【Watch Nice Sister】

Tech companies can Watch Nice Sisterbe great places to work.

You’re often exposed to what can seem like an idyllic professional life: brilliant, ambitious, yet down-to-earth colleagues from all corners of the globe; aggressive corporate growth objectives that present an intellectual challenge; pristine offices that can sometimes feel like you’re in a spaceship; perks that can include free transit to and from work, frequent catering and personal visits from world-famous chefs, and my personal favorite, a top-notch gaming center.

And, all of that often comes with a decent salary and maybe even stock options to boot.

But for some engineers and technologists that have served in the industry, there’s often a deep-lying, repressed interest: a desire to do something that’s more directly in the public’s interest.

That’s not to say that tech companies don’t make the world a better place. Indeed, tech companies do make the world better in more ways than many other sectors, whether they offer a ride-sharing service, seamless connection with old friends, opportunities to discover new ones, or a navigation system that tells you when to slow down. And thousands of companies are building new innovations every day.

But at the end of the day, companies are still driven to serve their shareholders as efficiently as possible and prioritize the bottom line.

I felt that repressed interest in me come alive when I visited the Andaman Islands, a remote but absorbing chain in the middle of the ocean, somewhere between India and Thailand. In the search for tropical seclusion, I ended up at a tiny village many miles upland from Port Blair, Andaman’s main port. I discovered something fascinating when I arrived: up until a few weeks before my visit, the village lacked cellular coverage. But the day I was there, I asked a boy how I can find the status of the jitney to take me further north.

Whereas before he would have had no answer for me, that day he polished off a dusty cellphone and called the geriatric driver to find out. Later, I encountered fishermen who received daily texts from Port Blair to advise their local pricing, and merchants who now used cellphones to make payments and track deliveries. In short, access to basic connectivity had taken such a firm hold on the villagers that they could not work without it.

Technology has fundamentally changed the way that small community—and probably thousands of others like it around the globe—will interact with the outside world for the rest of time. But while a little bit of technology has had an outsized impact on that small village, it was clear they still had a long way to go to truly be engaged in the global economy.

That afternoon, while watching a group of kids baring toothy grins run after us as we departed the village, I juxtaposed my experiences growing up in Connecticut. It made me think: How could we apply technology to further improve the lives of the underprivileged?

Everyone has their own way to deal with this. Some of us in tech jobs take the opportunity to use our free time to develop apps or technologies that can have a positive social impact. These side projects can go a long way; look no further than the many apps that have been developed to solve social challenges by technologists at big and small tech companies. But for some others, resolving the desire to do good can require something that’s a few steps removed from the tech sector itself.

I faced this dilemma a few years ago, shortly after the Snowden disclosures. Revelations about U.S. surveillance programs had raised public scrutiny on the government as the public increasingly considered the implications for individual privacy.

At the time, I had been studying electrical engineering and thought about going back to the industry to apply my newfound skills and experience. Ultimately, though, I decided to take a leap of faith and make a contribution to policy in the best way I knew how—by working in the government itself. I ultimately ended up serving at the White House on privacy and internet policy issues, and the experience was more enlightening than any other job I could have imagined.

While I was there, I learned something particularly interesting: there was a nascent group of like-minded technologists who had an eye toward serving the public. Eventually, I met and worked with Todd Park, and later, Megan Smith, both of whom served as chief technology officers of the United States during President Obama’s administration. They were both brilliant technologists, and had created some of Silicon Valley’s most famous products.

But it was in government that I think they had the biggest impact. Todd, in sublime but subtle fashion, was the chief architect behind the revitalization of Healthcare.gov, while Megan was a tireless advocate for better representation, particularly of the nation’s most marginalized people, in the new economy. Seeing their examples, and those of many others (like DJ Patil and Andrew McLaughlin, who had led distinguished careers in technology), engineers and technologists flocked to the White House at a precipitous rate, serving in roles such as software engineers or design experts.

That was a special time during which the Obama administration brought the American people strong standards around net neutrality, consumer privacy, broadband access, and government services. But as we built this ecosystem to bring technology expertise into the highest levels of policymaking, we made an important realization. The pathways we were creating to allow technologists to take a break from their industry careers for a time to work in the public interest didn’t just have to be about working in government.

There is a major need across society, and government alone can’t solve every social problem, sometimes because it doesn’t have the capacity to do so, but more often because it doesn’t have the right kind of infrastructure, resources, or personal connections. In particular, the nonprofit sector, which is responsible for so much good in the world, was well-poised to host technology experts who could elevate public interest work to a whole new level.

That’s the impetus behind a groundbreaking new initiative at New America, a think tank based in Washington, D.C. This initiative is led by Cecilia Munoz, formerly the domestic policy advisor to President Obama, and Anne-Marie Slaughter, New America’s president. It aims to create the first team focused on Public Interest Technology.

Over the next year and beyond, we’ll be working to shape a novel sector that’ll bring the top technologists from around the nation to work on projects that directly aim to do good for society. The public sector needs innovation—whether to solve rural connectivity challenges, to spark interest in young people to study engineering and computer science, or to build the next major civic tech app. I am excited to help initiate a new project here around algorithmic discrimination, and in the meantime, collaborate with and support a high-powered group of peers who will tackle the nation’s most gripping social challenges.

Dipayan Ghosh is a Fellow with the Public Interest Technology initiative at New America and a scholar at Harvard University, which he joined from Facebook, where he advised on strategic privacy and public policy matters. Prior, he was a technology policy advisor at the White House. He received his doctorate in electrical & computer engineering from Cornell University.