2023 in review
The Careful Trouble team (and some of our friends and collaborators) at our recent Christmas party (photo credit: Michelle Agyei)
What a year it’s been! This post is a round-up from the Careful Trouble team of things we’ve achieved and things that have inspired us this year.
Thanks to everyone who has collaborated with us, commissioned us or funded our work this year, and we hope you all get some well-deserved rest over the festive season.
Everyone’s contribution is listed below, in alphabetical order.
Dominique Barron, Design Researcher
An achievement: I enjoyed participating in the Decolonise Community Tech workshops, facilitated by Roseanna Dias in November. It is so rare for people of colour to have self-organised and -led spaces to reflect and discuss our experiences and insights on community tech. It was helpful to have resources to just think and reflect, which helps push the boundaries of our individual and collective knowledge. It was also fruitful to collectively share ideas for how we can create opportunities for more of these types of gatherings and what infrastructures we might need or want to better enable collectively gathering, sharing, and supporting each other in the future.
An inspiration: I've been really inspired by the continued mobilising and organising that's been happening across the world over the last (as of this writing) 73 days in support of Palestinian liberation. In particular, I want to give a shoutout to Parents for Palestine for the parents- and child-friendly interactive actions they've been organising in the UK.
Rachael Burton, Producer
An achievement: I’m proud of the work we have done to build and steward the Community Tech community of practice alongside Power to Change. The community of practice brings together community businesses, technologists, activists, academics and sector leaders to ask questions, share resources and opportunities and amplify the importance of community-driven technology. We have hosted community data roundtables, monthly meet-ups, a Discord platform, started an action learning set and gathered twice IRL at Knowle West Media Centre and Stretford Public Hall. We have also shared our learnings, successes and failures along the way. It’s been so exciting to see this community grow, share with each other and make new connections online and in-person.
An inspiration: We’re in the process of adopting Agile methodology into some of our projects and working out what that means to us. I have been inspired by this talk by Sarah Kaur from Portable: How feminists do agile.
Rachel Coldicutt, Exec Director
An achievement: I’m going to cheat and say two things. The first is growing the amazing Careful Trouble team. I feel really lucky and proud to work with such a fantastic group of people each day and am always learning more about the challenges of running a small, self-financing studio. We have an internal reset and redevelopment planned for the first quarter of next year and I’m really excited for what’s next.
The second is that we had a real year of growth and impact. We started the year with a significant new partnership with Impact on Urban Health working on making access to broadband more equitable and we ended it with the AI and Society Forum. In just under a month, we went from a very ambitious plan to a fantastic event at Wellcome Collection with 150 attendees and 40 contributors, including so many people who inspire our work here at Careful Trouble.
An inspiration: There are so many things, but I’m going to give a shout out to independent tech news outlets Rest of World and 404 Media, which are vital for an Internet old-timer like me who can’t quite shake their dependence on Twitter but knows it probably won’t be around much longer …
Aurélie Coulibaly, Research Projects Co-Ordinator
Achievement: Successful transition to a flexible 4-day week across a team of nine working remotely feels a great achievement. It speaks to our individual and collective commitment to learn, and to communicate effectively and remain abreast of continuous activity. While our ways of working and processes are always evolving, we manage to consistently remain alert as a team.
Inspiration: A rich article unpacking a useful approach to do big picture and everyday tasks in tandem with the Eisenhower Matrix model. On a different note, I’m also sharing this insightful resource around systemic inequality, language and positioning: DEI Deconstructed by Lily Zheng.
Anna Dent, Head of Research, Promising Trouble
An achievement: This year we’ve grown from a team of six to nine, welcoming Rachael Burton, Tom McGrath and Anna Hamilos. As well as boosting our capacity significantly, the already great array of skills in our team has been made even better!
An inspiration: One of the speakers at our AI & Society Forum, Abdo Hassan, shared his work on Data Activism. He turns the idea that we are passive subjects of the unstoppable forces of big tech on its head. He gave us some brilliant examples, like the Flemish Scrollers, an AI and facial recognition powered bit of software that recognises when Belgian politicians are on their phones in parliament, and tags them on Twitter and Instagram. Or the Gender Paygap Bot, which replies to tweets about International Women’s Day with data about the gender pay gap in the organisation sending the tweets. Both use data in surprising, witty and eye-opening ways, and show us that we can harness data and AI for our own purposes.
Ashleigh Folan, Head of Operations
An achievement: As Careful Trouble finishes 2023, it has been a delight to see and contribute to its growth from a staff of six to the current vibrant community of nine. Careful Trouble's development, not only in numbers but also in influence and success, is evidence of the hard work and collaborative spirit that defines us as an organisation. Reaching our fourth year in business is a huge achievement, and we are taking advantage of the occasion to celebrate its triumphs, big and little. Our Christmas party was a huge success and I want to say a big thank you to everyone who joined us, it was an excellent time to make Careful Trouble.
External: With the recent events and discussions around artificial intelligence and its various and sometimes unconstrained applications, I've grown increasingly interested in what this means for the specialist discipline of Cyberpsychology, which focuses on the effects of technology on the human mind. I subscribed to the long-running free Journal of Psychological Research in Cyberspace and have loved reading papers such as the impact of video conferencing on communication perception and an intriguing article about how people perceive their relationships with conversational AI. Overall, social psychology has had a really intriguing year, and I am excited to see what occurs in 2024.
Anna Hamilos, Head of Community Development and Inclusion
An achievement: This summer I joined the growing team at Careful Trouble. Writing this I found it very tricky to choose only one highlight. There have been so many - big and small - moments that deserve a mention from being at the JRF’s Next Frontiers conference, working with Community Tech Aid on an affordable broadband pilot in south london (funded by IoUH) to co-hosting the AI and Society Forum at the Wellcome Collection with an incredible keynote from Dr Abeba Birhane. What was obvious from the outside Careful Trouble, and shines even brighter from the inside, is the appetite for change. Centering equity and justice in the work that we do - within a system rooted in the opposite - isn’t easy. The AI and Society Forum covered topics from surveillance, mis-information, racial stereotyping, power and education and it highlighted the need for more gatherings. I’m looking ahead to 2024 to see what Careful Trouble-making there is to be had. Join us in our mission to embed care as we create new technologies please take a look at our Chairperson job advert or buy a tee :)
An inspiration: We can’t rely on our elected officials to create policies that support those in most need and I’ve been inspired by those who have stepped up to fill the gap. Marcus Rashford’s work with Fairshare to feed young people during the pandemic, Gary Lineker being our media moral compass on the fate of refugees and active support for Palestinians are just a few signals our government is failing. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my inspiration is a young adult called Bejay Mulenga who I met when he was a teenager setting up Supa Tuck. Bejay will be opening a youth club in London called Student View. Instead of following our current Prime Ministers approach of banning access to social media, Bejay is building a space to educate, inform and empower young people with necessary digital skills.
Tom McGrath, Policy Researcher
An achievement: I joined Careful Trouble in June 2023, as one of three new members of the team this year. As someone with depression and anxiety, it has been refreshing to join an organisation with a commitment to care at its heart.
I’ve spent a lot of this year working on things behind the scenes. Notably, I’ve spent a lot of this year working on policy proposals for our Community Connectivity project, which I’ll be sharing alongside the rest of the team in the New Year.
With a general election likely to take place in May or October next year, there’s a lot still to do. However, I’m confident that the work we’ve done this year will help to make the political and economic case for building tech that works for eight billion people, not eight billionaires.
I realise I’m definitely saying more than one thing here, but I’m so proud of the work that we did on the AI and Society Forum. I took on a slightly different role, leading on the branding, but each and all of the contributors, producers, and attendees helped show that we can build an alternative to big tech’s vision for AI.
Also, back in 2020, I worked at an organisation called SPERI and was part of a team investigating people’s attitudes towards wealth taxation. Our paper from the project was finally published in November, making it my very first peer-reviewed paper!
An inspiration: I’m a big fan of (re)branding and design, and in particular have a soft spot for when politics and design overlap. There have been a few particular highlights this year. On the charity side, notable examples include Brainkind and Sister Circle, who both now have much fresher brands and refined missions. And on the political side, I’ve been a big fan of Sana Iqbal’s work (through Studio Sana) for some time, but her recent piece on the design story of the Gaza ceasefire marches was particularly insightful.
Anna Williams, Foresight Lead
An accomplishment: I’ve worked on a variety of interesting projects this year, so it’s hard to choose one thing. I am excited that we have built our research and foresight capacity to be able to deliver insightful strategic recommendations for a range of clients. Delivering such a range of projects over the last year has led us to think more about our Foresight offer at Careful Industries, and I am particularly proud of how we approach futures through our relational foresight methodology, which we have codified this year. We are currently expanding this work and unifying our expertise on AI ethics and foresight to develop a future looking AI ethics and governance tool, so watch this space!
An inspiration: Deforestation in Costa Rica led to nearly half of its forest cover being lost by 1987. But thanks to a government-led initiative that pays local communities to help protect the natural ecosystem, it became the first tropical country to have stopped, and subsequently reversed deforestation. Costa Rica’s reforestation was such a success it was recently awarded the Earthshot Prize, an award created by Prince William to champion innovations and solutions helping save the planet. I am so in awe of this radical transformation that I am going to visit Costa Rica at the end of this year (in one week!) to volunteer on a forest conservation program. I’m looking forward to supporting science projects, analysing the different forest species, and learning how to maintain trees, gardens, and buildings! The most amazing thing that the rest of the world can learn from this country is that the abolition of the army in Costa Rica has been a huge part of its success story; it is an example to the world that it is possible to live in an unarmed democracy. This was a decision of the provisional Government board, immediately after an armed conflict, which is even more worthy and it has allowed Costa Rica to become an example at global level, of a pacifist and civilian nation, resolving conflicts and external threats by means of instruments provided by International Law.