Reboot Reflection: Theory of Change

As a technologist, how are you approaching your personal theory of change?

Technologists often rush into building things without thinking about the why. Something that drew me immediately to the Reboot publication and later to Camp Reboot was how everyone in the community truly cared about the 'why'.

My favorite workshop during camp reboot was the Speculative Fiction workshop - an exercise that challenged us to think critically about what could go right, and more importantly, what could go wrong when a technology a created. It got me thinking more about how as technologists, we have the potential to make a huge impact on the world. Tech has enabled humans to build things that scale in ways that were never possible before. With that kind of power, as cliche, as it sounds, comes with great responsibility. I want to grow into a technologist that not only builds things that people want but thinks about what I'm building and the side effects it could cause. Most importantly, I want to be someone who not only speculates about utopian and dystopian futures that technology could lead to but takes concrete actions to steer the paths towards the utopian.

I've been thinking more about how I can apply these learnings and ideas to my own life. We did a values mapping workshop where we identified the values that meant the most to us and brainstormed ways to tailor how to spend our time, attention, and resources to align with these values. I want to use my technical skills to build tools that will create a net positive effect on the world and align with my values. I'm still figuring out what exactly those values are and how to prioritize them. But for now, thinking critically about what systems I'm building for and continuously re-evaluating how my values align seem like the right next steps.

This was written as a reflection for Reboot