op creating the capital, culture, and community for the next economy. She is also an Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of South Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business. Prior, Mara was the founder of Switchboard (now Hearken). It was through her experience as an entrepreneur of a different stripe that she co-authored,“Zebras Fix What Unicorns Break,” a manifesto that launched the movement that now has 10K+ online, 200+ member-owners, and over 30 chapters around the world. Mara also co-founded and was the founding board chair of Business for a Better Portland (a next-generation business organization) and XXcelerate (which provides education and funding to Oregon womxn entrepreneurs). Mara speaks from her experience as an economic reporter, calligrapher, and daughter of spiritually curious artists. She holds a BA in Russian from Reed College and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University. She grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The Tech We Want is a project by Omidyar Network. All Rights Reserved.
