THE TECH OPPORTUNITY
We’re at a turning point: technology can either diminish our agency or strengthen our collective power to shape what comes next.
To get it right, we need a new mindset, one that sees technology not as a force to fear or control us, but as a tool we can shape with intention. The future depends on whether we design for empowerment instead of extraction, for agency instead of automation, and for shared purpose instead of profit.
Ashoka’s work begins here: with the belief that everyone can be a powerful changemaker, and that technology, done right, can help unlock that potential at scale.
OUR VISION IS A WORLD WHERE TECH AMPLIFIES HUMAN AGENCY
Imagine a world where technology doesn’t replace our role but expands our capacity to lead, decide, and contribute. Where we use AI not just to find faster answers but to ask better, deeper questions driven by the needs of people and the planet.
Where digital infrastructure reflects the values of dignity, democracy, and distributed power. Where it’s not about maximizing profit for the few who control data and algorithms but about enhancing agency for all.
This is the shift we are advancing.
OUR AREAS OF FOCUS
Tech built on ethics, care,and context
Universal digital access and readiness
Data ecosystems that empower people, not platforms
AI for Good - governed by those it impacts
Social media algorithms are amplifying divisive content and polarization at an unprecedented rate, weakening democratic resilience in the process.
What if we made platforms pay for the harms they produce? What if we could measure their Polarization Footprint and get regulators to use this measurement to make polluting our societies expensive?
Ideated by Build Up and Ashoka Fellow Helena Puig Larrauri, the Polarization Footprint is a new metric designed to hold digital platforms accountable for the societal harms they cause. Just as we measure carbon emissions, this AI-powered tool quantifies how much platforms contribute to affective polarization - the growing division, intolerance, and hostility between groups.
We are developing this metric to influence regulation and shift business models, making it costly for platforms to pollute our democracies.
The report "Societal Divides as a taxable negative externality of digital platforms" helped lay the conceptual groundwork for developing new accountability tools and quantifying these harms.
OUR PARTNERS
