Public Interest Technology
What Is Public Interest Technology?
A guide to understanding the field, finding your place in it, and taking your first steps. For students who care about what technology does to people and want to do something about it.
How I found out public interest technology existed
I first heard the term "public interest technology" when I started working with my professor last semester. My initial reaction was pretty surface level. I thought it meant technology that benefits the public, like apps that help a lot of people. I did not really understand that it was a distinct field with its own infrastructure, career paths, organizations, and community.
It was not until I started doing research this summer, reading guides, exploring the Ford Foundation resources, going through public-interest-tech.com, and joining conversations about responsible technology, that I started to understand what public interest technology actually is and why it matters.
Before I found public interest technology as a frame, I already knew what I cared about. I knew I did not want a traditional software engineering role at a large tech company. I knew I was more interested in the people using the technology than in the technology itself. I cared about equity, about ethics, about the gap between what technology promises and what it actually does to communities that do not have power in the systems being built about them.
What public interest technology gave me was language for that. It told me that what I care about is a real field, that there are real careers in it, and that there are real people doing it. That was genuinely useful to learn, and I think it would have been useful to learn earlier.
This guide is my attempt to explain public interest technology the way I wish someone had explained it to me, not as a definition to memorize, but as a field to understand and a community to consider joining.
What is public interest technology?
Public interest technology is a growing field made up of people who work to ensure technology is created and used responsibly, with the goal of advancing equity, justice, and the public good.
The Ford Foundation, which has invested over $100 million in building the public interest technology field since 2016, describes public interest technologists as people who "call out where technology can improve for the public good, and sometimes question whether certain technologies should be created at all."
A useful working definition comes from New America: public interest technology is "the study and application of technology expertise to advance the public interest, generate public benefits, and promote the public good."
Bruce Schneier, a security technologist who maintains one of the most comprehensive public interest technology resource pages, breaks it into three types of work:
- Working on technology policy, influencing how governments regulate and govern technology
- Working on a technology project with a public benefit, building tools that serve communities rather than just markets
- Working as a technologist for a public-interest organization, bringing technical skills to nonprofits, advocacy groups, and civic organizations
A key question public interest technology asks that most of the tech industry does not: "tech for good" is not enough. Good for whom? Public interest technology pushes for technology that centers the perspectives of people who are most harmed by it, historically marginalized communities who also have the knowledge and experience to help design better systems.
Where did public interest technology come from?
Public interest technology is a relatively new field as a formal area of study and practice, but the underlying concern, that technology should serve people, not the other way around, has existed as long as technology itself.
The field as we know it today emerged from a collaboration between educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and philanthropic investment. The Ford Foundation began investing heavily in public interest technology starting around 2015, drawing on its earlier work building the field of public interest law in the 1960s and 1970s. The logic was similar: just as public interest law created a pipeline of lawyers who worked on behalf of communities rather than corporations, public interest technology was meant to create a pipeline of technologists who would do the same.
In 2019, the Public Interest Technology University Network was formally established at New America with backing from the Ford Foundation. It now includes 63 universities committed to building public interest technology curricula, research, and experiential learning programs. That network is why public interest technology is increasingly visible as a career path for computing students at universities across the country.
Organizations like Code for America, TechCongress, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the AI Now Institute all predate the Public Interest Technology University Network but represent the kind of work the field names and builds infrastructure around.
Public interest technology is a young field. That means it is still figuring itself out, definitions are debated, career paths are less standardized than in traditional tech, and opportunities can be harder to find. But it also means there is genuine room for people entering now to help shape what it becomes.
Why public interest technology matters right now
Technology is not neutral. It reflects the values, assumptions, and blind spots of the people who build it. When those people do not represent or understand the communities most affected by their work, the results can cause serious harm, from biased algorithms in hiring and criminal justice, to surveillance technologies that disproportionately target communities of color, to artificial intelligence systems that reflect and amplify existing inequities.
At the same time, artificial intelligence is changing the job landscape for computing graduates in ways that make this conversation more urgent. New graduate hiring at major tech companies has dropped more than 50% since 2019. The entry-level software engineering pipeline that used to be the default path for computing students is narrower and more competitive than it has ever been. This is not a reason to panic, but it is a reason to think more carefully about what you actually want to do and where you can contribute meaningfully.
Public interest technology offers something the traditional tech career path does not: a clear connection between your technical skills and questions you might actually care about. If you are drawn to equity, to policy, to how systems affect people, to making technology work for everyone rather than just some, public interest technology is one of the most honest framings of that kind of work.
You do not need to have decided public interest technology is your path to find this guide useful. It is worth understanding what the field is even if you are still figuring out where you fit. Knowing what exists is the first step.
Who is a public interest technologist?
One of the most important things about public interest technology is that it is not only for software engineers or people with computer science degrees. This is one of the clearest differences between public interest technology and traditional tech careers.
The Ford Foundation describes technologists in this field as including "not only engineers, but also individuals and organizations with strong perspectives and expertise on the creation, governance, and application of technology, from designers to legal experts to artists, activists, and members of communities where technology is deployed."
The Ford Foundation map of public interest technology roles includes nine types of practitioners. Look at this list and notice how broad it is:
| Role | What they do | Background it draws from |
|---|---|---|
| Activist | Advocates for tech accountability, digital rights, and equity through organizing, campaigns, and public pressure | Any, this is about values and commitment more than technical skill |
| Artist | Uses creative work to explore, critique, and humanize the impacts of technology on society | Art, design, media, communication |
| Coder | Builds technology with public benefit in mind, from civic apps to tools for nonprofits and advocacy groups | Computer science, software engineering, data science |
| Community Organizer | Connects communities with technology resources and advocates for tech that serves local needs | Sociology, community development, social work |
| Educator | Teaches digital literacy, tech ethics, and computing skills to communities that have been left out of the conversation | Education, computer science, communication |
| Hacker | Uses technical skills to find vulnerabilities, expose harm, or build alternatives, not in the destructive sense but in the problem-solving sense | Computer science, cybersecurity, engineering |
| Public Servant | Brings technical expertise into government to improve how public services work and reach everyone | Computer science, public policy, public administration |
| Security Advocate | Protects people, communities, and organizations from digital threats and surveillance | Cybersecurity, law, policy |
| Tech Advisor | Provides technical guidance to nonprofits, advocacy organizations, and community groups that lack in-house expertise | Computer science, consulting, nonprofit management |
What these roles share is not a particular technical skill set. They share a commitment to centering the public good, questioning who technology serves, and working toward more equitable outcomes.
Where do you see yourself?
The most useful thing you can do with the role categories above is not just read them but actually sit with them. The Ford Foundation resource asks a question worth taking seriously: "Which one are you?"
Here are some questions to help you think through this. They do not have right answers. They are starting points.
What problems do you care about?
When you read the news about technology, what stories bother you? What makes you angry or frustrated? What do you find yourself wanting to change? Are there communities or populations you feel a particular sense of connection to or responsibility toward?
What are your core values?
What values define who you are as a person? How much do those show up in how you think about your future career? If you think about yourself one year after graduating, five years, ten years, what do you want to be true about the work you did?
What do you bring?
What strengths and skills do you have that could be useful in a public interest technology role? This includes technical skills but also things like writing, organizing, communicating, researching, or building relationships. What experience do you already have that connects to this work, even if you did not think of it as public interest technology at the time?
What concerns do you have?
What worries you about pursuing this kind of work? Financial sustainability? Not being technically strong enough? Not knowing how to find opportunities? Are those concerns based on accurate information, or on assumptions worth questioning?
I found it useful to sit with the concern question seriously rather than dismissing it. For me, one real concern was financial: public interest technology work is often less financially rewarding than industry roles. Working through whether that was a dealbreaker required being honest about what I actually need, not just what sounds impressive.
My own journey toward public interest technology
I want to share some of what my own process looked like, not because it is the right path but because I think concrete examples are more useful than abstract advice.
I started college knowing I wanted to do something with computing but not knowing what. For a long time I assumed the path was software engineering at a large company, that was what the people around me seemed to be pursuing, and it was the path with the clearest pipeline. I applied to a significant number of internships in that direction during my sophomore and junior years. Most of them did not work out.
The failure in that process was useful, even though it did not feel that way at the time. It forced me to stop following the obvious path and actually ask what I wanted. I talked to my professors and some people who had already graduated college and were working. I started paying attention to which parts of my computing classes actually engaged me rather than which ones I performed well in.
What I noticed was that I was consistently more interested in the human side of technology than in the technical implementation. I was drawn to courses and projects that asked questions like: who uses this, how does it affect them, what assumptions are embedded in the design? I was less interested in optimizing systems than in understanding what those systems do to people.
That led me toward Human-Computer Interaction as a research area, toward thinking seriously about what I would want to research if I pursued an honors thesis in my senior year, and eventually toward this summer research project on ethics-aligned careers for computing graduates, which is itself a public interest technology project, studying how computing students try to maintain their values in an industry that does not always make that easy.
I came across public interest technology as a formal concept through my professor last semester. What it did was give language to something I already cared about. It also showed me that there is a real field, real organizations, real career paths, and a real community of people working on these questions. That made the direction feel less like a vague interest and more like an actual path.
Finding public interest technology did not mean I had everything figured out. I still think carefully about financial sustainability, about the competitiveness of research positions, about how to build credentials in a field that is less standardized than traditional tech. But having a clearer sense of what I care about made all of those questions feel more manageable.
How public interest technology shows up across sectors
One of the things I did not understand at first is that public interest technology is not a single type of organization or role. It shows up across sectors, and the same set of values can lead to very different kinds of work depending on where you end up.
| Sector | What it looks like there | Example roles |
|---|---|---|
| Government | Technologists improving public services, policy, and civic infrastructure from the inside | United States Digital Corps Fellow, Presidential Innovation Fellow, state digital services teams |
| Nonprofits | Computing skills serving mission-driven organizations working on civil rights, environment, health, and more | Technology director, data analyst, product manager at advocacy organizations |
| Academia | Researchers studying how technology affects society and training the next generation of practitioners | Research scientist, doctoral student, faculty in Human-Computer Interaction, Science and Technology Studies, or information science |
| Journalism | Journalists using code and data to expose algorithmic harm and hold tech companies accountable | Data journalist, investigative reporter at organizations like The Markup or ProPublica |
| Law and policy | Lawyers and policy analysts working on tech regulation, digital rights, and artificial intelligence governance | Tech policy analyst, civil liberties attorney, regulatory counsel |
| Private sector (mission-driven) | Engineers and researchers at companies that prioritize ethical tech development | Responsible artificial intelligence researcher, trust and safety analyst, privacy engineer |
The common thread across all of these is not the job title or the sector. It is the orientation toward people, equity, and accountability in how technology is built and used.
Key organizations in the field
Part of understanding public interest technology is knowing who is doing it. Here is a starting point, not a complete list, but a set of organizations worth knowing about and exploring.
| Organization | What they do | Website |
|---|---|---|
| Electronic Frontier Foundation | Defends civil liberties in the digital world: privacy, free speech, innovation | eff.org |
| Center for Democracy and Technology | Advocates for tech policy that preserves democratic values and individual rights | cdt.org |
| AI Now Institute | Research on the social implications of artificial intelligence: accountability, labor, and power | ainowinstitute.org |
| Data and Society | Research organization studying the social and cultural issues arising from data-centric technologies | datasociety.net |
| Code for America | Builds technology with government to improve how public services work for everyone | codeforamerica.org |
| All Tech Is Human | Community and job board building a responsible tech ecosystem across sectors | alltechishuman.org |
| The Markup | Investigative journalism using data and code to expose how technology affects society | themarkup.org |
| Algorithmic Justice League | Works to reduce the harms and biases of artificial intelligence systems, founded by Joy Buolamwini | ajl.org |
| Civic Hall | Community and co-working space connecting civic technologists across sectors | civichall.org |
| New America Public Interest Technology Team | Leads the Public Interest Technology University Network and field-building efforts | newamerica.org/pit |
Taking your first steps into public interest technology
Public interest technology can feel hard to break into because it is less standardized than traditional tech recruiting. There is no equivalent of the Big Tech internship pipeline. But there are concrete things you can do to start building connections and credentials in this space.
Join the community
- All Tech Is Human Slack (alltechishuman.org) - the most active community for students and practitioners interested in responsible tech. Free to join. This is where opportunities get shared and where people doing this work are actually talking to each other.
- Public Interest Technology University Network student networks (pit-un.org) - if your university is part of the network, there are likely student-facing events and resources you may not know about.
- Attend conferences - the Public Interest Technology University Network Summit, the Non-Profit Technology Conference, and the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction conference (for Human-Computer Interaction specifically) all have student rates. Even attending virtually is useful.
Build knowledge and credentials
- Do research - undergraduate research in Human-Computer Interaction, artificial intelligence ethics, computational social science, or related areas is directly relevant. Even one semester gives you experience and a potential recommender.
- Read widely - follow The Markup, Data and Society, the AI Now Institute, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Understanding what is being researched and written about in the field makes you a more credible candidate.
- Take interdisciplinary courses - if your school offers courses in tech ethics, science and technology studies, public policy, or information science, take them. Public interest technology is by definition cross-disciplinary.
Find opportunities
- United States Digital Corps (usdigitalcorps.gov) - two-year paid fellowship for early-career technologists in federal government. One of the clearest structured entry points.
- TechCongress (techcongress.io) - fellowship placing technologists in Congress to work on technology policy.
- Code for America (codeforamerica.org) - civic tech work with local government.
- Idealist (idealist.org) - internships and entry-level roles at nonprofits and social good organizations.
- All Tech Is Human job board (alltechishuman.org/responsible-tech-job-board) - responsible tech jobs across sectors.
- Siegel Public Interest Technology Summer Fellowship (siegelendowment.org/pitcareers) - paid summer internship with a government agency or nonprofit for rising juniors and seniors.
Start where you are
You do not need to wait for a formal fellowship or a job to start engaging with public interest technology. Some of the most meaningful early steps are simpler:
- Sign up for email newsletters from organizations doing this work
- Follow researchers and practitioners on LinkedIn whose work interests you
- Read one paper or report per month from a public interest technology organization
- Talk to professors whose research connects to these questions
- Look for student organizations at your school that work on tech ethics, digital rights, or civic tech
Resources to go deeper
To understand the field
- Ford Foundation: Public Interest Technology (fordfoundation.org/work/challenging-inequality/technology-and-society) - the organization most responsible for building public interest technology as a field, including video primers and practitioner profiles
- public-interest-tech.com - Bruce Schneier's comprehensive map of the public interest technology ecosystem: organizations, fellowships, conferences, and readings
- Wikipedia: Public Interest Technology (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_interest_technology) - a solid overview of the field's history and definitions
- Michigan Institute for Data and Artificial Intelligence in Society: What Is Public Interest Technology? (midas.umich.edu/what-is-public-interest-technology) - a thoughtful essay on the definition and equity dimensions of public interest technology
To find community
- All Tech Is Human (alltechishuman.org) - community, job board, and mentorship for responsible tech
- Public Interest Technology University Network (pit-un.org) - the university network building public interest technology programs at 63+ institutions
- Emerging Technology Policy Careers (emergingtechpolicy.org) - resources on civic tech and policy careers
To find opportunities
- United States Digital Corps (usdigitalcorps.gov) - two-year federal government fellowship for early-career technologists
- TechCongress (techcongress.io) - Congressional fellowship placing technologists in tech policy roles
- Idealist (idealist.org) - nonprofit and social good internships and jobs
- Tech Jobs for Good (techjobsforgood.com) - jobs at mission-driven organizations
- Bens Green Jobs (benzevgreen.com/jobs) - public interest technology-focused fellowships and jobs
- Siegel Endowment Public Interest Technology Careers (siegelendowment.org/pitcareers) - career resources and fellowship information
To go deeper on specific areas
- AI Now Institute (ainowinstitute.org) - research on artificial intelligence accountability and social implications
- Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org) - digital civil liberties and rights
- The Markup (themarkup.org) - investigative tech journalism using data
- Data and Society (datasociety.net) - research on data-centric technologies and society
- Algorithmic Justice League (ajl.org) - work on artificial intelligence bias and accountability
- Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (sigchi.org) - professional community for Human-Computer Interaction research
References
- Ford Foundation. (2025). Public interest technology and its origins. fordfoundation.org/work/challenging-inequality/technology-and-society/public-interest-technology-and-its-origins
- Ford Foundation. (2025). Public Interest Technology (field page). fordfoundation.org/news-and-stories/big-ideas/public-interest-technology
- Wikipedia. (2026). Public interest technology. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_interest_technology
- Schneier, B. (2025). Public-Interest Technology Resources. public-interest-tech.com
- Michigan Institute for Data and Artificial Intelligence in Society. (2021). What Is Public Interest Technology? midas.umich.edu/what-is-public-interest-technology
- Public Interest Technology University Network. (2025). pit-un.org
- All Tech Is Human. (2025). Responsible Tech Job Board. alltechishuman.org
- Emerging Technology Policy Careers. (2026). Civic Tech. emergingtechpolicy.org/areas/civic-tech
- Nemani, A. (2026). Civic Tech Career Resources. abhinemani.com/academy/careers
- SignalFire. (2025). State of Tech Talent Report 2025. signalfire.com/blog/signalfire-state-of-talent-report-2025
- University of Michigan Science, Technology, and Public Policy. (2025). Broadening Horizons: How STEM-in-Society Programs Train Socially Responsible Scientists, Engineers, and Policy Leaders. stpp.fordschool.umich.edu
- Spitfire Strategies. (2025). Public Interest Technology / Ford Foundation case study. spitfirestrategies.com