HOPEful Engineering Collective
a collective of students, faculty, professionals, technologists interested in tech ethics
In the fall of 2023, I was introduced to Dr. Michael Skirpan, who had the idea to create a mentorship network for engineering students interested in tech ethics, academia, or non-traditional tech pathways. He invited me to work on the project with him as his graduate student lead, and we spent an entire semester ideating and coming up with a framing for what we now call the HOPEful Engineering Collective. I felt that students didn’t have many spaces at CMU where they could talk openly about tech ethics and feel like peers with everyone in the room. Thus, we made that space available. The goal of HOPEful is to create open, honest conversations about tech ethics where everyone in the room can learn from one another.
Fall 2024 Social
For the Fall 2024 social event, I made conversation cards themed around central ideas of HOPEful. Guests sat at tables with people they hadn’t met and had conversations with the cards as a guide. Then, they distilled their conversations into post-it notes, which they stuck on a poster board before moving to the next table.
The conversation cards were a success, and people really enjoyed talking to new people. Students engaged with faculty, professionals engaged with non-professionals, and everyone who came felt like they had learned something new. Afterwards, I created a newsletter summarizing the major topics we discussed to archive our group takeaways.
Consequential Coffee with Arthi Krishnaswami
Our next event was the first in a series we call Consequential Coffee. We invite local professionals to bring a topic of conversation to a coffee chat with interested students. With Consequential Coffee, we aim to create connections between students and professionals in their field of interest and foster discussions on topics not often covered in university settings.
Our first Consequential Coffee was with Arthi Krishnaswami, who presented on “Making Ideas Real.”
Tactics for Ethical Tech
Our next event was a panel discussion titled “Tactics for Ethical Technology.”
We brought in four speakers, each of whom introduced a topic:
- Equitable Medical AI – Merage Ghane
- Public Algorithms – Rayid Ghani
- Building Networks – Maryam Farooq
- Evaluating AI – Fernando Diaz
Students came in to speak with specific panelists but ended up staying for the whole event. Towards the end, we transitioned into a roundtable-style discussion, covering topics such as the state of standards organizations in technology, teaching AI literacy, responsible AI use, and general concerns about the tech industry.
Research
Alongside the events I create for HOPEful, I also work with Dr. Skirpan to research the efficacy of tech ethics interventions at other universities. We aim to understand which interventions (classroom, university-wide, student groups, etc.) equip students to enact change after graduation.
If you’re interested in our research or have ideas for HOPEful, feel free to email me at aditin@andrew.cmu.edu.