Can Technology and Innovation Lead the Way?

In the darkest moments of the brightest time of the year, we find ourselves, wrestling with what may be the most surreal times of our lives. 

As I spend time trying to learn about similar times in history, I unfailingly discover people who have not been celebrated for their victorious contributions to science, humanity and innovation. 

Through these untold stories that have not made their way into the sunlight, I find that the work at the Pittsburgh Technology Council provides even greater significance in the simplest of forms; talking with people who are using their skills and passion paired with determination to build a better tomorrow. 

We’ve been doing exactly that with our daily “Business as Usual” webcast and “Summer of 50 PGH Tech Stories” podcast. Besides connecting our members and community to needed knowledge and resources to navigate the COVID-19 Pandemic, they have been platforms to highlight the positive and critical  impact of homegrown innovation.

While that might sound like fluff in an era that is filled with sorrow, focus on egregious injustices and a virus, I would counter that it is just the opposite. It is the time for us to listen, observe and question. Question where we are in these times of technology that has facilitated unrequited words that are lobbed like rockets, impacting each of us, no matter our stance. 

It is this preemption that should cause all of us to be compelled to ensure that biases, accessibility and an actual litmus test of goodness be embedded into all of our work. It could be that this awakening is exactly what we have needed, erroneously “allowing” the technology to lead the way instead of grounding our work in the premise of a term used often – goodness. 

Through these untold stories that have not made their way into the sunlight, I find that the work at the Pittsburgh Technology Council, provides even greater significance in the simplest of forms, talking with people who are using their skills, passion paired with determination to build a better tomorrow. 

Goodness does mean prosperity, as well as viable and profitable. Goodness does mean that the product yields a better and safer world for customers. Goodness includes accessibility, as well as efficiency. For the most part, what I see in our community, is just that. Goodness. However, we probably do not talk about that enough – what it means to impact the world with the solutions our community is building. 

I know there are social entrepreneurs who are driving solutions which reuse, repurpose and ameliorate harm. What I would like to see and hear, is a framework for all of our conversations to be hyper focused on greater good. Perhaps as Kenny Chen has to remind us that Pittsburgh can be the place for this work, the standards for humanity in tech, since we are a burgeoning hub for artificial intelligence. We can become the epicenter for the framework of ethical AI. 

We are hosting our annual Cyburgh event at the end of August, thanks to what percolated out of an original partnership with Carnegie Mellon University a few years back, with intent of building on our assets in information security. While building the program over the years, the more we see the growth of expertise and startups focusing on prevention, protection, biases, interception and, if necessary, remediation from the ever-growing attacks on data that have escalated during the onset of COVID-19.