Post

Technology for the Public Good

Last updated:

This syllabus was developed for Hobart and William Smith Colleges' program for Management and Entrepreneurship. It is based on two courses I taught at Stanford University: Citizenship in the 21st Century and The Ethics and Politics of Public Service.

Course Description

When we orient business innovation toward the public good, what technological solutions emerge? This course answers that question in three phases. First, students examine the ethics of technology and citizenship by reading texts across disciplines to analyze how technology reshapes society, governance, and the environment. Guiding questions include: What counts as a public good? How does innovation transform relationships and power? Who should regulate technological change, and what problems can data-driven methods help solve? Second, students develop practical data skills—collecting, cleaning, manipulating, and visualizing datasets—to investigate current social challenges and industry trends. Third, teams propose a product and business model aimed at a defined public-good outcome, applying supply-side business approaches, design thinking, and input from community partners. The course culminates in a Business Model Canvas and a concise venture pitch demonstrating ethical grounding, data-informed opportunity analysis, and operational feasibility.

Course Itinerary

Week 1: Your Education and The Public Good

  • Gerhard Casper, "The University as Public Service"
  • Emily Levin and Mitchell Stevens, "Negotiating the Academic Social Contract"

Week 2: Social Capital

  • Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

Week 3: The Intended and Unintended Consequences of Technology Change

  • Langdon Winner, The Whale in the Reactor
  • Walter Benjamin, "The Telephone"

Week 4: Approaches to Governing Technology Change

  • Plato, "Phaedrus"
  • NYT, "In Amish Country, the Future is Calling"
  • Gutmann and Moreno, "Keeping CRISPR Safe"

>Week 5: Civil Society and the Non-Profit Sector

  • Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, chapter 5
  • Norman Silber, A Corporate Model of Freedom: The Emergence of the Modern Nonprofit Sector

Week 6: Can Private Business be a Public Service?

  • Milton Friedman, "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits"
  • Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth
  • Janine Hiller, "The Benefit Corporation and Corporate Social Responsibility"

Week 7: Social Media and Society

  • Philip Howard, Muzammil Hussain, "The Upheavals in Egypt and Tunisia: The Role of Social Media"
  • Marshall Ganz and Art Reyes, "Reclaiming Civil Society"

Week 8: Industry Case Study: Big Tech

  • Karen Hao, Empire of AI

Week 9: Is the Future of Tech All Bad?

  • Lee Kai-fu and Chen Qiufan, AI 2041

Week 10: Sustainability in the Supply Chain

  • Andrew Savitz, The Triple Bottom Line: How Today's Best Run Companies are Achieving Economic, Social, and Environmental Success

Week 11: The Social Hazards of Automation

  • Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"
  • dir. Yu Haibo and Yu 'Kiki' Tianqi, China's Van Goghs
  • Hao Jingfang, Folding Beijing

Week 12: Innovating for Social Justice

  • Lesley-Ann Noel, Design Social Change
  • dir. Heesun Shin and Chihyung Jeon, Hug Me Tight: A Robot Story

Week 13: Business Model Workshop 1: Sketching the vision

  • With guest entrepreneur

Week 14: Business Model Workshop 2: Exploratory Data Analysis Prototype

  • Review of data analytics skills and tools, including Power BI, Excel, R, etc.

Week 15: Business Model Workshop 3: Complete and Present Your Pitch

  • Review communication skills and technologies (PowerPoint, Canva, etc.)

← All posts