Introduce Yourself

[sreadyila]

Hi, I am Rio. A web-app developer!
One thing I have to say and speak on is about how I found this place. I actually wanted to do what the CHT does. I didn’t even know there was something like CHT. I searched a lot and Github is what brought me here. I wanted to build a different kind of app. And I wanted to meet and network with the open-source community. So ever since I found this community I can’t fully express what I am finding. I am overwhelmed by CHT.
Anyway I am going to be an active member of this community. Helping this movement in what ever I can. I’m building my developer skill at the same time too. So a win-win for all. You could follow me on Twitter or Linkedin!

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And here’s my first contribution for the CHT community.

How and Why we should understand, improve & appreciate The Humane...

[aschrijver]

Welcome to the community, Rio, and thank you for writing the article

[camilajames]

Hi, my name is Camila James and I’m a WordPress Expert. A WordPress fanatic by day and a reader by night, I Enjoy exploring the ever-changing world of Technology, Development, and eCommerce. Being a Tech Savvy and Enthusiast I usually enjoys giving Reviews on Technology ideas and topic. I decade an experience to my current role where I am dedicated and inspiring the Tech world.

[digitalwellnesscoach]

Hi! I’m Mehret Biruk, and I’m a digital wellness coach with a passion to teach, inspire and empower individuals to discover the pleasures of the offline world.

A long time critic of the attention economy, I began my journey towards digital wellness seven years ago when I deleted my Instagram account to take back control of her time and attention (that was back in 2013– oh, how time flies!). That decision jumpstarted my interest in learning about how social media, our digital devices, and the Internet in general impacts our social, psychological, and physical well-being, and what we can do about it.

For years now, I have been learning about the attention economy and the psychological consequences of the digital world in our lives. I’ve been sharing the knowledge I’ve gained on my personal blog, and is the host of Toronto’s Digital Wellness Meetup group.

As a digital wellness coach, my main goal is to TEACH, INSPIRE, and EMPOWER individuals to began their journey towards a healthier digital life and experience the Joy(s) of Missing Out.

I have my MA in Sociology, and my background includes, research, mental health, peer counselling, program coordination, and community leadership.

[aschrijver]

It’s nice to have you in our midst. Welcome to the community, Mehret!

[tennoguchi]

Hi I’m Will, an autistic dad to a 12 year old boy and 15 year old girl.
Always fascinated in technology from an early age.

Have to admit this increased my awareness to the footprint I leave, and what I am sharing.
backed up my data from instagram, pinterest and twitter platforms and deleted my accounts.

Still working on Facebook.

[aschrijver]

Much welcome to our community, Will!

[juliehendry]

I’m Julie, I was a software engineer in the 90s and 00s in UK, Silicon Valley and Asia. Around 2010 I started to become truly concerned about the changes I was seeing with humanity. Over the years I became more and more concerned for numerous reasons and considered if workplace expectations had limited our ability to design for extreme edge cases and discover unintended metaeffects.

So I left my VP job, sacrificed £250k to go do a masters in psychology - done with distinction and now seeking a tribe to make a meaningful difference to in my industry - to get more people on the ground thinking deeper and wider.

My passion, and my reason for being thought of as a bit weird - is about technology and it’s effect on humans and humanity. I think computer science is missing key knowledge of systems, ethics, psychology, physiology, neurology and sociology.

What truly concerns me is the dearth of unbiased human centred scientific research. It is all focussed on putting tech in the centre, humans becoming a product. No matter the industry our default thought for needs now is “can tech do it” - it needs to change to "must we do it?

[aschrijver]

You hit the nail on the head, @juliehendry, welcome to the community!

[Mandla]

Hi All My name is Mandla, and I’m based in Cape Town, South Africa.

I am a Senior Consultant at Deloitte Australia working in the Digital Transformation and Change Management space, where we help large organisations in Health Care, Mining, Education and the Public Sector create and adopt new digital products, tools and systems. I predominantly work in the Employee Experience (as a UX designer) side of things, so mainly around how we can prepare employees for the future of work?; how can we teach them the necessary skills they will require in the future?; and what does the future of learning look like?

I’m deeply passionate about creating innovative value-sensitive products with a user-centred, holistic approach. In the last few years, there has been a lot of talk about Ethical Design, and I believe that the Value Sensitive Design (VSD) methodology and toolset can help designers create more ethical products/designs. For this reason, I am using VSD to explore how we can make social interaction in multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs) more human and ethical. Hopefully, this research will add to the discussion about how we can build ethical VEs for VR.

[monacojay]

Hello all. I am new to the tech field. I got great inspiration from watching the recent documentary and wanted to connect with the Humane Tech world!! Glad to be here. Thanks!

[Alexandre]

Hi everyone,

My name is Alexandre Faucher, I’m 43, I’m working in tech for 20 years now : 7 years as PM at Microsoft (if you are more than 35, MSN portal and MSN Messenger may ring you a bell ;)). In 2009 I created a Digital Agency in Paris, we were designing and developping websites. In 2016, I co-created GENIUS OBJECTS, a smart textile company which develops IOT solutions leveraging a textile sensor (with applications in Ambiant computing and no screen UX).

Why I’m here ? I’m concerned with screens omnipresence and worried for my kids.
I’m dad of a son of 10 who wakes up in the morning asking where the iPad is and who begs for having his own Smartphone every week, he constantly asks for screen time and I have to admit the climate at home is often rough when it’s about to manage screens time limits. My wife and I tried to explain, to hide, to deprive, we also tried Parental Controls… nothing worked. Speaking with other parents, reading articles, I realized that this was a huge societal problem.

During COVID lockdown, having more time to think and having the chance to work with a team of product designers and devs, we tried to find a solution…

We came up with the idea of a smart pouch to encourage screen breaks. Kids (and adults!) put their Smartphone into the pouch, then any hour without screen is encouraged with gamification. In addition, we ensure kids’Smartphone stays inaccessible during the night.

Our concept is somehow similar to the cookie box we can see in The Social Dilemma, except it is textile and it is not a strongbox (you can open it at anytime but you will loose your points). The purpose is to generate a discussion about screeens at home, to educate, to lead towards independence.

We have a small community of parents involved in product design, have a proto, a name… Next step is to launch our crowfunding campaing in a couple of weeks. I’ll be happy to share more infos and keep you posted (after having checked this is compatible with this place and audience which is not a promotion place).

In any case, I’m waiting to engage with you and to contribute to limit screen addiction and it impact on society.

We have to do something…
Alexandre.

[PauloEsteves]

Hi, I’m Paulo, a software developer from Portugal.

I signed up for this forum a couple of years ago (shortly after listening to Tristan Harris on Sam Harris’ podcast), but something recently happened that motivated me to become more active.

A few years ago, I started to worry that my attention kept being drawn to social media, memes, and youtube in detriment to things that I cared about, despite using less than many people I knew.

Fast forward to 2020, and I started to see things that were kind of common in the US or the UK but not in Portugal: people I knew for many years began to become much angrier than before, constantly outraged. They seemed to assume that the rest of the world was somehow similar to what they kept seeing in their individually curated feeds, which drove them to become radicalized. Some became obsessed with conspiracy theories. Others would spend their time insulting people they disagreed with online.

Anyway, it feels this can get much worse, so I’ve been trying to help any way I can. I’ve been trying to inform people about some of these problems. It’s great that The Social Dilemma was released since it works as a great introduction to recommend to people new to this. Recently I also started writing about these things as well: AI the Ever-Increasing Distortion of Reality
(by the way, feel free to give some feedback if you feel I missed something or if my tone might’ve not been ideal to convince people who aren’t yet aware of this problem.)

My background as a software engineer who worked on implementing Facebook and Google code on a known e-commerce website for ad and tracking purposes only made me feel somewhat part of the problem.

Anyway, thanks for the work you’re all doing.
It’s great to get closer to the conversation,
Paulo

[aschrijver]

Welcome @Alexandre and @PauloEsteves! You have interesting stories to tell. Don’t be shy and create a discussion topic, or comment to an existing thread

[Alexandre]

Thank you Arnold ! Will do,

[biswa]

hello @Alexandre i have some thoughts that seems to be common to yours.
i have been very interested to develop the box like cookie box. but it cost much than students can afford. i dont know how well does it work .
i would like to hear some stories and ideas if you have any, on diverting kids from screens.
i lead a non profit here in kathmandu, Nepal.

[heleneauramo]

Hi!

I’m Helene Auramo, an entrepreneur of Prönö. I have been starting many businesses in the past (such as the first social media agency in Finland and Slush.org) but never anything like this before.

I’m now focusing my energies in changing the world by building a new platform for changemakers called Prönö.

Prönö is a place to find like-minded professionals whenever you need them, without ads and spam. As you all know, social media is crowded of content and ads and has changed how marketing and sales is done. I want to change that. I want to help the best professionals to be found - always. Without the not-so-good-elements of social media. And adding values on the core.

I have been interested in humane tech for a while and this community has been an inspiration for me and my new conscious business.

I am also now adding to our Prönö platform **a new possibility to find ** developers and designers, leaders and other people who are looking for professionals with humane tech interest/knowledge. This way I hope to connect like-minded people. I have the same feature for people looking for others interested in improving for example sustainability, equality and diversity & inclusion.

I have tried my best to design the platform as good as possible, but we are just starting. We are currently running in beta and will open doors soon to public.

So far I have self-funded this with some grants from the Finnish government. I’m so happy that they believed in us. <3

You can apply for an invitation from our waiting list on our website www.prono.fi.

I would love to connect with all of you there.

Please email me (helene(at)prono.fi) if you want to connect and help me with this ambitious idea.

[aschrijver]

Welcome Helene! A very exciting undertaking. Don’t hesitate to ask questions on the forum, and tell us about your insights

[HeyYeri]

Hi all! Very thankful to have landed on this wonderful group. I have spent the last 6 years or so working in privacy, security, and regulatory compliance at technology startups (one using AI for fraud prevention, and currently at a fintech). Since working in this space, I’ve learned that compliance and regulation is very limited in what it can accomplish and I hope that the work I do outside of it can make things better.

I also am fresh off volunteering for the Biden campaign as a text leader and active phonebanker in Wisconsin and Arizona. In the last 4 months, I’ve been part of thousands of conversations with voters and it has never been clearer to me how divided we are by our information siloes and misinformation. Now that I’m mostly done with political volunteering for the time being, I’d like to start chipping away at solving this problem. Please reply if you yourself has opportunities or would like to collaborate on something. This is very important to me and I can set time towards it.

[heleneauramo]

I would like to connect with you @HeyYeri . Would you have time to continue discussion in Zoom/Hangouts or some other format? You can find me on Twitter @heleneauramo or via email helene(at)prono.fi. My latest startup is www.prono.fi.