2024: A Year of Careful Trouble
The Careful Trouble team, photo by Marc Sethi
2024 has been a year of change for Careful Trouble. These are our (very) edited highlights.
What we do and how we do it
In case you’re new here, our mission is to make technology work for 8 billion people not 8 billionaires and that’s never been more relevant.
We do that by:
supporting businesses, charities, and public sector organisations to use technology more responsibly through training and strategy development
building a movement for inclusive, people-powered innovation, so that regenerative, sustainable and just technologies can become the new normal
We want to create a space away from the hype and FOMO generated by extractive marketing, in which technology roll-out can be better balanced and more well-considered. (You can buy one of our FOMO stickers here!)
January
We began the year by publishing a foresight report for the Royal Academy of Engineering, Stewarding Meaningful Innovation. This report examines the role of engineering in solving complex, “superwicked” problems. Progressive future strategic development and cultural change are often what large organisations aspire to, and from our analysis, we proposed that a stewardship model is a key way to ensure such positive and fair future progress. Since its publication we have seen the Academy adopt this model of stewardship.
February
In February we published Tech for Today - and for Tomorrow. Everyone across Britain needs to share in the opportunities that new technologies create. This report outlines why a new government must prioritise practical delivery that delivers real benefits today, for all of us. In this paper, we recommend five steps that will anchor innovation in everyday life for people across Britain.
March
We hosted a roundtable, Digital Inclusion in the AI age, which kicked off a series of publications on digital inclusion. This year we have seen AI being rolled out across the public and private sector, changing how we think about almost all aspects of our society and economy. Technology is changing, and so must our approach to digital inclusion policy.
April
We curated, produced and hosted a lot of events in 2024. In April we published a blog post about Bringing people together: why and how we do it. Our approach to convening centres equity and social justice, and our mission is to make sure more people have the chance to shape, inform and create new technologies. Curating workshops, roundtables, conferences and panels underpins our research practices. Interested in running an event with us in 2025? Get in touch.
May
In May we convened 60 experts in procurement at the Law Society for a workshop on the Responsible Tests for Public Procurement of AI, in collaboration with Responsible AI. Public procurement is a powerful tool for both regulation and market-shaping. The object of the workshop was to develop a set of responsibility measures that will help ensure government innovation can develop efficiently and in line with the public interest. We have been working in the background on the outputs from the workshop and will be sharing more on procurement in 2025.
June
We wrapped up a multi-year partnership programme with Impact on Urban Health exploring how access to the internet impacts health and wellbeing. You can read all of our Community Connectivity outputs here. We published a Community Internet Handbook, a practical guide for community practitioners, local and combined authorities and policymakers.
July
July was a busy convening month, taking the opportunity to ask how might the (very) new government approach tech and its impact on society? In partnership with our friends at Connected by Data, The Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy and ZoomInfo we convened those working across the policy landscape - from civil society, academia, industry, and government for a workshop, Building a roadmap for progressive UK tech policy.
August
August was spent mostly head-down writing, plus a little break for holidays. Let’s take this pause in the busy roundup to share our excellent range of merch - we made new t-shirts, tea-towels and stickers this year!
September
Autumn was a busy period for Careful Trouble. In September we launched two pieces of work on the same day.
The first, Digital Identity in the UK: A Rapid Response Study, this report sets out findings from a rapid response study drawing together a map of known Government initiatives with the results of nationally representative public polling. For some, the words “digital ID” might conjure images of databases and efficiencies, but proving who we are is not just a matter of digital infrastructure and data — it is a fundamental undertaking, and the role of digital ID could both reflect and shape the kind of country we are and will become.
Secondly, we shared the findings from AI in the Street, a multi-partnership project investigating how civic AI policy impacts everyday experiences of AI by scoping street-level observatories for public engagement with connected and automated urban environments. Alongside this Rachel Coldicutt wrote a policy paper, Can Innovation Places Make Good Places to Live and Work?.
October
We spent a lot of October thinking about the Community Tech network. We co-authored a paper with Dr Matt Dowse from the Centre for SocioDigital Futures, What good is innovation if it doesn’t work for everyone?, and hosted a roundtable discussion with practitioners, academics and policymakers.
November
November was another busy month for events. We hosted an unconference with Responsible AI and Professor Kate Devlin in Salford to share and shape ideas for AI policy in the cultural and creative industries. During the unconference we identified where there is consensus and conflict on overall direction, priorities and detail. We will be sharing the outcomes next year.
December
We have been conducting expert interviews and writing this month, primarily for Networked Neighbourhoods, a research study enabled by Phoenix Court. Networked Neighbourhoods is about the vital role that neighbourhoods already play in creating a thriving and pluralistic innovation economy — and how investing at the neighbourhood scale could unlock a more inclusive, sustainable innovation economy in the UK that creates new opportunities, builds skills and capabilities, and strengthens the social fabric.
Can neighbourhoods be places where innovation flourish? And what role does innovation have to play in closing equality gaps?
Team updates
Like many social-purpose organisations, we have had to respond to external volatility and made some tough decisions: one of these is that, over the summer, we downsized from a core team of nine to a team of four. This was a really difficult decision, but it is still early days for progressive technology in the UK. Making technology work for 8 billion people not 8 billionaires has never been more urgent - as Elon Musk gets ready to settle into the White House, we're confident that more funders and policymakers will get behind the cause, and support our work to make innovation work for everyone.
We've also improved our strategic governance and guidance came in the form of our new Board members for Promising Trouble who have supported us through this period and been a joy to work with. Find out more here and please get in touch if you know a treasurer.
What are we up to in 2025?
We are kicking off the year by publishing the Networked Neighbourhoods green paper, hosting a Community Tech Winter Gathering, and delivering more Ethical AI training for our clients including JRF and the National Lottery. We are preparing for an exciting launch in February…more on that soon!
We still have plenty of space for new projects. If any of the above interests you please get in touch, we would love to work together. You can also keep in touch through our monthly newsletter.