Building community with CS+Social Good

By Vicki Niu, ‘18 (Computer Science)

Coming to Stanford, I had big dreams. My conviction was to bring my passion for social change to the tech world of Silicon Valley. However, the glamour and pressure of the tech bubble slowly siphoned that conviction out of me. Over the course of fall quarter, I spent my time recruiting at big tech companies and organizing events that only helped those already advantaged by Silicon Valley’s power structure.

I was disappointed in myself, but motivated to change the culture and pressures that led me astray. Lawrence Murata, ’17; Manu Chopra, ’17; Edward Wang, ’17; and I started CS+Social Good in January 2015 to form a community that would hold each other accountable for driving technology towards social impact. We’ve organized mixers bringing hundreds of people together, a project-based class engaging students in building web technologies for social good, workshops, speaker events, and longer initiatives aimed at empowering people. The people I know from CS+Social Good inspire me every day to learn more, work harder, and discover more ways to live out social impact. I’m more excited than ever about the potential for tech to drive change, and I can’t wait to see what lies down that path.