public
interest
tech lab
We help shape the future of
technology and society to advance equity, expand opportunity and protect basic rights and liberties.
pillars
Three pillars guide the Public Interest Tech Lab’s work to create a future where justice, accountability and equity are at the forefront of technological and societal change.
endeavor
We create, develop, and provide technologies that protect individual rights and improve people’s lives.
equip
We facilitate research and development to make technology that advances justice and equity.
connect
We provide avenues for knowledge sharing about public interest tech and connect the dot across disciplines with collaborations within Harvard and various national networks.
endeavor
We create, develop, and provide technologies that protect individual rights and improve people’s lives.
Public Interest Tech Lab projects include:
A platform that gives people the opportunity to control their own personal data from apps and web services.
A platform that allows users, such as journalists, government officials, and researchers, to register and verify the authenticity of original media content, detecting any modifications--such as deepfakes--through automated comparison.
An app designed to leverage technology in order to cultivate fun, exciting, and new opportunities to be physically active at the university level.
An app that monitors a person’s voter registration and alerts if attention is needed.
An online collection of internal Facebook documents designed to facilitate collaborative curation and research.
An app that allows people to communicate using preformatted messages to others who are nearby.
A program that used sensors to track mobile devices within 6 feet of each other for privacy-preserving COVID-19 contact tracing.
A program that creates and assesses technologies, policies and data so that society can share data freely with guarantees of privacy protection.
An interactive map that allows quick, accurate and highly interactive analysis on live census response rates. Census Tracker is designed to demonstrate demographic impacts on census response rates in each community and provide an easy to use tool for users of any background.
equip
We facilitate research and development to make technology that advances justice and equity.
SUPPORTIVE TOOL SUPPLIER
We provide an assortment of tools to enrich and accelerate work by scholars and researchers.
PUBLIC INTEREST STARTUP INCUBATOR
We provide help to those who want to launch a public interest technology startup.
Technology and Data Provider
We provide access to technology and data for public interest research and development.
connect
WE PROVIDE AVENUES FOR KNOWLEDGE SHARING ABOUT PUBLIC INTEREST TECH AND CONNECT THE DOTS ACROSS DISCIPLINES WITH COLLABORATIONS WITHIN HARVARD IN NATIONAL NETWORKS AND WITH THE PUBLIC.
We are housed in the Shorenstein Center and collaborate with colleagues on media and on disinformation.
Our Data Privacy Lab is housed in the Institute for Quantitative Social Science where we conduct research.
We support research for students in the Program in Tech Science.
We publish the Journal of Technology Science: the latest studies on unforeseen consequences of tech and what to do about them.
We sponsor the Tech Science Research Network that consists of researchers and scholars from 50 schools.
We publish investigation plans to help onboard research by others in public interest tech.
We sponsor a public interest tech podcast about technology, public policy, and career advice.