Call for Papers

We believe this is the first international conference of its kind on the emergent theme of Public Interest Technology (PIT). We welcome new ideas, approaches, frameworks, methodologies and theories to help develop a field that will be critical to our future. The IEEE SSIT has been working on PIT themes since 1972.

What is Public Interest Technology (PIT)?

Public interest technologies (PIT) serve to address social needs and challenges in society. People working in this space ask communities what their needs are first, without presuming they know what is best for them and generally use a participatory approach to innovation with values in mind and cultural awareness.

Public interest technologies pertain to technologies that might leverage open source software for collaboration, and open data initiatives to overcome societal challenges, may exercise crowdsourcing and crowdsensing techniques toward collective awareness.

The goals of PIT are many but they may include, human rights, social justice, sustainability and environmental justice in their workforce, going beyond corporate social responsibility and compliance.

In our dedication to PIT, IEEE SSIT have partnered with the Public Interest Technology – University Network (PIT-UN) to offer specific content on Friday November 13th. Hear from 5Rights Founder Baroness Beeban Kidron and Public Interest Technologist Bruce Schneier, among many other unique voices covering social and environmental justice issues, data governance and so much more. To learn more about the work that PIT-UN is doing please visit: https://pitun2020.org/