Apply to GoodBot’s Critical Thinking for Digital Ecosystems & Online Harms’ 

APPLICATIONS OPEN TILL AUG 15 2025

GoodBot invites applicants to apply for a 4-week live, cohort-based education program that will gather weekly in September to explore possible ways to address the impacts of technology on people and society. Designed for practitioners in the nonprofit, education, media and public sectors, participants will join 4 2-hour Zoom meeting over 4 weeks in which they will:  

  • Engage in discussions on the impacts of digital and AI technologies on people and societies

  • Hear from guest speakers who represent salient and timely topics  

  • Participate in small-group discussions aimed at growing peer connections and learning

  • Engage in readings and reflections designed to highlight systemic issues in emerging tech

  • Map community resources and opportunities to translate key ideas into action

  • Explore frameworks and language for imagining prosocial technology futures

  • (OPTIONAL) Participate in activities to design community-focused action cycle projects  

The purpose is to equip participants with the ability to understanding and diagnose systemic harms embedded in technology platforms in order to better engage in conceiving of ways to address critical issues that impact people, communities and societies.

Participants are expected to commit 12 hours for readings, reflections and weekly participation. Two optional weeks of support will be provided to participants wishing to bridge learning into action by designing a community-focused project cycle at the end of the program.

Why

The rapid pace of innovation brings major challenges like online abuse, surveillance, inequality and misinformation that are distorting a sense of shared reality and making it hard to solve common problems. To navigate these challenges, this course explores the systemic factors occurring on different platforms, how they impact communities, what factors enable these issues to persist, and how different leaders are taking action in response. We invite participants to reflect on what roles they and their organizations can play in addressing and de-normalize harm. Our goals is to create shared language, frameworks, and a network of peers committed to leadership and action toward advancing healthy and socially sustiainable technology futures.

Who

This course is for civil society and social impact leaders, researchers, policymakers, and responsible technologists interested in exploring the intersection of technology, community interventions and public policy. We welcome participants from frontline nonprofits, academia, media and government in a conversation who what we can learn from speakers and from one another about building interdisciplinary approaches that address root causes of harm toward advancing safe, fair and accountable digital futures.

What

Over four weeks, participants will explore critical questions relevant to how they and their communities engage with and are impacted by technology including (1) How we understand the landscape of issues created by technology (2) What is at stake and (3) What agency we have to influence the trajectory of technology toward prosocial outcomes

This course features insights from leading thinkers, service providers and practitioners at the forefront of AI, technology, and societal impact and with the aim of improving participants' understanding of critical issues through practical and policy lenses.

This course combines independent learning and reflection activities with each session featuring peer-to-peer learning through smaller facilitated, group discussions aimed at reflecting on the day’s content and exchanging experiences and perspectives.

Participants will also the option to engage in a two-week add-on in which they are supported in bridging key concepts and translating them in an action cycle project concept.

Space is limited to 50 participants.