Hello, World!

Hello, world! I just joined the NDItech team as a project assistant. I’ll be devoting a good amount of my time to the Open Internet for Democracy Initiative and anything pertaining to protecting democracy from technology. I’m looking at you, disinformation!

For the past three years, I helped run a social enterprise and collaborative community called Open Gov Hub in downtown Washington, D.C. Creating a community of changemakers focused on issues of transparency, accountability, and citizen engagement around the world was a blast, but I was eager to dig into more programmatic work focusing on technology and democracy. So I’m thrilled to be getting that experience here at NDI!

I’ve always been drawn to the intersection of power between society, government, and technology. That’s why I took as many classes as I could in undergrad and graduate school on topics like international surveillance and privacy policy, propaganda, and digital governance and human rights. I even decided to write a Master’s thesis about the internet freedom movement in the US and how technology has altered social movements. That’s also why you could usually find me in the midst of recent protest movements here in the U.S.

But the thing that really gets me going now surrounds the topics of artificial intelligence and algorithms. I even went so far as to give an ignite talk about algorithmic accountability (watch for the dancing Al Gore gif!). These two pieces of technology are already radically re-shaping our society and government and greatly shifting power dynamics. Making sure that AI and algorithms are designed and used in an ethical, accountable, and transparent way both here in the US and abroad in development contexts is vital to governance work.

But I’m not always ranting about technology. Having fun is key to me, so I can usually be found doing the following things: throwing or attending an epic themed party, dancing at Daybreaker or Meso Creso, and creating and being part of community.

I’d love to hear from you! You can reach me at [email protected], @kristiarbo, or kristiarbogast.com