Cafecito Tech community gathered for a group selfie
AI 4 Humanity Lab

AI FOR SOCIAL GOOD

Technology that
serves humanity.

We find real problems in our communities and bring the technology, the talent and the incentives to the same table. Then we build.

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1 · THE MOMENT

We are living through one of those moments history books get written about.

More than a billion people now use ChatGPT every week. No technology on record has reached people this fast. Not the personal computer. Not the internet.

Every generation inherits problems it didn't create. Few get a tool big enough to do something about them.

We just did.

2 · THE PROBLEM

And the most powerful technology of our time is not being pointed at human well-being.

Community members taking part in a conversation at Cafecito Tech

Two gaps are opening at the same time.

The first is readiness.
AI will bring enormous opportunity and enormous disruption. Most communities don't yet have the access, the skills or the context to find their way through it.

The second is where AI gets put to work.
It moves fastest where the capital is, and it answers to whoever deploys it. More clicks. More ads. Fewer people on the payroll. The problems of a community rarely make that list.

This year, four companies will spend more than $700 billion on AI infrastructure. The largest foundation coalition on AI pledged $500 million, over five years. And nine in ten foundations give the nonprofits they fund no support to use AI.

Nobody voted for that. It's just where things go when no one asks a different question.

The technology isn't the problem.
The incentives are.

We think that's a choice. And we can choose differently.

Community members talking together after a Cafecito Tech gathering

3 · HOW WE DO IT

The pieces already exist. They just haven't met.

First, we talk.

We sit down with communities and social entrepreneurs, in plain language, until the real problem is on the table and people can judge AI for themselves.

Then we put the pieces in the same place.

The problem, the talent and the incentives. When doing good is also a way to make a living, people stay with the problem.

Then we run experiments.

One problem. One small tool. Built with the people who will use it, alongside the social entrepreneurs doing the work.

When AI isn't the answer, we say so.

CAFECITO TECH

Our monthly community gathering to talk about AI.

Cafecito Tech is where we sit down with community leaders in Charlotte to talk about the problems our community faces, and the different ways we can use AI to work on them.

Link FoundationA project of Link Foundation →
Community members listening at Cafecito TechA speaker sharing ideas with the Cafecito Tech communityCommunity members in conversation at Cafecito TechCoffee and conversation at a Cafecito Tech gathering

4 · WHERE WE ARE ·

We're in the discovery phase, and building our first three community projects.

This is a project in progress. We're still giving the idea its shape. The question underneath hasn't changed: how do we use technology so it serves people?

PROUT Research Institute

Working with cooperatives in Western North Carolina

IN BUILD

AMURT Haiti

A women's cooperative growing moringa in Haiti. We're working out how AI can help them

IN DISCOVERY

AI assistants for nonprofits

Working with small Hispanic nonprofits in North Carolina to help them reach underserved communities

IN BUILD
The full room at a Cafecito Tech community event

5 · WHAT WE BELIEVE

We don't believe in technology that dehumanizes.

  • We believe technology should serve life.
  • We believe it should amplify people, not replace them.
  • We believe it should strengthen communities and build opportunity.
  • We believe in technology that builds, not technology that divides.
  • We believe technology should be guided by wisdom.
  • And we believe progress is only progress when it actually serves human beings.

AI can be the best thing or the worst thing. We're here to tip it toward the best.

6 · THE TABLE IS OPEN

The world doesn't change by itself. Come build with us.

Leave your email and we'll send you what we learn, each case study as it happens and the ways to join the project.