Tech Is Human Announces $2.5 Million in New Funding to Tackle Thorny Tech & Society Issues and Expand the Responsible Tech Ecosystem

All Tech Is Human (ATIH) has successfully secured $2.5 million in funding from multiple prominent foundations, including Oak Foundation and Mozilla Foundation, to address complex technology and society issues and foster a comprehensive Responsible Tech ecosystem. ATIH is committed to tackling challenges in Responsible AI, Trust & Safety, and Public Interest Technology through community-building and educational initiatives. The organization emphasizes a diverse, global approach to enhance technological developments and ensure technology is inclusive and safe for future generations. Their activities include creating educational resources, mentoring, and hosting global community events.

(Monday, February 26, New York, New York) Thanks to the generous support of Oak Foundation, Siegel Family Endowment, Mozilla Foundation, Schmidt Futures, and the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, All Tech Is Human (ATIH) is proud to announce that it has secured $2.5 million in new funding that furthers its mission of tackling thorny tech and society issues and building a robust Responsible Tech ecosystem.

“Re-envisioning the intersection of technology and human dignity is a critical inquiry if we hope to create new resilience in a time of accelerating societal change,” said Patrick J. McGovern Foundation President Vilas Dhar. “Our investment in All Tech is Human’s work recognizes their potential to actively construct a diverse, global ecosystem to find new solutions and build broad consensus on digital challenges. ATIH and the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation share a commitment to moving quickly and responsibly, prioritizing lived experience and shared intelligence, and diversifying the tech pipeline to ensure a responsible, safe, and inclusive technological future.”

“We are proud to support All Tech is Human in its important efforts towards inspiring the future designs of new online platforms that prevent harm to children,” said Vicky Rateau, Campaigns Programme Officer at Oak Foundation.

Key areas of focus for All Tech Is Human include Responsible AI, Trust & Safety, and Public Interest Technology. With this funding, All Tech Is Human will expand and improve its activities that aim at community-building, multidisciplinary education, and diversifying the traditional tech pipeline to better match the complexity of problems we face.

The ability to improve our tech future is dependent on robust multistakeholder coalitions, educational initiatives for a broad audience, and a diverse range of individuals working to ensure that technology is designed, developed, and deployed in the public interest. Pressing issues like online harms reduction, ensuring that AI is a net positive for society, and content moderation challenges in digital spaces require broad participation and rapid movement.

“Our current approach to tackling complex tech and society problems just isn’t working,” said David Ryan Polgar, Founder and President of All Tech Is Human. “Everyone knows we have a ‘tech problem,’ so awareness campaigns don’t move the needle. What we need is a better approach that can quickly coalesce key stakeholders and understand a wide range of values, best practices, and inevitable trade-offs involved with complex problems.”

Founded in 2018, All Tech Is Human has spent five years mapping the Responsible Tech ecosystem and building a vibrant global community through events, working groups, roundtables, and a Slack community of over 8,000 members across 89 countries. Its mentorship program has uplifted over 1,000 community members, and widely-used resources like its Responsible Tech Guide contain interviews of hundreds of leaders across civil society, government, the tech industry, and academia to better understand the tools to build a better tech future. All Tech Is Human also offers a popular Responsible Tech Job Board and talent pool of over 6k individuals, including early involvement in Tekalo, which it now manages to provide free talent matchmaking to non-profits and individuals looking for social impact roles. Given the significant community the non-profit has built, they now have a powerful network poised to take on some of our most vexing issues related to tech.

“All Tech Is Human meets a critical need in movement-building efforts for the Public Interest Technology ecosystem,” said Madison Snider, Research Associate at Siegel Family Endowment. “Through its “all-are-welcome” approach, convening power, and community-building efforts, their passionate team is an invaluable resource for both those who are new to responsible tech as well as those who have been in this area for years. Sara M. Watson, who is serving as the Siegel Research Fellow from ATIH this year, is applying her analytical acumen to investigate the state of the field of responsible tech to help individuals, companies, and other organizations identify gaps and opportunities. The impact of that work will reverberate across many of our grantees and the broader Public Interest Technology community.”

“ATIH’s extensive higher ed research and capacity to organize and mobilize student clubs across the academic ecosystem has helped inform the next phase of Mozilla’s Responsible Computing Challenge,” said Program Lead, Steven Azeka. “Mozilla and ATIH’s ongoing partnership is about activating students and clearing the pathway to industry. With additional funding partners, we aim to build a global, centralized Responsible Tech Job Board to set up the quickly growing field of Public Interest Technology for success.”

All Tech Is Human’s strength lies in moving at the speed of tech, leveraging collective intelligence, diversifying the pipeline to allow for a more holistic approach to problem-solving, altering the DNA of tech development, and helping society catch up to the speed of innovation. The non-profit’s unique approach and successful community-building model will be covered in a chapter in New York Times bestselling author Greg Epstein’s book, How Technology Became the World’s Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation.

All Tech Is Human will hold a gathering on February 28th in Washington, DC about reducing online harms and strengthening the Trust & Safety field, and a joint event with the Finnish Consulate in NYC on March 6th about strengthening the information ecosystem, and a Responsible Tech Mixer in NYC on March 11. In addition, they are currently planning a high-level global gathering for one hundred Trust & Safety leaders and key civil society organizations that will take place this summer. Their most recent report about the 2024 Responsible Tech Org List mapped over 600 global Responsible Tech organizations and was released in January, and their next version of the Responsible Tech Guide will arrive in September.

Together, we work to solve tech and society’s thorniest issues.