Industry Support
The Responsible Computing Challenge has the support of leaders in the tech industry as articulated in this open letter:
Putting Humanity at the Heart of Technical Education
Technology has the power to engage citizens in democratic process, connect people across vast distances, and distribute financial and economic opportunity — it delivers world-changing innovation at a pace never before seen in human history. Yet, at the same time, we have become increasingly aware of technology’s unintended consequences, its potential to harm the very people it aims to serve. To ensure technology fulfills its potential as a positive force in the world, we must fundamentally reimagine the way we train the future leaders of our industry during their undergraduate years.
Undergraduates who study Computer Science, Information Science, Data Science, and related fields must learn not only what technology can do but also how to reason clearly about what technology should or should not do. The only way to achieve this goal is to fully integrate and embed societal considerations into the core, technical undergraduate Computer Science curriculum. Ethics should not be a nice-to-have or optional, ancillary exploration. An understanding of code’s human impact must permeate the decisions students make from Day 1 of their journey through CS — and deeply root itself in their identities as computer scientists, product managers, entrepreneurs or engineers.
It is not enough for us to think about the ethical consequences of technology designs after their negative impacts. We must train the next generation to foresee the ways their technologies may affect humanity. Today, as the Responsible CS Challenge launches to fund the integration of ethics into the CS curriculum, we wholeheartedly support placing people at the heart of technical education.
We—founders, CEOs, technologists, investors and others who care deeply about the future of technology—add our names to those championing the many efforts to reinvent CS education. It is a critically important step in advancing the industry we care about so deeply, ensuring a healthy, thriving internet and securing a bright human future.
Sincerely,
Mitchell Baker, Executive Chairwoman, Mozilla
Scott Belsky, Founder, Behance / Chief Product Officer, Adobe
Ben Blumenfeld, Co-founder & General Partner, Designer Fund
John Borthwick, Founder & CEO, Betaworks
Damian Bradfield, President, WeTransfer / Co-founder, Present Plus
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, President, StubHub / Founder, theBoardlist
James Cham, Partner, Bloomberg Beta
Esther Dyson, Author, Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age / Executive Founder, Wellville
Tony Fadell, Inventor, iPod / Co-inventor, iPhone / Founder and former CEO, Nest / Principal, Future Shape
Caterina Fake, Co-founder, Flickr / Partner, Yes VC
Joe Gebbia, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Airbnb
Logan Green, Lyft Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer
Dame Wendy Hall, Executive Director, Web Science Institute / Regius Professor of Computer Science, University of Southampton
Chris Hughes, Co-founder, Facebook / Co-chair, Economic Security Project
Mike Krieger, Co-founder, Instagram
Sarah Kunst, Managing Director, Cleo Capital
Martha Lane Fox, Founder, DotEveryone / Member, Twitter Board of Directors
Jeff Lawson, Co-founder & CEO, Twilio
Brian Leonard, CTO and Technical Co-founder, TaskRabbit
Shripriya Mahesh, Founding Partner, Spero Ventures
Kanyi Maqubela, Angel Investor / Co-founder, Heartbeat Health
Nilofer Merchant, Former Executive, Apple & Autodesk / Author, Power of Onlyness
Dave Morin, Co-founder & CEO, Sunrise Bio
Matt Mullenweg, Co-founder, WordPress / Founder, Automattic
Tim O'Reilly, Founder and CEO, O'Reilly Media
DJ Patil, Former U.S. Chief Data Scientist / Head of Technology, Devoted Health
Tony Prophet, Chief Equality Officer, Salesforce
Renata Quintini, Partner, Lux Capital
Justin Rosenstein, Co-founder, Asana
Roberto Sanabria, Managing Partner & Chief Operating Officer, Expa
Kevin Scott, Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft
Bo Shao, Co-founder & Managing Partner, Matrix Partners China / Chairman, evolve.foundation
Dame Stephanie Shirley CH, Venture Philanthropist / Computer Science Pioneer
Nicole Wong, Senior Advisor, Albright Stonebridge Group / Former Deputy US Chief Technology Officer
John Zimmer, Lyft Co-founder and President