Cyber Collective

This grant will further our mission to narrow the socioeconomic divide driven by tech, and protect people’s agency and autonomy that are impacted by data-driven technologies. We currently do this by conducting consumer research in data ethics, privacy and cyber security. We are looking to deploy a hybrid blockchain network to enable the equitable, transparent distribution of information, reallocating power to the people to share their data or not.  

We will also leverage this network to compensate consumers for their data, then provide access to companies requesting data from specific communities. We will work alongside blockchain expert and engineer, Iddris Sandu, to carry out this vision.  

As digital marketing leaders, we also create educational content, training, and resources for corporations that want to develop tech that produces equitable outcomes. This funding will enable us to hire social media marketers, video editors, and content developers, and ultimately expand our reach.  

The data protection industry will be worth $103.8 billion by 2027, and will continue to grow as people learn the true value of their digital assets. We are here to help people capture their share of this value and empower them to advocate for their autonomy and well-being. 

Our collective story began at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. As social media acquaintances, our group connected on a shared mission—technology posed a threat to people in the movement, and we needed to do something to protect our Black friends, friends of color, and allies. We decided to leverage our skills, experiences, and access to drive positive social change through tech. Our vision for the future is one where technology is an overwhelming force for good, for all. 

Our first meeting as a group was in August and by October we established a 3 month awareness program that housed weekly events. With sold out tickets and high engagement with our content, we quickly learned that consumers have been craving digital protection resources. This set a precedent for our long term goals and projections.

In the future, we aim to develop a hybrid blockchain technology to transparently compensate people for their data, publish books for children and adults, create a prototype for future orgs that also want to do this work, produce our content in different languages to reach wider audiences, and develop a "changemaker" program that would give people the resources to share our

Technology and the internet touch nearly every aspect of human life for more than half of the global population, producing outcomes that are now–in their most consequential form–challenging our autonomy as human beings and driving inequities at scale. 

For example, data-driven automated systems increasingly decide who gets healthcare, jobs, and housing, and often impact low-income communities. As platforms collect an increasing amount of personal data, data breaches have become a growing concern, with 4.1 billion records compromised in data breaches in the first 6 months of 2019 (IBM).

There are currently no federal consumer data privacy laws or tech industry regulation to address this problem, and little demand from consumers for such legislation. 

We are addressing this problem of data misuse and privacy through educational content, research, social media outreach, and advocacy. 

We educate our audience about topics in tech so they can effectively engage in discourse around tech and tech policy. We conduct research to gather audience insights to better understand their communities’ needs. We use social media outreach to build momentum and grow our audience. We advocate for federal privacy legislation with the largest privacy coalition in the US to promote equitable digital infrastructure and use nationwide.

Primarily, we are the first WOC-led data ethics, privacy, and cybersecurity research firm, and we use our lived experiences to inform our work in education, research, workshops, advocacy, and social media content that centers marginalized communities.  We are dedicated to creating safe spaces that allow marginalized folks to show up fully as themselves, where they feel accepted without judgement, gaslighting, or code-switching. 

Second, we integrate pop culture into our Instagram and Twitter social content to promote digital literacy and build conversations around technical topics that affect us, including how technology shapes social dynamics Popular culture is an intrinsic element of our social and political lives. Using appealing memes, movie references, and unfiltered yet friendly language, the company educates the public and connects with a wider audience.

Third, through creative and live audience research events, we use the grounded theory approach to understand our community’s knowledge, then use these insights to affect change in policy and industry. We teach our community how to challenge the digital world we live in by simplifying complex concepts using pop culture, memes, and our own voices. We empower our community to take action to protect their autonomy, privacy, and life online.

Five pillars comprise our organization’s path to creating a more equitable and ethical digital and cyber security space.

First, our social media strategy is to educate and engage the individual by empowering them to understand how tech impacts their agency and autonomy, how to question digital threats, and push back. This grant funding will help us expand our reach.

Second, our monthly creative research sessions educate our users and discover their needs and insights. We’ve created a formula for our sessions: Educate, Assess, Analyze. We educate attendees on a specific topic, we assess their retention, then analyze their insights.

Third, as we empower people to advocate for themselves, our monthly briefs provide a space for our organization to share findings, lessons learned, and key metrics that signal progress. These briefs can be found on our website. 

Fourth, external partnerships will expand our reach and provide our community with access to key spaces, experts, and resources. We’ve partnered with UCLA Center For Critical Internet Inquiry. Their co-founder, Dr. Safiya Noble, sits on our board. 

Finally, we will expand our team and critical skill sets. It will enable us to be a more thoughtful organization about the perspectives and expertise we include.