The CNTR celebrates its one-year-anniversary and launches the Socially Responsible Computing Handbook.

By Aspen Stuart-Cunningham

The horizon is wide open for Brown’s young and hungry Center for Technological Responsibility, Re-imagination, and Redesign (CNTR).

The CNTR celebrates its first anniversary, "CNTR@01."

Students, faculty, and staff gathered in Pembroke Hall to attend the CNTR@01 celebration.

Meredith Mendola (CNTR Program Manager), Tuan Pham (Research Associate), Emma Huang (Undergraduate Student), Titi Zhang (Undergraduate Student), Robayet Hossain (Undergraduate Student).

Harini Suresh (Assistant Professor of Computer Science), Xan Chacko (Lecturer in Science, Technology, and Society), Suresh Venkatasubramanian (CNTR Director).

Emma Huang (Undergraduate Student), Suresh Venkatasubramanian (CNTR Director), Titi Zhang (Undergraduate Student), Robayet Hossain (Undergraduate Student).

Kathi Fisler (Professor of Computer Science - Research) and Selena Williams (Undergraduate Student).

The event was catered by Brown Catering.

The atmosphere inside of the vaulted-ceiling space on the top floor of Pembroke Hall on Monday evening was buzzing with chatter and excitement as the Center for Technological Responsibility, Re-imagination, and Redesign (CNTR) gathered to celebrate its first anniversary.

More than 50 new and familiar faces of students, faculty, and staff showed up on the cloudy spring evening to engage with this community of scholars who are passionate about reimagining how we can use technology in fair and responsible ways to better serve the needs of all.

Kicking off the “CNTR@01” event, CNTR Director and Professor of Data Science and Computer Science Suresh Venkatasubramanian addressed the crowd and chronicled what the CNTR has been up to in its first year of existence at Brown.

Though the idea for this interdisciplinary center began among fairness-in-computing-minded faculty and students much earlier, the CNTR was founded at Brown in April of 2024, with the mission to “redefine computer science education, research, and technology to center the needs, problems, and aspirations of all – and especially those that technology has left behind.” Since then, the CNTR has grown to include nine affiliated faculty, five PhD students (with more set to join this fall), and a bevy of eager undergraduates.

In his opening remarks, Venkatasubramanian highlighted the projects that have guided the CNTR’s research in the past year, including legislative mapping, sociotechnical evaluation of LLMs, and genetic data governance projects. He also acknowledged the many people who have shaped this research.

Among the CNTR’s varied research projects, one was the star of the night: the Socially Responsible Computing (SRC) Curriculum Handbook. The project was introduced by Julia Netter, the Coordinator for the Computer Science Department’s Socially Responsible Computing (SRC) Program and an Assistant Professor of the Practice of Philosophy and Computer Science.

The SRC Curriculum Handbook is a joint project between the SRC program and the CNTR to “monitor and gather interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder content on the rapidly changing landscape of socially responsible computing and to synthesize that content into educational, digestible primers and curated lists of resources.” Born of an idea from Computer Science undergraduate senior Michelle Ding (who plans to pursue her PhD at the CNTR starting this fall), the SRC Handbook project now comprises more than 20 students on 3 research teams who have put together an online repository of educational resources, intended to serve as a jumping-off point for student and faculty instructors who are creating curricular material on socially responsible computing.

At Monday’s event, Netter gave the crowd a demonstration of how the handbook works, and emphasized the project’s mission to “harness expertise from across disciplines” to create a resource by and for socially responsible computing students and scholars.

Suresh Venkatasubramanian (CNTR Director), Michelle Ding (Undergraduate Student, Incoming CNTR PhD Student, and Founder and Director of the Socially Responsible Computing Handbook Project), and Julia Netter (SRC Program Coordinator).

Julia Netter, the SRC Program Coordinator, introduces the SRC Handbook and shares a demonstration of the handbook.

The Socially Responsible Computing (SRC) Curriculum Handbook.

Some of the other CNTR projects featured at Monday’s event included the CNTR AISLE Framework for AI Legislation and the AI Policy Summer School. The CNTR AISLE Framework represents the CNTR’s in-development broad assessment framework for AI legislation. Given the large amount of AI legislation that has been introduced in the past two years, it is necessary to evaluate the “maturity and robustness of legislation on AI systems.” This framework is the CNTR’s ongoing attempt to do so.

At the two-week AI Policy Summer School, 14 graduate students in computing and affiliated fields from across the country will learn the fundamentals of AI Policy and then travel to Washington D.C. to discuss AI-policy priorities with the offices of Members of Congress. Though this is the first year that the CNTR is running this program, Venkatasubramanian stressed the demand for such programs by revealing that CNTR had 267 applicants for the program’s 14 available slots!

The work at the CNTR is just getting started, and this community is chock-full of ideas and drive to redesign technology development, policy and implementation. Though the sun was setting as the CNTR’s birthday party attendees reluctantly headed home, it’s only just starting to shine for the CNTR.

Get involved with developing the Socially Responsible Computing (SRC) Handbook Project:

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