Inside the Road Trip: defining tech justice and the story so far

These blogs are a space where we share insights from Catalyst's Tech Justice Road Trip. We reflect on how we’re building inclusive and equity-promoting tools, processes and relationships. 

Together, we’re imagining tech futures that prioritise justice, creativity and joy.

Defining tech justice: inclusion, accessibility and equitable futures

Here’s what tech justice means to us.

Puja Basu, Alumni Manager, Camden Giving - researching and designing a digital decision making tool for grant making. 

“I think the main aspects of tech justice include:

• digital inclusion
• equity of access and knowledge
• technology that is ethical and people-centric with scope for community co-design, co-production, and ownership”

Hera Hussain, Founder and CEO of Chayn. Chayn is developing a feminist AI tool that helps survivors create letters that advocate for their rights.

"Tech justice is about reclaiming the past, challenging and thriving in the present and creating futures that are equitable, plural, inclusive, pragmatic and joyful.”

Eva Blum-Dumontet, Head of Movement Building and Policy at Chayn

“Tech justice means a few things to me. First, the technology we use does not harm us, or affect our fundamental human rights.

Second, that technology should not increase inequality. If you can’t access certain types of technology, it shouldn’t prevent you from accessing vital services or information. For example: if I choose not to, or can’t, download my local government app, it shouldn’t prevent me from getting services from the council.

And last, that anyone who wishes to play a part in building technology can do so.” 

Decolonising evaluation: power, plurality and ancestral knowledge

As part of the Road Trip, Catalyst organised a decolonial evaluation workshop. It gave attendees time and space to learn how to apply decolonial evaluation to their work. 

Nadine Krish Spencer, Head of Product at Chayn

“One of our trauma-informed principles at Chayn is plurality, which chimes perfectly with the aims of decolonial evaluation. There are many ways to tell a story and, especially with a tech product, usage data is only one of them. So we're looking forward to amplifying a variety of the benefits, successes and progress that our project contributes to.“

Hera: “It's about re-thinking what types of evidence and experiences are deemed valuable and significant enough to document. People, wrongly, think that ‘decolonising’ evaluation means no documentation. We have centuries of evidence from around the world where everything from trade contracts to poems, art on walls and the invention of tabulets, coins and paper was used to capture what was happening. We should honour how our ancestors wrangled and invented different ways of capturing the human experience, and use all of it.”

Nikita Shah, Hyphen Poetry - guiding the direction of the Tech Justice Road Trip

“I hope to find a creative way to measure and share the impact for beneficiaries as opposed to measuring the success of funding for the benefit of the funder. Taking a decolonial approach brings into question who holds knowledge and power and gets to define these elements. Further, taking a decolonial approach allows us to apply deeper introspection on how to work towards liberation.” 

Project reflections: connections, co-design and community engagement

Abi Handley, Alpacka Collective, facilitator and team coach - offering and supporting sociocratic ways of working

“I’m loving the partners that have come together and are forging connections. I’m curious about how to offer the approaches I’ve used in a way that isn't seen as telling people how to do anything. But as a genuine offer that can be taken up or not. 

I’m worried there isn't enough time to forge the relationships that we could do. I’m also hopeful that more will happen beyond the current timeline.” 

Nadine: “We’re delighted to have a prototype we can already share with people. There are so many things we know we want to improve, but we are waiting to run our collaborative feedback and co-design sessions to see if they align with feedback from the community. So we're practising patience!”

Puja: “I’m excited and optimistic. Our work with our community network has been progressing well. We’ve gained a lot of rich insights, and we've started to shape the tool we’ll be building for our young grants panellists to use in their decision-making. Being able to do a piece of work with this level of community engagement has been very fulfilling.”

What’s making us happy? Rest, cats and asking for what we need

Eva: “My son and my cat are both sleeping together as I am typing this. It's a very peaceful moment.” 

Nikita: “I’m finding joy in nurturing connections with my close family, friends and colleagues. I’m also finding joy in resting, diving into new books and adorable cuddles with my gorgeous nephew!” 

Abi: “The mix of work I have at the moment -every day is different. The cheese I had for lunch. The frosty 4-hour walk I had in the peaks with my partner this weekend.” 

Nadine: “We shared our user manuals at work and it prompted a re-structure of our planning week meetings. Instead of longer, discussion-based video calls we switched to 'Pomodoro' style with 25-minute bursts of focus with lots of small breaks in between. Everyone worked on the same docs and at the same time, but commenting a-sync, and the feedback was really positive! 

I‘m getting joy from working in a team where people feel able to raise their needs (in a non-accusatory way). And where everyone is up for trying something different to accommodate one another. Oh and the fact we're constantly using tech to solve challenges like this!”

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this blog.

Here’s some more information about:

• the Tech Justice Road Trip
• creating user manuals
• decolonial evaluation and how we are using it in the project.

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Photo by Lisa Fotios

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