Mashable Voices: These leaders are working to solve some of tech's most pressing challenges

Our ever-evolving digital world demands that we consider – and reconsider – the ways emerging technologies are shaping how we live, work, and play every day.

Developments in tech – from AI to Web3, from telecom to wellness – can excite and inspire. They can improve the quality of our lives, help us do good for others, and grow our impact at scale. 

We also need to be mindful of how these shifts can foster bias and other damage, in ways that aren't always immediately apparent. 

Importantly, it'll require diverse teams with a variety of skill sets, backgrounds, passions and perspectives across these fields to navigate and solve some of the most urgent challenges in tech today.

In that spirit, our Mashable Voices series will feature thought leaders in a variety of tech and digital spaces – artificial intelligence, Web3, venture capital, privacy, social influence, sustainability, future of work, and more – to highlight their perspectives on some of these industries' most pressing questions.

The series launches today with these trailblazers, in their own words:

• Arlan Hamilton, who went from being homeless to being an investor who has raised nearly $30 million with her group, Backstage Capital: She's invested in 200 startups led by founders who are people of color, women, LGBTQ, and others from underrepresented groups. You’ll hear from her about the gap in funding for these leaders and why she stepped in to fill it.
  

• Jermaine L. Murray, who made it his mission to employ hundreds of Black people in tech spaces and has built a following around the effort: Thus far he says the salaries of those who’ve been hired through his team’s coaching and connections exceed $28 million in total. You’ll learn how he got started, why he’s chosen this work, and what he plans to do next.
  

• Mutale Nkonde is an AI policy advisor and founder and CEO of AI for the People, a non-profit that aims to grow support for policies to reduce algorithmic bias: In her Mashable Voices column, she explores that bias and how we might benefit from the power of systems like ChatGPT and Bing if they are further developed to be increasingly inclusive. 

There are few areas, if any, in our lives today that emerging technologies don’t touch, from the food we eat to how we connect and interact with one another, from how we learn about the world around us to how we spend our dollars. 

As such, it’s critical that more voices are heard – including (and especially!) those who haven’t traditionally been represented in these spaces – and that we have a diverse group of innovators and problem-solvers at the table as these systems, strategies, and policies are developed. 

In the months ahead, Mashable will continue to highlight as part of this series the opinions, perspectives, and predictions of these experts and analysts and those doing the work in tech.

It’s our hope that by amplifying these ideas and voices on our platform, we’ll help our readers navigate these spaces and contribute to illuminating a path to sustainable solutions.

We hope you, too, will engage with us in these critically important conversations. Follow us now on Twitter: @mashable, or email me at [email protected] with your thoughts. We're looking forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Alesha Williams Boyd
Mashable Editor-in-Chief