Stanford student brings tech tools to the fight for global accountability

Silicon Valley might be home to some of the world’s richest companies, but it also hosts some of the most innovative nonprofits and social impact organizations. Many of these groups are focused on using the tech expertise in the Bay Area for social good, and in 2019, four Stanford undergrads spent a quarter of the year helping them realize that goal. 

This is the third of four Stanford student stories which Endless supports through the Cardinal Quarter fellows program. 

Accountability is a buzzword in tech these days, usually applied to global companies who create it. But one Stanford student, Tyler Vo, class of 2021, spent part of 2019 ensuring that those looking to hold major corporations accountable also have access to some of the world’s best technology tools.  

Tyler worked with the Accountability Counsel in San Francisco, an organization that provides legal assistance to marginalized communities affected by projects funded by large financial institutions. Tyler worked closely with the research team to build tools that advocates within the organization and without could use to strengthen their efforts. Tyler called his time as a software engineering intern there an “amazing opportunity” to use his computer science expertise.

“As a member of the research team, I worked with incredibly talented engineers,” he says, “building out tools for lawyers to use internally to acquire robust evidence when filing these complaints.” Over the course of this fellowship, Tyler was able to work on several large scale web applications , including a resource-sharing platform, a data scraper, and a satellite tracking tool.

The resource-sharing platform, that will be used within the International Advocates’ Working Group, is a lightweight website built to share resources, such as data sets and tools. This platform is designed to be a Github of resources for researchers and lawyers to utilize and consolidate relevant information. The second project, the refinement of data scrapers, allowed him to work on building web scrapers that acquired relevant and useful data to be added to the Accountability Counsel database. But the most impactful product for Tyler was the satellite tracking tool, which uses Google Earth engine API to acquire satellite imagery for lawyers to use for real-time tracking.

“This tool would be used to acquire satellite imagery data overtime, which is an incredibly powerful tool for lawyers to utilize when filing a complaint,” Tyler says. “It not only provides robust data for the research team at the Accountability Counsel to use, but it also allows the organization to continuously track an area of land for the organization to keep financial institutions accountable for their agreements.” All these tools will help the legal team optimize their workflow and acquire more robust and useful evidence in their case filings.

Tyler says the fellowship also opened up doors to mentorships that not only helped him build skills and experience, but challenged his outlook on his future.

“Under the mentorship of Samer Araabi, I was inspired to re-evaluate my own career aspirations. He shared with me his story of making the difficult decision to work in the nonprofit sector despite other attractive financial options.” Tyler says Samer’s story is one of passion and fulfillment; his decisiveness and contentment with his career choices has inspired Tyler to re-evaluate what he values in his own life. 

“I am motivated to make a difference in my community and to live a fulfilling life by solving problems for social good. This realization could not have been made if it was not for the inspiring words of Samer.” From both the work and the people, Tyler says he learned a lot about himself personally and professionally during his fellowship, including invaluable lessons about teamwork. 

“By working with such an amazingly talented group of students, I was forced to outsource some problem-solving to my peers.” Learning to rely on his team was an incredibly humbling learning experience, Tyler says, but he also learned important skills about managing himself. “With the independence that I had, I learned a great amount about personal time management.” He also learned new technical skills that include python, Django, and front-end web development. 

“Learning alongside such talented mentors,” Tyler says, “I was also able to learn about social impact work, what it means to do good, and about the greater accountability community.” 

Accountability Counsel is a legal, policy, and community advocacy organization for communities around the world experiencing human rights and environmental abuses by using accountability offices (as alternative to courts) to hold institutions and governments accountable to global standards.