How can I start my career in technologies?

Career questions: how to fix a part of the world?

• I want to work on projects that will change the world for the better. I think I know what kind of work I want to do. I'm not sure how to get there. Thoughts/ideas? (Warning: LONG) Pre TL;DR: I want to be a spatial/social/systems consultant. I'd like to solve urban/international social/spatial/material problems through a myriad of strategies: design/construction, software and technology, community and politics, policy. How do I get there? Background: (I usually don't like to talk about myself in a CV-esque way, so I apologize profusely if this comes across as less-than-humble! I promise I'm not like this outside the relative anonymity of this internet question.) I'm currently an almost-architect, in the process of getting my architecture license. I have a masters in architecture, and have undergrad degrees in art history and computer science. This means that I've read enough philosophy, critical theory to be able to think large-scale about the cultural underpinnings of many different forms of expression and media. I also love to code, do data visualization, and can decently wrangle large chunks of data and make a half-decent visual and statistical argument out of them - My usual set of tools/frameworks is Python / Meteor / Vim on a *nix environment. As an architect, I teach architecture to grad students at an Ivy as an adjunct professor, taking on more responsibilities as time goes by and I love it. I have a small practice (basically myself), and am currently working on a >$1M renovation for a non-profit, and am coordinating with licensed architects, contractors and construction crews to get it done. I love a good friendly intellectual debate, and am kind of a nerd at heart. I like systems thinking, philosophy of science, actor-network theory. I like knowing how complex systems come together and interact. I love solo travel and am fine with 'roughing it'. I think I'd love business in the form of social entrepreneurship and am totally fascinated by the mechanics of economics and finance, but am usually put off by capitalism-as-we-know-it and think that we really need radical-yet-viable reformulations of how an economic system could operate -- basic income, market socialism, limited-profit companies, worker-owned co-ops, etc. I'm not interested in earning gobs of money, and I'm not especially interested in a career for any prestige or social capital. I'd rather earn $30k a year and have freedom to find and do the work I think is important, than get paid $300k and be told what work should be understood as important. I want to "get things done", and not debate or discuss or write papers that aren't read by anyone; unless, of course, if the work ends up influencing a lot of other people that then do good work. To me, ultimately, "getting things done" means that a general degree of bodily human suffering is reduced - through education, housing, bodily/mental pain, economic opportunities, social safety nets, etc. I want to use my concrete skills (software, architecture, project management), and don't want to become someone who speaks in a lot of meetings in the abstract without knowing anything about the 'field'. In my opinions, all problems come from concrete material/social/cultural/bodily issues, and ultimately need to be solved at that level. (So, for example: I don't think that development finance would really work for me). What I want to do: I want to be a spatial/social/systems consultant. I'd like to solve urban/international social/spatial/material problems through a myriad of strategies: design/construction, software and technology, community and politics, policy. I'd like to work with a client and enter a process of research, co-design, and execution, in which we'd able to shed light on what their actual problems are, and figure out a short and long-term solution for fixing those issues -- with space and technology. Here's an ideal scenario: A town in $DEVELOPING_COUNTRY has received aid/government funding/etc to build a school. My team visits the town and talks to many different denizens about what they need. Slowly, it becomes clear the town next door already has a school to whom people would rather commute, and the real issue is the lack of reliable transportation. There's an existing jitney service, which is unreliable for many reasons - the bus stop is inconvenient, perceived as dark and thus dangerous to the women in the town, and there's a chicken-and-egg problem with less ridership => fewer schedules => less ridership. Working with the client, the team goes through a few design phases with community input, and comes up with a scheme: a better bus stop with signage, and a better bus schedule with SMS-driven alerts. The signage is easy to understand by the less-literate. The SMS schedule works because there is widespread SMS usage (as is often the case in developing countries), and it is built on inexpensive and robust off-the-shelf technologies (e.g. Ushahidi) by software developers in a nearby city. The bus stop is designed with local materials and construction processes in mind, built by local construction workers and companies. From the start, we've made sure that we're working with local elders and the local politicians, so when the project is presented to the community, they're enthusiastic. We work with a local team and share/give full ownership, so that the project is generated by those who live there, not perceived as an air-dropped solution from abroad. The project is approved, and construction is done by a local team. After it's built, the much longer, more important process of getting the community to use it starts by an existing community -- again, because the initial design took it into consideration. The actual process of the project comes out at about half of the budget allocated for the initial school; the other half is routed towards the nearby town's school. This could happen in India or NYC, in different forms, but with similar processes - research, analysis, co-design, execution, programming, etc. The example I gave is of a town, but ideally it would be in an urban area, since I believe that the future of the world is happening in making cities better. How to get there (?) I'd like to be doing this kind of work in five years, let's say. (I'm in my late 20s.) How would I get there? What skill sets should I learn? Are additional degrees helpful at all - an MBA, or a masters/doctorate in international development, or real-estate-oriented urban planning programs? Should I focus more on my technical/computer side, studying/implementing existing robust real-world technological solutions from an implementation standpoint? Or is real-world practice tantamount, and should I start working -- perhaps for an architecture or construction firm specializing in such work, or for a non-profit or NGO? Any ideas/thoughts are more than welcome, and if you do similar work and you're based in NYC, I'd love to get you a coffee and pick your brain!

• Answer:

  Apologies in advance: I am in a bit of a rush but didn't want to leave this question entirely unanswered, and I just know I'll forget to come back to it later. I skimmed. I am sorry if I missed details. It sounds like you want to look into urban planning, especially urban design, with a healthy understanding of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Technical skills are becoming ever more desirable in the field, and it is hard to enter the field (without quite a bit of experience) with anything less than a master's degree. That said, what degree, if any, you go with would depend on what part of these hypothetical projects you want to be working on. Are you looking to be a designer? Project manager? Legal advisor? I'm thinking you want something straddling project manager and designer. You may need to start on the design side doing mostly technical work, then branch out from there either within the organization you find work at or by doing consulting work, which seems like it's becoming common especially for international planning. But that's not really my niche, so my knowledge of that particular side of planning is rather minimal. I hope the above was somewhat helpful. Feel free to message me.