Tech For Good. Obviously.

Earlier this month I attended  an event in #Bristol by Unfold on "Tech for Good" and I'll attend one Engine Shed next month, with Josh Glancy and very significant others. This is clearly an important, pertinent, and relevant topic, especially to Bristol & Bath which has a higher than normal propensity of B-Corps.

At the first event, I was struck by the comment at the start about the notion of "Tech for Good" – and how, surely, all tech should be for good?

SETsquared,  Science Creates, Future Space, The Golden Valley Development and other organisations in the region, use (or will use) public money to support tech businesses in some form. Is now the time where we ask if it's appropriate for that public money to be used to enable tech development that is not "good"?

It's difficult to define what “good” is of course. Is gaming technology "good". It dawned on me as I left a gaming business earlier this year that, deep down, did I think that gaming is societally useful? Does gaming actually increase demand on healthcare costs through addiction and other knock-on effects of people spending too long intensely crunched over a console? There’s a growing body of research that identifies numerous negative impacts on mental health, physical health, and cognitive functioning alongside some positive impacts. So, it’s a complex question.

In a similar vein, we should ask the question: Is job creation, that common currency of public sector grant funding, the right metric to be striving for? No. This an output not an outcome. We surely want  a thriving  progressive society that enables better life outcomes for everyone. Economic growth, measured by GVA, is oft used as a proxy for that but its blunt, very blunt and, I suggest, counter-productive. Supporting all tech development (good or bad) in the pursuit of job creation, itself a proxy for economic growth, is an example of that bluntness.

I can see why and have some sympathy for that logical connection: supporting tech startups -> job creation -> economic growth - it feels like it benefits everyone. But it doesn't really, certainly not in the long term. Or at least we can't be sure that it is good for us all.

Many might say that I've been a protagonist for GVA growth at the expense of anything else. When I ran SETsquared Bristol, yes, a lot of the narrative was about raising investment but never about growth for growths sake. The motivations of founders were varied, and rich, but very raely solely about money.

Most SETsquared member companies did not raise investment, and most of those by choice:  they grew organically because that was the right path for them. Funnily enough, almost all of the exits of SETsquared Bristol companies, while I was involved, were organically grown businesses.  The statistician might then tell you that investment is bad for business....

So, I welcome the debate about how we should, collectively, focus our efforts on developing tech, and jobs in tech (and the skills and attitudes) and leadership, and governance but hope we can break out of the dogma of how we used to do it. And also, debate around investment and economic measures that properly value societal growth. Surely that's our common purpose?