Tech innovation consulting for social impact
- Setting up a tech innovation function within the organization
- Technology strategy as part of a multi-year plan
- One-on-one consulting for entrepreneurs with an idea for a venture
“One day, every tech company and tech training track will have a unit for empathic technology.
One day, every nonprofit and social organization will have a unit for tech innovation.
And these two worlds will be full of connections.”
Aya Eshdat · Tech with Empathy
Connecting technology with social impact
Tech innovation consulting for social organizations and social entrepreneurs, talks, workshops and training programs, and leading the tech arena of the TechAbility community.
What I do
Three areas of work, one connection
Harnessing the power of technology to reduce pressing social problems, and building meaningful connections between the tech world and the world of social impact.
Talks, workshops and training programs
- Talks: ImpactTech, Tech with Empathy, AI opportunities and biases
- Modular workshops and courses, from one session to ten
- Designing and leading entrepreneurship and training programs
Leading the tech arena of the TechAbility community
- Mapping and getting to know the startups in the ecosystem
- Connecting their solutions with the challenges of field organizations
- Talk: AI, disability and technological fairness
Nice to meet you!
I'm Aya, and I'm a big believer in connections: between technology and impact, between the tech sector and the social sector, and between business, meaning and values.
Over more than 25 years I built deep experience in the high-tech industry, in software development, team leadership and entrepreneurship. But my heart has always been where technology meets people.
I founded Tech with Empathy to bring the tools, thinking and power of the tech world to work for the good of society, and to connect tech innovation with pressing social challenges.
More about meIn others' words
What people I've worked with say
Working with Aya means getting professionalism at the highest level there is. Attention to the smallest details at every step of the process, together with warmth and human wisdom that turn it into magic. We were lucky!
In the Back2R&D program for developers, Tech with Empathy built a framework precisely tailored to the program's needs, with a whole ecosystem that every participant gained from. The ripples of the program and of the Tech with Empathy method reached far and will keep resonating in the future.
There are no words for how precise and on point you are, Aya, along with the whole accelerator team. Your amazing fine-tuning makes an unbelievable difference. Anyone who remembers analog radio knows exactly what I mean: when you're almost on the station but one notch off, how much static that makes. And how perfect and meaningful it is when it's tuned just right!
Writing
All postsNotes from the field
Getting Everyone into the Room
What if we invited the people who need technology most to design it with us, right from the start? Not as "end users," and not as people we'll "check in with along the way," but as true partners.…
When AI's Sentence Completions Reveal Our Biases
Imagine you write a simple sentence: "The child is ____" and ask an AI language model to complete it. You'll usually get words like "happy," "smart" or "healthy." But what happens if the sentence to…
AI Bias, or: When the Algorithm Looks at Us
When we think about artificial intelligence, or algorithms in general, it's easy to picture a cold, logical, completely objective computer. After all, a machine doesn't wake up in a bad mood or with…
The handwriting on this site is that of Yael Leibushor, of blessed memory
Yael, from Moshav Gi'a, fell on October 7, 2023, in the battle for the Nahal Oz outpost, carrying out her role as a surveillance soldier until the very last moment. She was 21. Yael loved the desert, especially the Ramon Crater, loved embroidery, and was a people person: attentive, sensitive and kind-hearted.
The font was created from her handwriting by the Ot.Hayim (“a sign of life”) memorial project, with her family's permission. I chose to write the words on this site in it, so that something of her continues to be written here too.
Font design: Elchanan Ben Ori, Ot.Hayim project
