The 2025 Technology Leadership Circle builds on the momentum of the 2024 Fostering Futures Forum, an event co-hosted with Foster America at the MIT Media Lab in May 2024. This forum provided an unprecedented platform for people who have experienced foster care to brainstorm and propose solutions aimed at improving the experiences of children and youth impacted by child protective services.
From January to October 2025, 15 lived experts from across the country worked to take these transformative concepts further, supported by MIT Media Lab technologists and Foster America faculty and staff to bring the innovations proposed at the forum closer to fruition. In addition to virtual programming, the fellowship culminated in an in-person convening where fellows finalized the prototypes and shared their progress with a diverse audience of changemakers and innovators.