A New Generation of Founders and Investors Push for a New Responsible Innovation Model

NEW YORK, November 8, 2022 (Newswire.com) - Responsible Innovation Labs and Startups & Society Initiative today announced their partnership on the Responsible Innovation Founders Summit. The summit will feature founders and investors scaling world-class companies with responsible innovation at their core. The goal is to convene hundreds of the best early-stage founders, investors, and other leaders building the next generation of technology companies. The groups share a mission to provide best practices and hands-on resources to build and scale companies responsibly.

The summit will feature founders backed by leading venture capital firms and accelerators such as YC Combinator, GV, SVAngel, General Catalyst, Tiger Global, Bessemer, and others, including Toyin Ajayi, MD (CEO, Cityblock), Josh Reeves (CEO, Gusto), Rachel Romer (CEO, Guild Education) - with the full list below.

"We know first-hand that the startup innovation ecosystem is one of the most powerful forces shaping our world," said Responsible Innovation Labs Founder Jon Zieger. "It's time to elevate responsible innovation to a core problem for the whole tech ecosystem - founders, investors, employees, consumers, policymakers - to work on together."

Earlier in October, Startups & Society initiative released the "State of Responsible Innovation and Startups" report, with lessons and insights from founders, investors, and public interest tech advocates on launching and scaling more responsible and ethical tech companies.

"We can help ensure that the next generation of technology companies brings us closer to a more just and sustainable future," said Startups & Society Initiative, co-leads Dr. Wilneida Negrón and Lyel Resner. "There are emerging best practices for crafting technology and building technology companies in ways that make it more likely to have positive societal outcomes — and just as importantly, less likely to do harm."

About Responsible Innovation Labs

Responsible Innovation Labs builds practical resources for ambitious technology companies to operate and scale responsibly from day one to teams of 500+. We launched our first-of-its-kind coalition with a number of the largest venture firms (Bessemer, Khosla, General Catalyst, Thrive, Cowboy Ventures, Lux, etc.), LPs and successful technology companies (Gusto, Guild, Warby Parker, etc.) as members and a world-class group of advisors. With deep collaboration and iteration, we develop resources that our global industry can coalesce around and implement to treat societal responsibility as a core part of building and scaling great companies. To learn more, please visit our Charter.

About Startups & Society Initiative

We are a group of founders, investors, and researchers who believe responsible tech is both a business and societal imperative. Our mission is to accelerate the adoption of more world-positive, ethical, and socially responsible company-building practices in tech. We have interviewed 100+ influential VC-backed founders, startup executives, investors, and Tech & Society thought leaders, to collect best practices and concrete tactics for building more ethical and responsible technology companies. We have released more than a dozen case studies and intend to continue to make these resources freely available to the broader tech community.

Source: Startups & Society Initiative