Hope is an action

In March I read a book called Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit. At the time I was reading it as an antidote to the hopelessness I sometimes feel about the the various catastrophes unfolding in the world, and I didn’t imagine it would influence what I was pursuing around work.

Then, in early May, an exciting new idea started taking shape. Since then, turning this idea into a reality is my biggest priority and focus. To be extremely millennial about it, it’s my baby.

Then, last week, I realized that this project is deeply influenced by the ideas in Solnit’s book, and that it offers the perfect framing to introduce my baby to the world. If you haven’t read it, I’ll do my best to summarize the core thesis from my perspective:

The main feature of the future is that it is uncertain. As much as we love to make predictions, the truest truth is that we just don’t know what is going to happen. This means that no version of the predicted future, good or bad, is inevitable. What we each do can and will impact the future. That uncertainty is a good enough reason for us to take action on our values to try to shape the future we want.

I recently wrote a LinkedIn post about a value clash I was experiencing with the current state of the tech industry. It was about how frustrating it has been for me to watch so many incredibly smart people dedicating their talent and skills to work on the most meaningless problems (like smart pressure cookers in the case of that post). When I look around at the world, I see a lot of big and important problems that are so much more worthy of our best and brightest. Yet, so often, it doesn’t feel like there are real opportunities to work on solving them.

Thinking about these types of big and important problems makes me miss how I felt in grad school. For many projects, together with a group of my brilliant classmates, we could pick any problem that interested us and use the research and design tools we were learning to come up with solutions. I got to work on projects focusing on problems like domestic abuse in vulnerable communities, racial and gender bias in hiring, and care solutions for our aging population.

Since then, I haven’t found the space, time, or community to work on those types of meaningful problems. I know that so many of my friends and colleagues in tech feel the same way; they wish they could spend their time focusing on the complex social problems that will shape our future more than any new B2B SaaS ever could.

I won’t pretend that the solutions to any of these big and important problems are simple or easy. Of course they’re not. But that doesn’t make them less worthy of our innovative capacity. And, the truth is, the tech industry I call home has contributed to or even created a number of these problems. But, the silver lining of that fact is that it means we are actually very qualified with the skills to solve them.

So, my mission has become to create opportunities for that to happen. Opportunities for people in the tech industry to work towards the future we want, rather than the future we are being told is inevitable.

As a first step, I’m hosting a design and tech jam in Toronto focused on solutions to the problem of addictive technologies and how they interfere with our relationships and communities.

You can read more about the event here. Tickets are not yet available, but you can sign up for the waitlist to be notified when they are.

My vision is to bring together experienced tech workers to use their skills to collaboratively build solutions to the problems created or worsened by the tech industry. And, I welcome as many perspectives as possible; I’d love if some marketing, policy or mental healthcare folks joined too.

If this project intrigues you, I’d be extremely grateful if you could help with either of these:

1. Introductions to any venues or businesses you think might want to sponsor the event.

2. If you think you might like to come, sign up to the waitlist to be notified as soon as tickets are available.

3. If you know someone who would be interested in coming, share this email or the event page with them.

I’ll share more soon,

Hannah