Boston Paragon Fellow finds community amidst search for accessible and vibrant tech policy space
Hunter College undergraduate Sofia Rodriguez started venturing into tech policy and intersectional human rights as early as high school, studying facial recognition technologies
Contributed by Carolyn Wang
Hunter College second-year Sofia Rodriguez (they/them) has harbored a spark for tech policy, global governance, and intersectional human rights since high school, when they’d first joined Encode Justice — a youth movement for human-centered AI — in its early beginnings.
And Rodriguez has not stopped since.
“I will never stop reading about tech policy and my bank account is truly suffering because of it,” they said, grinning. “[Earlier today], I just walked into Barnes and Noble and spent $25 on a new hardcover edition over some new researcher having a new perspective on tech policy from their specific industry, whether it be business or cybersecurity.”
Rodriguez joined Paragon’s inaugural cohort in Spring ‘24 as a Boston Fellow, working on refining the city of Boston’s tech procurement process to align with their goals of transparency and equitable access under project lead Quinn Wilson. During the project, they worked as a Research Lead, leveraging their love for digging and exploring the intricacies of tech policy in their work — something that they’ve been interested in since they were 16 years old.
“Mind you, I’ve been obsessed with understanding disinformation campaigns, global governance, and the internet as a catalyst for political dissent for a really long time,” Rodriguez said. “But back then, in 2019, it was much less robust of a field than it is now.”
At Encode Justice, around the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, Rodriguez had become heavily involved with studying facial recognition technologies and the intersection between tech and civil rights as it pertains to social inequity.
They quickly realized that while there were plenty of folks who were interested in becoming technologists or politicians, there were few and far between who were interested in straddling the intersection of the two disciplines.
Having first discovered Paragon amidst what Rodriguez described as “many a rejection email because every opportunity in the tech policy field was either for post-grads, grad-level students, or PhDs transitioning into specialized domains,” Rodriguez eagerly applied for the inaugural cohort and was placed in the Boston team.
Never before did they realize that they’d be fascinated with something like tech procurement policy, which they said relied heavily on the bureaucracy of the government.
“We were asking questions like ‘What does data privacy mean for consumers? What does that mean for government officials? What does that mean for regulators? What does it mean for academics? How do we consider cybersecurity from a city level? Is it better to outsource data protection to a bigger firm like Google, or should we rely on smaller third parties?’” Rodriguez said. “We have a lot of technologists on our team, so everyone was bringing their own spin to things, like ‘how do we approach accountability from the angles of UX/UI design.’”
“It was great.”
Besides the plethora of perspectives, Rodriguez most appreciated the camaraderie of the team — citing random, casual Slack moments and [project lead] Wilson’s haircut decisions as highlights of the teams’ endless conversations. After the fellowship, both Wilson and Rodriguez joined the Paragon executive team as Policy and Finance Directors respectively.
For the long-term future, Rodriguez hopes to someday get a PhD studying the intersection between civil disobedience and political economics from the angle of global governance — a niche field they summarize as understanding the internet’s role in the age of mass media and disinformation.
As for now, they’ve signed up for more courses on AI safety and have advice to share with both prospective applicants and the incoming summer cohort.
“I’d tell fellows to bring their interests and identities into their work — because that’s what makes it worth it,” Rodriguez said. “I've made lifelong connections here and learned so much about the ins and outs of how city government works and the structure of it — all while grappling with some of the biggest issues of today's day and age. It’s rewarding to be charting what feels like the forefront of a movement.”
Paragon Fun Fact (PFF): Sofia is trying to rank every coffee shop and cafe in Manhattan.