The Operator-Scholar

I run a nonprofit. Mission & Machine is where I think in public about technology and AI from that seat, for leaders who make these decisions with limited budgets and with people, often families in hard circumstances, on the other end of the work.

 

From the operator’s chair

I lead a community nonprofit, and I came to that work after more than a decade spent among community organizations, universities, and the technology industry. Running an organization teaches a particular discipline: every new tool arrives in a place where staff, policies, and obligations already exist, and its value depends on how well it fits them. That vantage point shapes everything on this site.

 

The path here

My career has moved between community organizations, a public policy school, and the technology industry. I spent six years at the Institute for Native Pacific Education and Culture (INPEACE), first as Vice President of Programs, then as Chief Operating Officer, and later as Senior Researcher. There I managed a portfolio of programs across four island communities, led community needs assessments, and helped secure about $8 million in grant funding between 2020 and 2024. I also worked at Microsoft as a Business Program Manager in M365 Core, running professional development and learning programs for thousands of employees, and before that I led mission engagement at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy and Governance. Moving between these places gave me a working view of how technology is made and how it is actually used.

 

The scholar’s habit

My training is in history. I hold a Bachelor of Arts in History with high honors from the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo and a Master of Studies in Greek and/or Roman History from the University of Oxford, where I studied at St. John’s College. I also hold a certificate in Native American Political Leadership from the George Washington University. History turns out to be good preparation for thinking about AI, because it trains a reader to ask whom a new technology serves and which of today’s confident claims will age badly. That habit explains why my essays read the evidence closely, say where it is thin, and cite every source in full.

 

The builder’s habit

I have also been obsessed with technology for nearly twenty years. The obsession took hold in undergraduate and graduate school, where reading a thousand pages a week made it nearly impossible to remember and recall everything I needed. So I built systems to capture and keep it: Evernote, then DEVONthink, then note-taking tools like Obsidian and Logseq, with a long stretch inside the Zettelkasten method. Along the way I learned Markdown and Python to find better ways to store and organize what I was reading. Those years taught me to see technology as a way of solving problems, and that is the habit I bring to every tool I write about here.

 

Why Mission & Machine

Much of what is written about AI for nonprofits comes from vendors, consultants, and researchers, and each has something to offer. I write from a different seat, the one that has to live with the decision after the pilot ends. The site holds research-based essays that name their sources, shorter field notes from my own practice, and consulting for leaders who want help applying either. My aim is modest and practical: to help mission-driven organizations use these tools where they serve the mission, and to decline them, without embarrassment, where they do not.

 

Mission & Machine is an independent project. The views here are my own and do not represent any organization I lead, work for, or serve.