Inside the Tech Justice Road Trip #6: what we’ve achieved so far

These blogs are creating an archive of the learning and experiences of people involved in Catalyst's Tech Justice Road Trip.

What we’ve contributed and delivered so far

Puja Bose – Alumni Manager, Camden Giving 

“We’ve co-designed and co-produced a digital decision-making tool with our alumni network. We refined and branded the tool with a panel of young people, and they’ve used it to award grants to 4 young people's projects.”

Nikita Shah – circle member and reflective session facilitator: “As a circle member, I’ve helped us make key decisions and explore key questions. Contributing to these blogs about our work has been a way for me to reflect on the project. It’s also been a helpful exercise in writing about tech and governance-related topics. 

I’ve held reflective sessions to give the circle space to:

• reflect on its main meeting
• spark ideas
• develop proposals
• build connections.

I’ve also contributed to the decolonising evaluation work, and will be doing more on this towards the end of the Road Trip.”

Siana Bangura, initiator of the tech justice research and report author – storytelling lead

“As the storytelling lead, I’ve been working on how the different parts fit together, and how to present these as a coherent story. It's been an interesting journey. As is often the case with work like this, it’s required flexibility, adaptability and the ability to be okay with working with ambiguity, as the amorphous becomes more well-formed.

I've introduced the idea of 'Ustopia' to the work, borrowed from Professor Ruha Benjamin, as a thread to hold us together.

And I'm working on a series of longform pieces of writing that explore the strands our 3 organisations have been exploring in their work. I'm also curating a zine, which will be a key creative output from the project.”

2 other partner organisations (Chayn and Multitudes) have also been working on tech justice projects. We'll write more about what they’ve delivered in the project report.

How our circle has supported our work 

Yasmin Farah – Head of Data and Community Knowledge, Camden Giving

"The circle meetings have been really valuable. When you're involved in the day-to-day delivery of a project it's tricky to balance this with deliberate reflection time. Circle meetings have created a space for me to do this. The best thing about them is hearing fresh perspectives and expertise from others. It helps us think about our work differently.” 

Nikita: “Circle meetings have been great for project updates from partners and making collective decisions around funding, proposals, and events. Also participating in workshops such as decolonising evaluation and storytelling. This has built common knowledge across the team. Its been a wonderful way to share experiences and learnings.

I’ve also noticed that having a smaller group attend reflective sessions allows for more connections.

We build trust and explore ideas and offshoots. Deeper conversations happen. Proposals get suggested and created. These sessions support vulnerability and have built confidence amongst attendees.

It’s also been useful to have a space to reflect and process the main circle meetings, and discuss what we’re learning. 

The Slack channel offers a space to connect with circle members either collectively, in smaller groups or individually. It’s been helpful for quick answers, and sharing resources, proposals and information. 

With a project like the Tech Justice Road Trip, I think it's important to have several types of touchpoints as there is so much to do.” 

Puja: “The sessions and meetings have been helpful in ways I couldn't have imagined. They’ve been a space for reflection and sharing ideas that have pushed me to think beyond the project’s immediate scope, and into bigger questions about the intersection of tech and racial justice. They’ve been a sounding board to refine ideas for our own project and its afterlife. Most importantly, it has been a dream to come together with such a brilliant group of people, with shared values and a conviction to push for real change.”

Siana: “I’ve collaborated with all 3 partner organisations in some way, shape, or form previously. So I've enjoyed working with them again. And it’s been good to have the opportunity to learn about their work in more depth.

Despite the time constraints, and pressures from funding deadlines, the partner organisations have managed to deepen their brilliant work. They’ve also demonstrated the power of community, collaboration and participation from those with lived experience of the problems we are trying to tackle.

If we’d had a more spacious timeline, I'd have appreciated the opportunity to be closer to their work as a storyteller. And to have some in-person time with them and their communities, in their community settings.  But this wasn't possible. Nonetheless, it's been good to see how the Tech Justice Report has been built on. And it's been affirming to see tech justice being done on the ground, in communities. Theory and research mean little without actioning what is learnt and rehearsing what our versions of 'Ustopia' can look like.”

Co-design in action: from consultation to implementation

This section includes what Yasmin told us about co-designing Elevate, Camden Giving's decision-making platform.

Yasmin: “At the end of February, our Future Forward panel used Elevate (the decision-making platform they co-designed with us) to make their funding decisions. We held a testing session with them before this. One of the young people was shocked that the features had been implemented exactly how they'd been specified. It was almost as if they didn't expect us to actually follow through."

Prioritising inclusive participation

"For context, this particular feature was a chat function, an idea generated during a consultation with our alumni who have awarded grants with us in the past. It's function is to ensure that some of the quieter voices in the room don't feel left out of conversations. If they aren't comfortable enough contributing to a live discussion they can put their thoughts and comments in the chat. The Future Forward panel said that they’d like to be able to submit anonymous and named comments. If they submit anonymously, the Camden Giving staff team should still be able to see who has sent a message, but other panellists shouldn't."

Not just another consultation: listening and delivering 

"The panellists thought that including this feature would be too time-consuming, especially since we had a very short timeline to turnaround the platform development (4 weeks). We've heard time and time again that communities in Camden are tired of being consulted. This is why each feature designed by our panel and alumni was a priority for us. If the timeline wasn't realistic for the development, we told them. And we’ve made a note of these features for future iterations."

Better feedback for unsuccessful applicants

"Another benefit we've seen is the ability to provide more detailed feedback to successful and unsuccessful grant applicants. The platform includes a feature for panellists to write comments explaining the reasoning behind their funding decisions. Our grants team has found this incredibly useful. Also, 2 organisations that applied for funding have shared that the level of detail in the feedback has been very helpful.” 

Useful links

• What is co-design?
• Tech Justice Manifesto
• Ustopia: reimagining the future beyond tech utopias and dystopias
• How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? N. K. Jemisin

Nikita, Puja, Siana and Yasmin thanks for your contributions.

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Photo by Mikhail Nilov

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