My LeadNext Fellowship Application
sharing the secret sauce
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sharing the secret sauce ~
The LeadNext Fellowship is a fellowship for young (age 18-25) leaders, focused on making a positive impact in the world. The focus area is bringing together 10 young leaders from the US and 10 young leaders from Asia.
I loved it. It was a lot of fun to get to know some awesome people over 6 months online, and one week in person in beautiful San Francisco and Monterey. Some awesome new friends included: Enkhuun Byambadorj, founder of Breathe Mongolia and Max Han, founder of YUFE.
Max, Michaela, Enkhuun, Marcello, and me at our formal dinner
Without further ado, releasing my application here, typos and all:
One Paragraph Biography: Written in the third person, summarize your background, professional (or educational) experience, expertise, and accomplishments. Please note that this biography may be used in publications or external announcements that provide information on LeadNext Fellowship participants. * 150
Shannon Hong (she/her) is a Chinese American writer and technologist based in San Francisco, California. As the founder of Agapai, a technology ethics consultancy, Shannon works with organizations like Creative Commons to understand AI’s impact and to design AI policy in service of a more just and joyful society. Previously as a Product Manager at Scale AI, a company that provides labeled training data for machine learning for companies like OpenAI and Meta, she led technical teams to create high-quality datasets. She serves as the strategic planning committee chair on the board of CounterPulse, an experimental performing arts nonprofit that incubates the creation of socially relevant, community-based art. At the University of California, Berkeley, she studied Development Studies and Data Science and researched climate economics for the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. Find her editing the Asian American lit column APIA-nionated in Anomalous Press or teaching yoga at CorePower Yoga.
Question 1: The LeadNext program promotes cross-cultural dialogue, trust, and cooperation among the next generation of global leaders with a commitment to effecting positive change. Fellows will strengthen leadership skills and gain in-depth knowledge of critical challenges facing Asia and the globe. What do you hope to get out of participating in the program? (max 250 words) *
I spoke to Alec Stimac, a LeadNext participant from Davidson college; he believed that LeadNext fellows were the leaders who would address the challenges of the next century together. With LeadNext, I hope to meet leaders who share my vision of an equitable and just future and set the stage for future collaboration.
I hope to facilitate substantive global conversations, and I believe LeadNext is the place to build my skills in cross-cultural dialogue and facilitation. While consulting for Creative Commons, I invited creators whose livelihoods were affected by AI to an annual summit in Mexico City and asked them to highlight key policy actions that would address their concerns. While intended to be global, the audience comprised of 50 creators, who were mostly American, European, and Mexican. When I consider the effects of AI, I know that my limited worldview is not enough, and I know the conversation must be global. LeadNext will provide the platform for growing my network and perspectives.
LeadNext will expose me to think beyond an America-centric approach to technology and policy. In the realm of AI, global laws regulating technology differ significantly: Japanese law explicitly permits AI developers to use copyrighted materials for commercial purposes, while UK’s AI law only allows for research purposes. I hope to gain in-depth context of challenges facing Asia and the world and lead in creating technology that brings people together and is equitably distributed and accessed.
Question 2: What skills and life experiences will you contribute to the cohort? (max 250 words) *
From my work as an AI ethics consultant, data scientist, and a yoga teacher, I will contribute a contextual and global understanding of key technology challenges ahead, a data-informed approach to decision making, and an in-person yoga class.
With new technologies like AI, it can be hard to parse hype from reality, especially when major companies in the field like OpenAI benefit financially from heightened press attention. I worked as a Product Manager in AI companies for three years, and now work in AI ethics. I can speak to AI from a technical, ethical, and policy-making perspective. The ethical development of AI is a global equity and access issue, and I hope to inform and share my stewardship of AI in this space with leaders in other fields.
I would like to contribute my experience in data science as a lens to improve social justice and decision making. It can be difficult to interpret data, when the creation, analysis, and dissemination of data all carry bias. While I was a climate economics researcher at Berkeley, I presented to my peers on the politics of data itself, and I am excited to share that know-how with the cohort.
Finally, as a yoga teacher, I studied mindfulness and movement, and I would be happy to do an in-person yoga class for everyone!
Question 3: How do you imagine LeadNext will help you advance in your leadership, career, or life? How are you hoping to grow as a leader and how can the fellowship help you achieve these goals? (max 250 words) *
As a Chinese American leader, I have a vested interest in steering the future towards peace. I hope LeadNext will equip me with additional skills, tools, and frameworks to understand the policy ecosystem of collaboration between nations.
I remember the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, cheering for both Chinese and American teams and being told I had to choose one country. It was a strange feeling — that the identities I already embodied could not coexist. In technology policy now, this intransigence and protectionism understandably pervades. While I acknowledge the challenges in cooperation and creating mutual benefit, I hope to be the type of leader that can bridge generational, political, and technological divides. I think the fellowship will provide critical knowledge, cross-cultural understanding, and mentorship to achieve this goal.
In my career, my goal is to build technology in service of a more just and joyful society. I have built products in AI and designed AI policy towards that goal; in the future, I hope to spend the next three to five years on developing AI policy globally, focused on collaboration between research centers in Asia, Europe, and the US. I believe in the public good that can be created from open-access technology, and I hope LeadNext will expose me to leaders that I will work with to achieve this vision.
Question 4: What are you most passionate about? (max 250 words) *
I am a humanist as much as a technologist; this intersection has allowed me to explore the convergence of traditional knowledge, individual data, and global histories. My passion is in sharing these stories.
In February 2023, I led a two-week media engagement trip through India on behalf of Roots Studio, a social enterprise that works with indigenous artists around the world to digitize their artwork and return profits to the communities. I found myself deeply in awe of the traditional knowledge shared through art, and the market accessibility provided by an innovative and tech-focused business model. Working with the indigenous communities, we started a clothing brand called Rurban, emphasizing the stories behind the artwork. I built the operations and technology of this project, creating a sustainable brand that shared a perspective that most people learned about for the first time.
As a writer, I explore personal and societal myths of becoming. Susan Ito, one of my excellent teachers, instructed me to “write what you can’t know,” allowing fiction to fill the gaps, a powerful act of myth-making and meaning-making. I honor the stories of my ancestry and write worlds that let go of shame and welcome communion. In my work as an editor of Apianionated, an Asian American column, I hold space for the diverse and talented community of writers to share their histories migration, trauma, and family.
I hope to create spaces for people to share their stories and to explore the ways the stories we tell shape our reality.
Question 5: Describe in greater detail your current work and/or area of interest. Tell us further about the issues you are addressing or hope to address, why you believe this work is important, and how it can affect change. Feel free to briefly provide some background context or basic information (as you see fit) to describe the problem this work addresses. (max 250 words) *
In my career, I have strived to lead the development of ethical, transformative technology, from managing the manual labor of data labeling that powers AI to deciding AI governance policies.
As a Product Manager at Scale AI, a machine-learning company, I created and implemented Scale AI’s ethical employment policies for the 100,000 gig-based tech workers, mostly students in Kenya and the Philippines who label data. Workers suffered from inconsistent employment and payments that were below local living wage standards, but I believed that fair employment practices and profitability were not mutually exclusive. I assembled a team of seven engineers, designers, and operators to build new ethical-employment systems, including specialization teams that guaranteed work for top performers and pay protocols based on the local living wage. Our work resulted in both increased wages and improved worker retention.
As an AI ethics consultant for Creative Commons (CC), a nonprofit that licenses creative work for public use, I helped the organization understand AI’s impact on creative work with a cutting-edge idea: “alignment assemblies” that address strategic AI challenges through democratic community input. In our gatherings, attended by 50 artists and technologists who licensed their work through CC, we debated the position CC should take to challenges like the use creative work in AI training without the artist’s authorization. I then collaborated with Creative Commons’ CEO to set organizational policy on AI training.
I hope my work will shape technology in service of a more just and joyful society.
Question 6: What does global citizenship mean to you? (max 250 words) *
Global citizenship is finding belonging in everyone, everywhere and offering belonging to everyone, everywhere.
First, let me acknowledge where I am from. I am American, and my heritage is Chinese; I am from the San Francisco Bay Area, and my family is from the small coastal town of Dongtai, China; I studied at Berkeley, and I’ve worked in Paris, New York, Philadelphia, and Beijing. These ties to place are inevitably inextricable from who I am and what I know.
Global citizenship does not ask us to abandon our ties, but instead to expand their range to a shared humanity and shared belonging. As a student at Berkeley, I founded a student-led class called “Tea-CAL,” which explored Chinese tea and its history; I brought together a group of forty diverse students to drink tea together every Thursday. In the class, I hoped the emphasize the connectedness of global experiences — how British demand for Chinese tea catalyzed their mercantile expansion and how the modern supply chain of tea show such an interconnected world.
There was a magic created from this group of diverse global students sharing tea, learning, and acknowledging the global coincidence of all of us (and our tea) being in the same room together. We felt a responsibility to cultivate understanding and steward each other’s experiences. In this mutual recognition, we transcended the place we were from and belonged to each other, everyone, and everywhere.
Question 7: LeadNext builds a cross-cultural cohort. How would you approach this collaboration? What personal actions can you take to ensure all voices are heard? (max 200 words) *
I approach LeadNext with a deep sense of Wonder, and I believe Wonder starts with asking good and deep questions and listening sincerely.
As an undergraduate, I started a podcast with three friends called People’s Park Podcast; we interviewed homeless individuals on the streets of Berkeley with the intent of sharing their stories and promoting mutual understanding. I spoke with a man named Paul from Minnesota, who left home at thirteen and has been writing poetry ever since; Paul told us about his sense of alienation from the world around him and his desire to see more. I am deeply grateful for the trust that Paul gave us in stewarding his story.
I’ve taken my excitement for connection with me throughout my life. I have had the great privilege of professional fluency in French and Chinese, and beginner fluency in Spanish and Arabic; this language learning has taken me to extraordinary conversations, which I hope to continue having at LeadNext. For the program, I will inform myself, ask questions that create cross-cultural understanding, and approach new perspectives with wonder and curiosity. I hope to encourage exploration of new ideas and facilitate mutual understanding.
Question 8: What is your collaboration style? (Max 150 words) *
Good collaboration is about alignment and execution. While at Scale AI, I was assigned to be the product manager on a project with four engineers, all of whom were working on disparate pieces. My first step was to reserve a day-long re-alignment meeting. I asked everyone to write down the current state of the project was; we found gaps in each other’s understandings and corrected them. Next, the team and I identified overarching and accomplishable goals that for the next quarter; this aligned purposed allowed us to be more granular on the steps to accomplish the goals. I nudged the team towards specific and actionable steps and set measurable outcomes and timelines. Finally, we came up with a team name and a team logo, bringing in a sense of unity. We met weekly until the project finished and resolved issues as they appeared, with communication and alignment.
Okay, that’s all! Some notes from me:
The LeadNext team is looking for sparkle & good vibes. You should show that you think big thoughts about the world, and that you’re optimistic about where the world will go.
Collaboration is a huge part of LeadNext — show a desire to make friends and be a part of a team.
This application seems to be intentionally long. You have to be persistent enough to fill the whole thing out — if you take this part seriously and honestly, then you have a good chance of getting in!
