Can you do good and do well? Exploring HCI careers for societal impact

Abstract

International development and initiatives towards societal impact have been slowly gaining momentum in the HCI forums over the last few years. A subset of HCI researchers and practitioners worldwide have been working to design, build, evaluate and deploy solutions for the 80% of the world which lives on less than $10 a day[1] and broadly for humanitarian efforts that improves people's lives at large. However, a large section of the HCI community is still not directly involved in this space even if they are interested, because of concerns like job uncertainty, lack of awareness of avenues to help, time availability and perhaps some delusions about the space. This panel brings together panelists who are HCI professionals trying to produce social impact from four different domains (non-profit, for-profit social enterprise, academic research and corporate research) and are from different geographies and stages in their careers. The panel explores how HCI researchers and practitioners can consider HCI-related careers in international development and other societal impact initiatives, introduce the CHI community to different means through which they could make meaningful contributions, discuss why it may be imminent for HCI specialists to apply their expertise to this space, cite and discuss some real world stories and try to answer as many queries from people who would like to get involved either as volunteers or for full-time careers.