An ABSI Connect Webinar with James Stauch and Alina Turner
Background
Artificial Intelligence (AI) may well be the most important disruption to human social organization since the Neolithic revolution. And yet, the very sector charged with monitoring, advocating and improving social impact and civil discourse is barely talking about it. There’s an enormous opportunity for non-profits and philanthropic organizations to start paying much closer attention to AI and to find ways of becoming much more involved.
The news about AI tends to focus on its shadow side: The built-in blind spots and cognitive biases that amplify into serious racial, gender and other forms of discrimination. Or the commodification of our personal information, rolled up into big data analytics and the forensic manipulation of social media platforms to spread misleading memes, fake news and other forms of poisonous and counterfeit discourse. But there is another side to AI, one filled with potential to enhance and accelerate our desire for a more caring, creative, just, and sustainable world, as well as – counterintuitively – the flourishing of human potential. There is a crescendo of social good activity underway - R&D, pilot-testing and nascent applications – using AI in the domains of health, the environment, arts and creativity, education and other social good activities.
In this webinar, James Stauch and Alina Turner will draw from their recent publication In Search of the Althruithm: AI and the Future of Social Good to:
Give a brief introduction to artificial intelligence
Describe why we--the “social good sector”--should care about and help shape the role AI plays in our society
Give examples of applications of AI for social good that are already in development or in use around the world
Propose some steps we can take in Canada to help shape how AI is developed and used
About the Presenters
James Stauch, Director of the Institute for Community Prosperity, Mount Royal University (Calgary)
In his role at Mount Royal University, James has led the creation of non-credit, co-curricular and credit-based and programs for students and practitioners in social innovation, community investment and the economics of social change. James previously served as a foundation executive and philanthropy and social change consultant. He is the lead author of an annual scan of trends and issues, produced in partnership with Calgary Foundation, and is a regular contributor to the Future of Good, The Philanthropist and KCI Philanthropy Trends. His most recent publications include co-authoring a Students’ Guide to Mapping a System, produced with the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University, and co-authoring, The Problem Solver’s Companion: 10 Steps to Starting a Social Enterprise in Canada, produced with Encompass Co-op.
Dr. Alina Turner, CEO - HelpSeeker; Fellow - School of Public Policy, University of Calgary
Alina’s work on systems planning is recognized as a leading practice and is grounded in her lived experience of the social issues she continues to challenge in her professional work. She is a Fellow at The School of Public Policy, University of Calgary where she publishes original research on social policy with a focus on civil society and systems change. Alina also co-founded and leads HelpSeeker - a social enterprise B-Corp that offers a full stack of systems planning and integration solutions to enhance the impact of the social safety net. Prior to HelpSeeker, Alina led Turner Strategies for 8 years, a consulting firm that supports leaders in large-scale social change through community engagement, data analysis and visualization, best practice research and evaluation to meaningfully and measurably accelerate social impact initiatives. During her tenure as VP Strategy at the Calgary Homeless Foundation, Alina led the implementation of Canada’s first Homelessness Management Information System (HMIS) and designed Calgary’s Housing First System of Care. Prior to this, Alina worked at the Poverty Reduction Initiative of the United Way of Calgary & Area, and a variety of front-line immigrant and homeless-serving agencies.
HelpSeeker and Turner Strategies are proud partners and founding members of the Systems Planning Collective. Alina also serves on several national and provincial volunteer boards including: Making the Shift; Alberta Rural Development Rural Advisory Board on housing and homelessness; Government of Canada - Reaching Home: Homelessness Data Advisory Committee.
Learn More
Stauch, J. Turner, A. and Escamilla, C. (2019) In Search of the Altruithm: AI and the Future of Social Good. Institute for Community Prosperity, Mount Royal University.
Christopherson, E.G. (2018, November 26). The Future of Listening: How AI Can Help Us Connect to Human Need, in Nonprofit Quarterly.
Chui, M., et al. (2018, December) Notes from the AI Frontier: Applying artificial intelligence for social good (discussion paper). McKinsey Global Institute.