John Sands, director of learning and impact at the Knight Foundation, said the Berkman Klein Center is uniquely positioned to make the most of the donation.
“There aren’t many places and academic centers of study that have the kind of talent, resources, and research infrastructure that Berkman Klein has to be able to direct the collaborative undertaking that we think is necessary to identify solutions to some of the information challenges we now face,” Sands said. “We’re confident in the Center’s ability to bring together the types of people for the kind of extended, solutions-oriented exploration that we think needs to be an important part of the process for addressing these challenges,”
James Mickens shared insights into the Center's new Institute for Rebooting Social Media. He said that the Center is “trying to be cross-disciplinary intentionally” in its research efforts, and is interested in hearing a “diversity of perspectives” not only industry-wise, but in terms of race and gender as well.
"Hopefully if we’re successful by drawing in all of these diverse perspectives, we’ll be able to come up with solutions that work for larger society as opposed to people who these tech platforms sometimes target narrowly,” Mickens said. “We really want to come up with solutions that make social media work for society as a whole.”
Read more in the Harvard Crimson.