Tech for Human Agency
Today, our digital systems are optimized for economic growth and power. Ashoka's Tech for Human Agency initiative is catalyzing a bold shift: mobilizing changemakers to build a world where technology drives human agency and democratic integrity.
Technology has revolutionized our society, reshaping medicine, education, finance, and democracy itself. Yet, our digital systems are optimized for profit and power, not for collective wellbeing or democratic resilience.
Tech for Human Agency is Ashoka’s flagship effort to ensure technology becomes a tool for collective wellbeing, democratic resilience, and planetary health. As technology continues to transform every aspect of life, Ashoka is mobilizing social innovators, policymakers, and communities to address both the opportunities and unintended consequences of rapid digital change.
About the initiative
We invest in breakthrough innovations that align technology with the public good, accelerate collective intelligence through knowledge sharing, and build new architectures that transform economic incentives, governance structures, and cultural narratives. We do this through four key pillars:
Innovation
Supporting visionary social entrepreneurs reshaping the role of technology.
Intelligence
Sharing collective insights to accelerate learning and drive smarter action.
Architecture
Building the frameworks that support systemic change.
Amplification
Shifting narratives to mainstream tech for humanity.
Polarization Footprint
The Polarization Footprint is an initiative co-developed by Ashoka and Build Up to tackle one of the greatest threats to democracy: the rise of polarization fueled by divisive social media algorithms. By exposing and quantifying how platforms contribute to societal division, it provides a concrete tool for regulators, policymakers, and civil society to demand change, incentivize better practices, and create a digital environment that strengthens, rather than weakens, our democracies.
Ashoka Tech for Human Agency Website
Measuring the Polarization Footprint
Social Innovation Journal: Social Entrepreneurs Leveraging and Shaping Artificial Intelligence
Deep dive and how to join
As digital technology becomes the new infrastructure of society, we must regain our agency and rethink how technology is built, governed, and used.
Tech for Human Agency invites Ashoka Fellows, social entrepreneurs, funders, policymakers, and technologists to join forces with us. Together, we can move beyond techno-solutionism to shape a future where technology enhances democracy, strengthens communities, restores civic trust, and protects planetary health.
If you are building solutions that redefine tech’s role in society, or if you want to support and amplify those who are, reach out to join our global movement.
Meet the initiative leads
Hanae Baruchel
Laura Benbenaste