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 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.