© Wilneida 2025
wilneida

Dr. Wilneida Negrón

I believe everyone deserves dignity, freedom, and a real sense of belonging. For more than twenty years, I’ve stood alongside workers, immigrants, and everyday people, helping them push back on unfair systems and build something better.

My focus is on:

  • Work and the economy: making sure people can earn a decent living, have quality jobs, and aren’t pushed around by unfair technology or bad bosses.

  • Public safety:  keeping people safe without turning our neighborhoods into surveillance zones, and making sure safety never comes at the cost of our rights or dignity.

  • Technology and AI: asking who technology really serves, and fighting for AI and other tools to be built and used in ways that protect workers, communities, and our democracy.

  • Media, news, and information: supporting trusted local news so people know what’s really happening where they live, and building healthier, more diverse sources of information.

    I often describe myself as a community builder — someone who connects people who don’t usually sit at the same table and helps them design new solutions when the old ones stop working. Over the years, that’s meant being a social entrepreneur, researcher, strategist, investor, and artist. No matter the role, my goal is the same: to strengthen the foundations of our communities and economy, and to expand what’s possible for everyday people.

My first book, “The Human Interface: How Workers Can Step Into the Tech Conversation—and Lead It”, is coming out in February 2026

Below are the Specific areas i Work on:

  • Behavioral economics/behavioral science
  • Policy (labor, public safety & defense, tech, and AI)
  • Hybrid intelligence (HI)
  • Collective intelligence (CI)
  • Responsible Innovation
  • Inclusive and ethical AI
  • Impact and social finance
  • Social entrepreneurship and social ventures
  • Product R&D and product management
  • Systems change/field-building
  • Journalism/News/Media
  • Multi-stakeholder approaches/coalition-building
  • Social movements
  • Bridging across differences
  • Public safety and law enforcement
  • Multi-racial approaches
  • International Relations (East Asia, Latin America, and Africa)
  • Financial modeling/forecasting
  • Public Administration

My work has been featured at

The Guardian NPR Financial Times Washington Post Stanford Social Innovation Review Newsweek Protocol Fast Company Daily Maverick WiredBBC 4Inc.comThe Register

Personal story/Bio

I was born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, to a Dominican mother and a Puerto Rican father. Since the day I was able to speak, I have lovingly frustrated my parents and siblings with endless back-to-back questions on everything from “what is the moon made of?”; “what happens to the cows when it rains? (we lived in the small rural farming community of Palenque); “what happens if I put red chanoti seeds in my ears? (I grew up surrounded by wild A. precatorius plants and made a few trips to the emergency room with seeds in my ears). As I got older, the questions became more complicated and ranged from everything from religion to economics and politics in the US, Puerto Rico, and around the world. To this day, it's my love and curiosity for the world and the people in it that drives my purpose and work.

I began my professional career as a therapist in juvenile detention facilities, jails, and probation departments. I also spent time providing therapy and crisis counseling to marginalized communities in food pantries and churches throughout New York City. Interested in the utility of technology to change the deeply structural issues I encountered at work, I taught myself how to code and began working with human rights and poverty lawyers on developing platforms and apps to increase access to justice. Realizing that technology interacts with society and the economy in unpredictable ways, I began a new phase of my career studying and investigating the socio-economic impacts of emerging technologies (which I wrote about in my 2018 Fast Company's World Changing Ideas article.) Since then, I've studied the impact of technology globally (e.g. Taiwan, Chile, Peru, and Indonesia) and in the US, on topics ranging from democracy/politics, social movements, criminal justice, news/media, labor markets, and the future of work. I also worked at Ford Foundation, where I led cross-team conversations and field-building strategies around responsible innovation.

I am currently the Director of Worker Innovation and Impact at Coworker, Co-founder of the Startups & Society Initiative (SSI) as well as the Founder of the Future of Workers Initiative, and the New Progressives. As part of SSI, I co-founded the Responsible Innovation Founders Summit — an annual event that has attracted 700+ global tech leaders including founders backed by Y-Combinator, General Catalyst, and Sequoia, and published the Responsible Innovation Primer for Founders — a distillation of 100+ interviews of influential tech and civil society leaders about building tech companies responsibly. I am currently boot-strapping my new ventures, Grey Americana, a multi-media company and social community.

After navigating the challenges of palliative and hospice care for my mother, I became an advocate for strengthening holistic, equitable end-of-life care; supporting families and ensuring that every life is honored with dignity.

My current Advisory roles Are:

I have a PhD In Comparative Politics, with a specialization in emerging technologies in East Asia And Latin America, a Masters In Public Administration, and a M.Phil. in International And Global Affairs. Im also a life-long Fellow at the Data & Society Research Institute, Atlantic Institute, and ThirdHouse. I am fluent in Spanish and Mandarin and have limited working proficiency in Hebrew. I invest in startups that actively collaborate with the communities, workers, and stakeholders affected by their technologies. By fostering partnerships rooted in mutual respect and shared goals, these companies drive innovation that is ethically sound, socially responsible, and sustainably impactful. My long term vision is that this collaborative approach enhances market success while ensuring that financial returns align with meaningful positive societal change.

Recent News & Press: