Introducing our new project: The Tech Justice Road Trip

“My dream is for the social impact sector and organisations to take a much more solidarity and justice based approach to responding to the toughest challenges of our times — based on interconnected narratives.” - Rajwinder Cheema, Programme Manager, Nesta (source)

“Collaborative and place-based work that acknowledges the interdependencies of people, beings and the earth.” - Arturo Escobar, Designs for the Pluriverse, 2018

This article introduces our new project. It explains how it came about, who is involved and how the team will be working together.

About the project

Technology is often biased and gets applied in discriminatory ways. We’ve written about this.

Most tech business models focus on profit and power and are owned by the powerful. Justice, fairness and equity are rarely considered.

The Tech Justice Road Trip is the start of our work with communities to reimagine and change the status quo. It is a ‘discover and define’ project. This means it seeks to generate insights, ideas and definitions or guidance for creating liberatory tech. It runs November 2024 - March 2025.

Driven by the Tech Justice Manifesto

The project emerged from our work on the Tech Justice report and manifesto.  Former Catalyst producer Siana Bangura and Hannah Turner-Uaandja, our Community Steward, proposed it. It will build on the manifesto’s six-point vision of how technology could become more just. 

The vision covers:

• Justice in what technology does - who it gives rights and knowledge to
• Justice in how technology is made - enabling those with lived experience to influence and share in design decisions
• Justice in how technology is run and owned - communities sharing ownership and being part of decision making.

What we hope to achieve

The project will, we hope:

• Create community-driven insights and ideas for just or liberatory technology (technology that is just)
• Increase awareness of tech justice issues
• Create a set of stories about how technology could liberate rather than discriminate
• Develop community engagement models we can reuse. Or that can inspire how we work with other justice-led communities of resistance

Like all our work, the project will be led by our values.

3 community test sites will be re-imagining tech justice

For this project we will be working with three justice-led partners: 

• Chayn - a charity tackling gender-based violence
• Camden Giving - a community grant making organisation
• Multitudes - a design co-operative.

We work to a broad definition of communities. 

We work in a way that builds collective power.

1. Feminist AI from Chayn

Chayn are a global not-for-profit organisation supporting survivors of gender-based violence online. Their work includes several online services. They are increasingly focused on tech abuse and how technology can be a space for healing.  

Chayn will be exploring how to use large language models to build feminist AI applications. They will be trying to use AI in a way that avoids it adopting the biases of patriarchal societies. Their work will include a hackathon and round table events. They hope to create some proofs of concept that can be tested. 

2. Community decision making in grant making by Camden Giving

Camden Giving is a participatory grant making charity. They work with Camden residents with first-hand experience of inequality to decide how funding is spent. 

Their alumni community has already decided the focus of their tech justice work. It will be grant making that supports food security for young people from low income backgrounds. Their work will:

• research and design a digital decision making tool for grant making
• explore the possibilities for community ownership. 

They will co-design the tool with a new community panel of young Camden residents.

3. Work from Multitudes 

Multitudes are a design agency working with social justice groups. They design ways of building digital infrastructure that support movements and liberatory futures. They will join in January. We will write more about their work then. 

Collaborating within a circle

Projects will run independently of each other but we won’t be working in silos. We aim to work collectively in a project circle. The circle will share some decision-making and co-budgeting responsibility (where it makes sense to share). Together they will decide how to spend parts of the project budget. The circle includes a support team too:

• Nadine facilitating Chayn’s work
• Yasmin and Puja facilitating Camden Giving’s work
• Debs facilitating Multitudes’ work
• Siana, Vim and Nikita - providing advice, mentoring, storytelling and liberatory practice support to the teams
• Zainab - facilitating project evaluation activities with a decolonial lens.
• Hannah - steering the project and holding space.

Working sociocratically

The project circle will operate sociocratically. What does that mean?

Sociocracy is a way of governing a project or group to create decision-making processes that are more:

• effective
• equitable
• harmonious.

Critical concerns are used to decide a proposal’s success. This differs from consensus, as it doesn't need everyone to agree. Instead it ensures that no one disagrees enough to block a decision. 

Sociocracy includes mottos such as “Good enough for now“ and “Safe enough to try”. It asks people to consider what they can accept within their sphere of tolerance. It’s good for building relationships between diverse groups of people. It guards against perfectionism. 

We’ve used sociocratic principles at Catalyst before. But running the project circle this way is an experiment.

Learn more about sociocracy’s basic concepts and principles.

Aiming to evaluate decolonially

Our evaluation partners, InFocus, will be evaluating the work. 

Decolonising evaluation is “a process that engages with imperialism and colonialism at multiple levels” - Linda Tuhiwai Smith. 

Decolonising evaluation:

• Emphasises participatory methods that amplify the voices of people and communities affected
• Integrates local people’s values, knowledge and expertise
• Values local insights and approaches tailored to cultures and community
• Moves away from one size-fits all frameworks. Instead promotes fairness and inclusivity.

Read Data Collective’s article about decolonising evaluation: shifting from extraction to nourishment.

Sharing our experiences as we go

Between December and March 2025 we will write:

• 7 more articles sharing the project's learning and experiences. Each will include contributions from partners and the support team. 
• 3-4 thematic articles based on project themes.

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