Interest Area
Infrastructure
Our Thinking
We believe that strong social, physical, and digital infrastructure is a prerequisite for cultivating an equitable society, and our work seeks to make both the infrastructure of today and tomorrow work for all people.
Our Inquiry Areas
We do this by supporting organizations that foster the growth of resilient social networks and communities, strengthen public spaces and buildings, and expand access to digital life – particularly through public interest technology.
Inquiry Area
Multidimensional Infrastructure
The way we build and maintain our infrastructure shapes our future, which is why it’s essential that we rethink how to define, design, govern, and fund it. We’ve developed a multidimensional framework for infrastructure that delivers positive community outcomes and addresses the urgent challenges facing American society. Drawing on experiences and insights from innovators in the public and private sectors, we explore how this ecosystem approach can help individuals and communities thrive.
Inquiry Area
Public Interest Technology
As technology’s role in all parts of society continues to expand, it’s our goal to ensure that everyone is conversant with technology as it affects all areas of our lives. We work with policy-makers, technologists, researchers, and educators to ensure that the design, deployment, and use of technologies are leveraged in a way that advances the public interest. Our grantees who use technology to enhance public institutions, imagine solutions that fulfill unmet needs, and critically examine technology’s impact on civic life.
Highlighted Grantees
TechCongress Foundation
TechCongress places technologists as fellows in Congressional offices on both sides of the aisle in order to augment technical capacity and understanding. In doing so, TechCongress is filling a knowledge gap by giving federal lawmakers the opportunity to leverage fellows’ technical expertise in order to craft more responsive and impactful tech policies.
New Bedford Research & Robotics
New Bedford Research and Robotics is focused on revitalizing the port city of New Bedford, MA by making cutting-edge technologies accessible to local companies, entrepreneurs, universities, and community organizations.
Rebuild by Design
Rebuild by Design helps communities build more resilient infrastructure by fostering collaboration across sectors – including government, business, nonprofit, and community organizations – to gain a better understanding of how overlapping environmental and human-made vulnerabilities leave cities and regions at risk.
Infrastructure Insights
Reflections | Research
AI as Multidimensional Infrastructure
When we look at AI through its components and relationships, we can identify discrete but overlapping physical, social, and digital…
Research
Taking it Down to the Studs: Information Infrastructures in Need of Deconstruction
Even with a renewed focus on maintenance and repair, we are often overlooking another possibility for infrastructuring: deconstruction.
From Our Grantees | Research
Research Brief: Aspen Digital on a People-Centered Approach to Digital Infrastructure
When it comes to digital infrastructure, communities lack more than just broadband access.