CTO Fellowship S2: Building Trust, Strengthening Communities

In July 2026, Amazon Web Services' Now Go Build series released an episode of its CTO Fellowship's second season. It follows three technologists who use AI to serve vulnerable communities, including Our Wave co-founder and CTO Brendan Michaelsen. The fellows then debate whether AI can be trusted when the stakes are high.

Privacy First for Survivors

Brendan explains that Our Wave grew out of the #MeToo movement. It gives survivors a safe, encrypted place to share their stories, away from the exposure of social media. AI has helped the team answer survivors' questions faster and at scale, he says. He stresses that the product has been "privacy first" from day one. Survivor data passes through several layers of redaction to protect the people who trust Our Wave.

Earning Trust in AI Answers

In the group discussion, Brendan notes that many survivors already turn to general chatbots for resources. Those answers are sometimes accurate, sometimes invented, and never verified. Our Wave's view, he explains, is that AI responses must be collected, benchmarked, and checked by humans. The results should then be shared openly with the public.

Another fellow compares AI to a hammer that can build or break, depending on who holds it. The group agrees that the answer is to blend human-centered care, which is hard to scale, with automation.

Two Fellow Builders

The episode also features the leader of a hunger relief nonprofit using AI to understand the root causes of food insecurity. It also profiles a mobile clinic in southeastern Nigeria that added a free doctor call line for rural patients. The episode closes on a shared lesson: each fellow listens to their community before writing code, because trust comes from meeting real needs.

Watch the full episode on AWS: Now Go Build.