Ame Elliott
Senior Fellow * she/her
Ame (sounds like “Amy”) Elliott is a designer, researcher, and strategist working at the intersection of people x data x environments. A coach for the Prototype Fund since 2017, she enjoys helping teams prioritize and move items onto a “To Don’t” List and focus their limited resources in high-impact ways. After many years of working in Silicon Valley, she believes that some elements of Big Tech (e.g. UX patterns) can be directly applied to public-interest tech projects. Some aspects (e.g. surveillance capitalism) are so toxic they must be rejected. And there is a middle area of practices that need to be adapted and re-imagined to fit the needs of values-driven projects.
Ame is interested in system change and capacity building for transformation. Her particular passions are fighting climate change, urban design/cities, and imagining the future of work. Ame’s research explores how to include stakeholders with different backgrounds in discussion of responsible AI and data governance and making technical concepts accessible to a broad audience.
Her spoken German is awkward, but she can read German text and give feedback on German interfaces.