How Might We Bring The Humanity Back To Tech?
It’s strange to think that technology exists to serve people and not the other way around. So mesmerised are we by the (eternal) shiny new thing, that as a species, we get caught up in tools and concepts like AI and agile, but rarely map it back to the humans we build this stuff for. Users, journeys and products replace people, lives and needs, and in the process, we’ve lost something.
Something that in Greater Manchester, we’re collectively becoming aware of. As a historically progressive and socially innovative region — the birthplace of the co-operative movement, the suffragettes and the first modern (and accessible) computer — we’re starting to ask questions of why and how we do tech, even as its ecosystem begins to proffer profit as its core purpose.
As our second-biggest regional industry — nearing £5 billion in gross value added — the “Doing Digital Differently” narrative is built on these numbers and a roll-call of the big names that are coming to Manchester. The Amazon, Google and the BBC are all namechecked, alongside the ticking off of infrastructure, incubators and innovation as must-haves for the biggest tech hub outside of London.
Exciting things are happening here. We’re making a name for ourselves in security, with GCHQ’s recent move to the city, and two hubs emerging to progress global thinking. Healthcare too, which when partnered with our devolved budget and powers as a region has the potential to shake up how we deliver health services and products.
The ambition is to become one of Europe’s top five digital cities, and the home of the digital citizen, but beyond the how — investment naturally — there is little reference as to why.
There’s a minor nod to using technology to benefit society from Reason Digital’s Matt Haworth, reference to co-designing our tech infrastructure with communities from Stockport councillor Elise Wilson and some noise about enabling our future workforce, but without an understanding of the purpose of all this effort.
Yet, security is about enshrining people’s data rights as much as it is protecting an organisation’s assets. Healthcare is about nurturing individual and community wellbeing alongside bolstering the public purse. Alongside IOT — the other topic we’re hot on account of the CityVerve project — all this requires skilled, empowered and consenting citizens to participate.
So where are the people, Greater Manchester, and how is tech serving them?. This is the question we’re asking ourselves at the GM Responsible Tech Collective — a collaborative effort of organisations across the public and private sector — to bring the humanity back to tech.
Having spent the end of 2019 convening the great and good of Greater Manchester’s tech ecosystem — with the participation from powerhouses like the BBC, Co-op, Manchester City Council and Manchester Digital participating — exploring what responsible tech means for our region and how we might work together — to put people back at the centre of technology, we have some big ambition for 2020.
Leading by example — we already have several businesses and institutions doing the hard yards on data ethics and responsible design standards — challenging the status quo, enabling organisations to think beyond just industry to the wider context (and impact) of their work, and mainstreaming key challenges that our communities face are all key.
Key challenges like poverty, which despite having recently scored in the top five most deprived places in the U.K., has barely surfaced in Manchester’s tech conversation.
The money might be pouring in for security, health and IOT, but with significant numbers of our local population struggling to make ends meet, we’re in risky territory for a city that has always stood for the many and professes to want to create an inclusive economy that brings all of Greater Manchester’s residents along to share in the wealth.
Yet, with low levels of digital literacy, insufficient education for digital skill development and unaffordable extracurricular training for any but the privileged few, just like San Fransisco, we’re in danger of creating an employment and housing market that further polarises the have’s and have nots, and making this a city for the wealthy alone.
It’s big-picture thinking like this that’s essential as we start to promote ourselves on a global stage, and projects like those voted on by the ethical tech pioneers that make up our Federation-based collective that will play a part in making Greater Manchester an exemplary region for not just tech, but ethical tech.
In the new year, the following six projects will be kickstarted, and sponsored by the Co-op Foundation and Luminate, enable our city-region to include everyone in the tech revolution that is starting in our city. And the projects…
Responsible Tech Diagnostic Tool: How might we influence strategic decision making around responsible tech?
Cultural Inclusion Manifesto: How might we ascertain what great cultural inclusion looks like in tech businesses?
IOT Citizen Framework: How might we ensure Manchester citizens are determining their IOT data rights?
Security Standards Citizen Assembly: How might we ensure GM communities are influencing the scope of security standards?
Tech for Good Investment: How might we invest in poverty challenges to influence the regional agenda?
Reimaging Technology: How might technology exist in harmony with people, communities, society and the environment?
The GM Responsible Tech Collective will be coming back together in early January, so come join us and play a part in bringing the humanity back to tech.
