A New Development in Technology for Social Good

The past few days witnessed a renewed spirit to collaborate across academic institutions, involving topics that have been long held interests of Georgetown faculty. Most abstractly stated, the speed of technological change is exceeding the growth of human wisdom in its use. This is an area of scholarship throughout the Georgetown, in the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences.

A event held at Sciences Po in Paris this week announced that $25 million of the $100 million gift, announced earlier  from Frank McCourt in support of the McCourt School of Public Policy, would be devoted to supporting research and other activities to advance the use of technology for the common good. The gift will be used to support research and initiatives that address critical questions on the impact of technological innovation on society, with a particular focus on public policy. The protocol for determining how best to use the support will be identified over the coming weeks.

The event included the announcement of the McCourt Institute, a standalone 501c3 nonprofit organization. The mission of the Institute is to advance technological solutions that serve the common good. The first project of the Institute will be a new internet protocol (like HTTP or HTTPS) called the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DNSP). This protocol is an open-source design designed to give users control over the linkages among them and others — their social graph — so that third parties cannot profit from information about them without their active willingness. In essence, the protocol could enable a public infrastructure permitting decentralized social networks. DNSP utilizes public blockchain, which offers strong individual control over sharing of information. Once the protocol is launched, application developers can freely develop tools that will enrich the protocol within the privacy protecting environment.

In synergy with the Institute will be collaboration with faculty and students at Sciences Po, in Paris, and Georgetown, in Washington, DC. These two capital cities universities share many attributes. Sciences Po is research university of about 14,000 undergraduate and graduate students, with strong faculty in the social and economic sciences.

Many Georgetown faculty and students, regardless of their school affiliation, are active in policy related activities. A similar culture exists at Sciences Po.

Collaboration between Sciences Po and Georgetown has a notable and lengthy history. Prior to launching the Walsh School of Foreign Service in 1919, it is said that Georgetown representatives visited Sciences Po to learn about their approach to teaching international affairs. For some years, the two universities have shared a dual degree program in International Affairs (Sciences Po) and Law (Georgetown). Science Po is a popular study abroad choice for Georgetown undergraduates. Sciences Po students use Georgetown as their year abroad requirement.

As the parameters of the collaboration above become clearer, there are great hopes that Georgetown’s aspirations to use technology to serve the common good will achieve accelerated success.