The Ethical Tech Project is seeking outstanding early- to mid-career tech builders (designers, product managers, engineers, architects, digital marketers, etc.) to join its Spring 2026 cohort of Ethical Tech Fellows.
Successful nominees will participate in a 10-week structured curriculum, designed to contextualize the social impact of the decisions and choices made by tech teams bringing digital and AI-driven products and services to market. Fellows will develop both leadership and practical skills they can apply to their day-to-day work. These skills will enable them to produce better outcomes for individuals, businesses and society. At the end of the program, participants will have the opportunity to present a mini-capstone or project idea to a panel of industry luminaries and receive valuable, actionable feedback.
The Ethical Tech curriculum has been designed by subject matter experts in conjunction with the Digital Futures Institute at Columbia University and is moderated by Jennie Baird, Nancy Green Saraisky and Robert Levitan along with special guests from the tech community.
Sessions will be held on Thursday evenings from April 9, 2026 through June 11, 2026. Though a few sessions will be remote, the majority of sessions will be in-person and meet in New York City.
This is a unique learning, leadership, and networking opportunity for motivated and passionate individuals who want their tech and AI-oriented work to support human flourishing and who believe companies can do well by doing good.
There is no cost to participate in the program, though acceptance to previous fellowship cohorts has been extremely competitive.
Nominate yourself or nominate someone else who you think would make a great ETP Fellow. Applications for the Fellows program will close March 9, 2026.
Fill out your application here.
Here’s what we’ve been reading and listening to, and you should be too:
🤔 Attitudes on AI
TIME: The People vs. AI. Across red states and blue, a grassroots movement is pushing back on the unchecked growth of the artificial intelligence industry.
The New York Times: Opinion | Where Is A.I. Taking Us? Eight Leading Thinkers Share Their Visions. Experts share their thoughts on the future of A.I. and how it will reshape society in the coming years.
The Boston Globe: AI answering systems are ‘saving the day’ for New England pizzerias. Customers aren’t so sure. The artificial receptionists, being used to take orders and field calls, have been met with resistance from some customers who said they can’t get the service they are used to.
💻 Jobs
The Atlantic: The Worst-Case Future for White-Collar Workers. The well-off have no experience with the job market that might be coming.
CNBC: Accenture tells senior staff to use AI tools or risk losing out on leadership promotions. Accenture started tracking how often senior staff are logging in to its AI tools this month saying AI adoption will be a “visible input to talent discussions.”
🧠 Mental Health
Ohio Capital Journal: Ohio bill would prevent people from creating AI models that encourage users to engage in self-harm. Ohio lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan bill that would prevent anyone from creating an AI model in Ohio that encourages users to engage in self-harm or harm another person.
🌎 Environment
WIRED: Could AI Data Centers Be Moved to Outer Space? Massive data centers for generative AI are bad for the Earth. How about launching them into orbit?
📃 Copyright
Deadline: Actors And Musicians Help Launch “Stealing Isn’t Innovation” Campaign To Protest Big Tech’s Use Of Copyrighted Works In AI Models. The campaign is a protest against the unauthorized use of copyrighted works to train AI models.
BBC: What is Seedance? The Chinese AI app sending Hollywood into a panic Clips of Deadpool and other film characters have sparked alarm within Hollywood over copyright infringement.
🗳️ Democracy
WIRED: AI-Powered Disinformation Swarms Are Coming for Democracy. Advances in artificial intelligence are creating a perfect storm for those seeking to spread disinformation at unprecedented speed and scale. And it’s virtually impossible to detect.
🍎 Education
The New York Times: Opinion | A.I. Companies Are Eating Higher Education. Human intelligence — the thing we as educators are duty bound to defend and advance — is under attack.
Fortune: Law school admissions expert sees ‘dangerous one-two punch’ as Gen Z seeks shelter from the AI hiring storm in 6-figure debt and JD lifeboat. ChatGPT can pass the bar, but just as in 2008 and during the pandemic, law schools are overwhelmed with applicants
NPR: In China, AI is no longer optional for some kids. It’s part of the curriculum. While debate rages in the U.S. about the merits and risks of AI in schools, it’s become a state-mandated part of the curriculum in China, as the authorities try to create a pool of AI-savvy professionals
🩺 Medicine
The Guardian: Google AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site for health queries, study suggests. German research into responses to health queries raises fresh questions about summaries seen by 2bn people a month
🎓 Research and Resources
TechEquity: How Californians Feel About AI – Findings From the 2025 AI Compass. TechEquity surveyed over a thousand Californians to understand how they feel about AI and its impact on their lives.
MIT Sloan: Agentic AI, explained. The age of agentic AI — systems that are semi- or fully autonomous and can act on their own — has arrived. Here’s what you need to know, according to MIT experts.
The Guardian: ‘Deepfakes spreading and more AI companions’: seven takeaways from the latest artificial intelligence safety report. Annual review highlights growing capabilities of AI models, while examining issues from cyber-attacks to job disruption.
The Future of Energy Energy has enabled modern society for more than 100 years-powering everything from transportation, agriculture and manufacturing, to healthcare, information and global trade. But one of the more pressing challenges facing us is less about how much oil and gas remains and more about our readiness for a time when sourcing it from the most abundant, lowest cost resources can become significantly harder, more costly, and more environmentally dangerous. The rigors that can lead to accidents-like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon-are multiplied as increasingly technically difficult (and deeper) oil and gas resources become the norm.
It highlights how critical managing risks to the environment, our economy and local communities is as energy production takes us into ever more complex environments.
Beyond directly impacting our oil supply, increasing costs, supply volatility, and global insecurity affect everything from inflation and food costs, to global competitiveness, and our overall energy security-as climate change continues to underscore our reliance and increase the need for less environmentally damaging energy sources.
A Strategic Framework for the Energy Transition Energy Security + Technological Innovation + Environmental Protection + Economic Resilience + International Cooperation = Sustainable Energy Future To build greater resilience: Develop a more diversified energy mix that may include-depending on local context and feasibility-renewables, energy storage, modern electric grids and other low carbon technology. Use of artificial intelligence, digital twins, robots, machine learning and predictive maintenance on energy infrastructure can enhance performance, safety and predictability. Deploy advanced sensors, satellite monitoring, autonomous underwater vehicles and real-time analytics to better detect, predict and rapidly remediate leaks.
Improve access to cleaner fuels, capture technology and efficiencies in manufacturing by upgrading our infrastructure through “smart grid” technology, large-scale electricity storage, advanced transmission lines and better fuel management.
Expand capacity for research into climate solutions – from fuels to climate tech and increased efficiencies. Strengthen collaboration on energy security, emergency response, environmental safety and technology. Educate our technical workforce with skills tailored to the 21st-century energy landscape. The future of energy doesn’t rest on a single supply; it will take building out and maintaining an environment- and people –centered system based on energy security, the drive for cleaner solutions, global cooperation, resilience, affordable price points, and innovation.
Our best future will consist not only of extracting energy. but of providing energy, safely.
The question facing the world today is not whether we can adapt, but how quickly can we can create the conditions necessary to ensure we do leading to a healthier, safer and more sustainable global community.
Why am I just learning about this cohort nooooooooooooowwwwwwwww. A day late and a dollar short as they say. :/ love to apply for the next cohort needless to say.