CHANGEMAKERS: Jumana Abu-Ghazaleh on Professionalizing the Tech Industry

Jumana Abu-Ghazaleh is the Founder and President of Pivot for Humanity, a not-for-profit organization working to create a more responsible, ethical, and accountable internet by professionalizing the tech industry. Jumana spent over 20 years in marketing and brand communications, developing and implementing strategies for corporations such as American Express, Yahoo, Coca-Cola, Bank of America, Ally Bank, and Hilton Hotels. She is also the founder of betwixt.us, a tool that facilitates meaningful conversations between coworkers. Andrew from All Tech is Human spoke with Jumana about the concept of professionalization and why it’s such an urgent need for the tech industry.

Andrew: Pivot for Humanity is focused on the professionalization of the tech industry. What inspired you to found Pivot for Humanity, and why do you believe professionalization is the right solution to Silicon Valley’s ethical problems?

Jumana: In 2014, I launched my tech start-up, betwixt.us, and got to see firsthand how the tech industry operates. I was truly surprised by how singularly focused the sector is on scale and growth as its metrics for success, and I became worried much of the industry was blind to the impact social tech was having on the world. 

It’s an impact I’ve witnessed in my nieces and nephews who have grown up in the age of social media: Silicon Valley’s fixation with scale and growth at the expense of all other concerns often seems to translate into increased depression and anxiety for kids and teens. Of course, the impact isn’t just on kids. For years now, it seems every day we learn of a new crisis or scandal facing social tech. 

In my previous career, I spent two decades advising global corporations like American Express, Yahoo, Coca-Cola, and Bank of America on how to reinvent and reposition themselves. I felt it was urgent to incite change in an industry in desperate need of it, and began to investigate how social tech, as an industry, could go about reinventing itself. Real change is systemic, which is what professionalization is.  So I founded Pivot for Humanity to better facilitate that change.

What are some of the biggest barriers to professionalization, and how can they be overcome?

The biggest challenge is simply socializing the idea. The word “professionalization” doesn’t resonate with people. Many don’t know what it means. While we are all familiar with individual doctors and lawyers, we don’t necessarily think about them as oath-taking professionals governed by universal standards and ethics, and surrounded by institutions that manifest those standards and ethics. Most people don’t understand the painstaking work it took to turn those industries into professions. From everything I've seen, social tech isn't going to get where it needs to be unless it adopts systemic change, which is why we are working hard to socialize the idea through our channels and help unpack the concept for people. It’s essential for everyone to understand there is a way forward that is realistic and inclusive. 

A major and obvious challenge is getting buy-in from industry leaders, many of whom will continue to stand in the way of any change that forces them to behave differently. Our work is intended to bring together a wide coalition of tech workers, academics, thinkers, and concerned citizens in order to force their hand.

How does professionalization relate to regulation? Will it be up to existing lawmaking or regulator bodies to enforce a professional code, or do new institutions need to be created?

To answer this, it’s important to understand the key steps in making Technologist a profession, akin to Doctor or Lawyer. First, we have to develop a shared vision for the industry, expressed as a social contract with humanity, and underpinned by a code of ethics that reflects a commitment to be worthy of the public’s trust. An example of this is the Hippocratic Oath. Next, we must outline a universal set of standards, including minimum standards of professional competency and rules of professional conduct. Then comes certification: we have to educate and train practitioners in accordance with these standards and provide them a way to stay up to date on them. We could do this through certification or build it in as part of earning a degree, for instance. Finally, we have to apply: protect the public interest by enforcing standards and imposing disciplinary action when necessary, like losing your technologist license.  

The 4th step is key. Without it, this is simply an idea. There indeed needs to be a governing body in order to enforce standards and evolve the profession as the industry and times change.

You recently wrote an essay titled “Fixing Silicon Valley is a Civil Rights Emergency.” Amidst the heightened attention currently being directed at Silicon Valley’s racial inequities and injustices, what needs to happen to create lasting change?  

The short-term answer is threefold: 1) we need tech workers to be empowered to do the right thing despite the short-term whims of management; 2) we need a software development process that emphasizes potential harms and misuse, both individually and societally; and 3) we need to do whatever’s necessary to ensure that tech hires are diverse and provided encouragement to advance. It’s like a three-legged stool: remove any of those three, and you’re back to square one, with either a diverse tech workforce that can’t execute on socially responsible ideas; a tech workforce with power to execute its ideas but severe blindspots; or a diverse tech workforce with power but the same old bad incentives. 

In the longer term, we need the power to be put in the hands of the practitioners.  In Silicon Valley’s case, that’s the technologists. We’ve lived in a world ruled by the tech CEOs long enough to see that it’s not working. It’s causing real and lasting harm. We hear from tech workers daily that they are fighting for change, but they lack the organization and power to truly move the needle. It’s why professionalization has generated such interest from tech workers themselves.

What are one or two ethical questions in tech for which you haven’t yet found a satisfying answer? What kind of work needs to be done to answer them?

In some ways, one of our biggest challenges has been the siloing of individual ethical questions in tech as separate projects — as if you could solve ethical AI and stay antiseptically clear of touching on issues ethical data, worker’s rights, and so on. The industry largely remains in a reactive stance when it comes to responsible reform, each company individually dealing with the blowback on a scandal-by-scandal basis. What we need is a roadmap for the industry that clearly outlines a broader holistic vision for reform, as opposed to considering these problems as if they were vacuum-sealed. I believe professionalization is that roadmap.

What can people reading this do to make professionalization a reality?

Join us! Tell your colleagues about us. Help us make this conversation so mainstream it cannot be ignored. A few quick ways to help: sign-up to stay up-to-date on our progress and our needs; follow us Twitter and like us on Facebook. If you’d like to do more, consider joining our advisory board, volunteering time to help us grow, or donating. If you like this idea, reach out and spread the word!

You can connect with Jumana on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Andrew Sears is an advisor at All Tech is Human and the founder of technovirtuism.