Tricia Wang is a tech ethnographer obsessed with designing equity into systems. Her belief that technology must serve humanity is the thread across all of her work, which focuses on Web3, inclusive design, personal data literacy, internet access, personhood, and anonymity. She is the co-founder of Sudden Compass, a consulting firm working with Fortune 500 companies and tech startups alike, as well as CRADL (Crypto Research and Design Lab).
She is a frequent conference keynoter and a pioneer in bringing the human voice to data science, through what she calls “Thick Data.” As a leading authority on digital transformation, building data teams, customer experience, and economy of personal data, her work has been featured in Quartz, The New Yorker, Buzzfeed, Techcrunch, The Atlantic, Al Jazeera, Slate, Wired, The Guardian, and Fast Company.
Her tech career started shortly after the government passed the 1996 Telecommunications Act, where she joined a telecom provider selling some of the first texting and mobile phone services. During the rise of social networks in Web 2.0, her work focused on broadband access and digital literacy in China, South America, and the U.S. She wrote her dissertation about the impact of Chinese social media on geopolitics, led multi-million dollar funded nonprofits that supported youth-made media and local technology centers in NYC, and supported companies through digital transformation and ethical and human-centered uses of big data.
Now, she advocates for Web 3.0 to deliver social impact through crypto and blockchain enabled technologies and advises startups and nonprofits that are working at the intersection of community and technology. During the pandemic, she co-founded Last Mile, a volunteer-led organization that supported the communities most impacted by COVID-19, through mask delivery and a public health campaign.
She is a Fellow at Geo Tech Atlantic Council, an affiliate at Data & Society, and has served as a member of the World Economic Forum Global Futures Data Council. She was also a Fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, a Fulbright Fellow, and National Science Foundation Fellow.