在 Ila Kumar 思考如何构建技术, 之前，她问了一个不同的问题: 技术将在什么背景下运行, 以及谁需要参与设计?
Before Ila Kumar thinks about how to build technology, she asks a different question: What is the context that technology will operate in, and who needs to be involved in the design?
对于 Kumar, 来说，有意义的创新 不是工程师或设计师单独工作的结果。相反,她相信，当那些从技术中受益的人从一开始就帮助创造它时，最好的创新就会出现。
For Kumar, meaningful innovation doesn’t result from engineers or designers working in isolation. Instead, she believes the best innovations emerge when the people who stand to benefit from a technology help create it from the very beginning.
这一理念指导了她在终身幼儿园小组, 的研究，在那里她与童年时期经历过创伤, 的年轻人，特别是那些参与儿童福利系统, 的年轻人一起工作，重新构想技术如何支持治愈, 连接, 和独立。
That philosophy has guided her research in the Lifelong Kindergarten group, where she works alongside young people who have experienced trauma during childhood, particularly those involved in the child welfare system, to reimagine how technology can support healing, connection, and independence.
“I 确实认为基于社区的设计是我们制造能够满足社区 需求, 的技术的唯一方法，但也解决了他们的障碍, 他们的文化, 他们的担忧,” Kumar 说。 “It的 这是我们能够打造真正可持续且具有积极影响力的技术的唯一途径。”
“I really think that community-based design is the only way that we can make technology that accounts for communities needs, but also their barriers, their cultures, their concerns,” Kumar says. “It的 the only way that we can make really sustainable and positively impactful technology.”
今天, Kumar 正准备进入她博士学位的第六年，也是最后一年。但当她于 2021, 第一次到达麻省理工学院时，她设想只停留足够长的时间来完成硕士学位的。然而, Kumar 很快就爱上了她的工作，并决定留在麻省理工学院攻读博士学位。
Today, Kumar is preparing to enter the sixth and final year of her PhD. But when she first arrived at MIT in 2021, she envisioned staying only long enough to complete a master的 degree. However, Kumar quickly fell in love with her work and decided to stay at MIT and pursue her doctorate.
在读研究生之前, Kumar 在费城, 长大，就读于宾夕法尼亚大学,，并参与了技术与心理健康或心理学研究交叉领域的多个项目。
Before graduate school, Kumar grew up in Philadelphia, attended the University of Pennsylvania, and worked on several projects at the intersection of technology and mental health or psychology research.
通过这些经历, Kumar 开始质疑她正在帮助开发的技术是否能产生她所希望的持续影响。她说，“I 完成了许多‘ 技术良好的项目,’”。 “我’没有看到我所做的事情产生了长期影响。”
Through those experiences, Kumar began to question whether the technology she was helping to develop was having the sustained impact she hoped for. “I had done a number of projects that were ‘tech for good,’” she says. “And I wasn’t seeing that what I was doing had a long-term impact.”
, Kumar 并没有完全放弃技术，而是开始重新思考它是如何创造的。 “如果我们以基于社区的方式设计技术并真正考虑整体福祉,”她说, “也许我们实际上可以创造出帮助人们的东西。”
Rather than walking away from technology altogether, Kumar began to rethink how it was created. “If we design technology in community-based ways and really think about holistic well-being,” she says, “maybe we can actually create things that help people.”
这一信念最终成为她博士研究, 的基础，在她的博士, 学习过程中，Kumar 逐渐从简单地倾听社区的声音转向与社区一起建设。
That conviction eventually became the foundation of her doctoral research, and over the course of her PhD, Kumar has increasingly moved from simply listening to communities to building with them.
关于技术的公开对话通常会提出一个选择: 拥抱它或拒绝它。 Kumar 认为 没那么简单。
Public conversations about technology often present a choice: Embrace it or reject it. Kumar believes that it的 not that simple.
Kumar 认为，如果这些工具经过精心设计并嵌入到年轻人已经得到关怀和支持的系统中，数字平台就有可能损害年轻人的 的心理健康和发展,，并帮助年轻人处理情绪, 加强人际关系, 并实践健康的脆弱性—。
Kumar sees the way digital platforms have the potential to both harm young people的 mental health and development, and help young people process emotions, strengthen relationships, and practice healthy vulnerability — if those tools are designed thoughtfully and embedded in the systems where young people already receive care and support.
她的大部分作品都在探索这到底会是什么样子。
Much of her work explores exactly what that could look like.
Kumar 与 Stepping Forward LA 合作开展了, 项目，并根据使用该应用程序, 的年轻人的意见，用视觉拼贴系统取代了以文本为主的沟通方式，以帮助受创伤和儿童福利系统影响的年轻人表达可能难以用语言表达的情感,，并建立彼此之间的联系感。
One project Kumar worked on, in partnership with Stepping Forward LA and with the input of the young people who would use the app, replaces text-heavy communication with a visual collage system to help young people impacted by trauma and the child welfare system to express emotions that may be difficult to put into words, and to build a sense of connectedness with one another.
在一个正在进行的项目中，, Kumar 正在与司法资源研究所合作设计一款移动应用程序，支持青少年在治疗计划过程中发挥积极作用，并帮助他们实现在治疗办公室之外设定的目标。该小组正在与临床医生和青少年合作设计和评估该系统。
In an ongoing project, Kumar is collaborating with the Justice Resource Institute to design a mobile app that supports youth in playing an active role in their treatment-planning process and helps them work toward the goals they set outside of the therapy office. The group is working with clinicians and youth to design and evaluate the system.
“我们不会坐在麻省理工学院设计工具，然后把它们扔给人们,” Kumar 说。 “我们’正在一起设计它。我们实际上需要有与在房间里提供护理相关的人员。”
“We are not sitting at MIT designing tools and just throwing them at people,” Kumar says. “We’re designing it together. We need to actually have the folks that are relevant to providing the care in the room.”
通过库马尔与 Foster America 共同主持的为期 10 个月的技术领导圈，这个想法变得更加清晰。该计划汇集了具有寄养生活经验的人们和技术专家，共同设想数字技术如何填补儿童福利系统中年轻人护理方面的空白。
That idea became even clearer to Kumar through a 10-month technology leadership circle she co-facilitated with Foster America. The program brought together people with lived experience of foster care and technology experts to envision how digital technologies could fill gaps in care for young people in the child welfare system.
该项目凸显了不仅要设计以青年 需求为中心的工具的重要性，还要考虑将社会服务纳入创新过程的方式。
This project surfaced the importance of not just designing tools that center youths needs but also considering the ways in which social services need to be brought into the innovation process.
这些想法还引导 Kumar 进行了涉及技术 最新前沿: 人工智能之一的探索。当她意识到经历过创伤的年轻人已经开始利用人工智能来做出重要的人生决定,后，她开始提出问题，尽管许多护理人员并没有意识到这一点。
Those ideas have also led Kumar to explorations that involve one of technology的 newest frontiers: artificial intelligence. She began asking questions after she realized that young people who had experienced trauma had already been turning to AI to make critical life decisions, even as many caregivers were not aware of it.
因此, Kumar 越来越注重支持护理人员与年轻人谈论人工智能。她与为受创伤影响或参与儿童福利系统的年轻人服务的组织一起主持了培训研讨会。
As a result, Kumar has increasingly focused on supporting care providers in talking with young people about AI. She has led training workshops with organizations that serve young people impacted by trauma or involved in the child welfare system.
Kumar 对倡导年轻人的热情远远超出了实验室。在攻读博士学位期间，她还志愿担任法院指定的特别辩护人,，与儿童福利系统中的一名年轻人进行一对一的工作。
Kumar的 passion for advocating for young people extends far beyond the lab. She also volunteers as a court-appointed special advocate, working one-on-one with a young person in the child welfare system while pursuing her PhD.
这个角色加深了她对年轻人面临的挑战的理解，也加深了她对持久改变取决于人际关系的信念。
The role has deepened both her understanding of the challenges young people face and her belief that lasting change depends on relationships.
她最有意义的一些时刻是在直接与年轻人一起工作时发生的。去年夏天,，她, 与实验室的另一名研究生, 一起，在为期六周的项目中指导了两名具有寄养经验的实习生，该项目融合了技术, 创造力, 和个人成长。
Some of her most meaningful moments have come while working directly with young people. Last summer, she, alongside another graduate student in her lab, mentored two interns with foster care experience during a six-week program that blended technology, creativity, and personal growth.
“这感觉像是一种真正的特权,” Kumar 说。 “即使六周也不够。”
“It felt like a real privilege,” Kumar says. “Even the six weeks was not enough.”
这些关系也启发了库马尔讨论麻省理工学院如何进行基于社区的研究。
Those relationships have also inspired Kumar to address how community-based research is conducted at MIT.
认识到许多对社区参与工作感兴趣的学生常常感到孤立,，她与 Priscilla King Gray 公共服务中心合作，共同教授一门关于社区驱动创新的课程。后来，她建立了一个每两周一次的实践社区，将麻省理工学院和哈佛大学的研究人员联系起来，这些研究人员正在探索与社区一起进行研究的好处和挑战，而不是简单地研究它们。
Recognizing that many students interested in community-engaged work often feel isolated, she collaborated with the Priscilla King Gray Public Service Center to co-teach a course on community-driven innovation. She later established a biweekly community of practice connecting researchers across MIT and Harvard University who are navigating the benefits and challenges of conducting research alongside communities rather than simply studying them.
在研究之外, Kumar 喜欢观鸟, 与朋友, 一起烹饪和创作图形插图— 创造性的追求, 很像她的研究, 奖励耐心, 观察, 和细心的关注。
Outside of research, Kumar enjoys birdwatching, cooking with friends, and creating graphic illustrations — creative pursuits that, much like her research, reward patience, observation, and careful attention.
随着技术越来越融入年轻人的 的生活, Kumar 希望创新能够超越实验室，进入其所服务的社区。
As technology becomes increasingly woven into young people的 lives, Kumar hopes innovation will move beyond the lab and into the communities it is meant to serve.
“真正有影响力的技术的未来,” Kumar 说, “ 是研究人员与社区一起而不是为他们做出决策的时候。”
“The future of actually impactful technologies,” Kumar says, “is when researchers are making decisions with communities instead of for them.”