The Ethics of Innovation

This is a great session on the Ethics of Innovation from Toni Townes-Whitley (CVP, Microsoft Worldwide Public Sector and Industry). A whirlwind tour that includes: Digital Geneva Convention, Growth Mindset, Unconscious and Algorithmic Bias, Digital Leadership, and more!
Here’s the video of the entire talk: http://ecorner.stanford.edu/videos/5420/The-Ethics-of-Innovation-Entire-Talk (if you prefer listening to it at double speed https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/entrepreneurial-thought-leaders/id80867514?mt=2)
The themes are riveting and so is her story telling…

“The women took the tools and traded them in for money that was more than their husbands could earn in a year. I mean, I had totally disrupted. Here’s the lesson here. I had to go back and apologize to every elder. I had to go back and learn that the walk to water that I was fixing, is not about are your legs strong enough to go get water? That was a time of the day where Gabonese women would take the next generation and wrap them on their back, or walk with them in the hand, and it was woman time, it was girl time. And I was tryin’ to kill that so I could get the efficiency of water.

…

But you know what? They still walk for water. They still walk for water, ’cause the walk was not about the walk, the walk was about community. That’s the lesson that I remind myself that we all bring a bias. And technology will allow you to do so many things, but don’t ever forget that when you’re using the technology, it’s not just the end, it’s a means to an end. The end is still people, and culture, and fabric, and principles, and values. And we’ve got to use the technology to protect values.”