About Promising Trouble

Promising Trouble is a social enterprise whose work puts community power at the heart of technology and innovation.

Our work centres equity and social justice, with a network of clients and associates distributed internationally. Our mission is to make sure more people have the chance to shape, inform and create new technologies. We work across a range of topics, including Digital Exclusion, Health and Wellbeing; Community Development and Inclusion; Equity, Accountability, and Purpose-driven relationship building models.

Our clients include Nominet, Impact on Urban Health, and Power to Change.

Our sister organisation, Careful Industries, was started by Rachel Coldicutt in 2019. Together, we have grown to be a team of nine and a network of freelance associates. We bring a combination of multidisciplinary research, horizon scanning, communications expertise, strong networks, and practical technology experience.

At Careful Industries we research the social impact of technologies and technology policies; forecast possible futures; and design and deliver technology policy, governance and training solutions.

The Team.

Dominique Barron

Location: London

Black person with glasses and an afro, wearing a black shirt with white polka dots and looking directly at the camera slightly smiling

Dominique Barron is a Design Researcher at Careful Industries, where their work examines the social impacts of technology. Dominique's research places particular focus on the intersections of race, gender, and class through a critical, decolonial analysis, and she is interested in topics related to policing, migration, and Black political organising across the African diaspora.

Prior to joining Careful Industries, Dominique worked in project management, programme development, political education, and graphic design for various not-for-profit organisations and community-based projects in both the UK and U.S.

Dominique's work has appeared in Hyperallergic and 20/20, an exhibition curated by Aida Wilde and Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski in 2022, and she designed the publication Human Endeavour: a creative finding aid to the Women of Colour Index (Goldsmiths Press 2015) in collaboration with the artists-archivists group X Marks the Spot.

Dominique holds a Master of Arts in Visual Sociology with Distinction from Goldsmiths, University of London. She also studied at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan, and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Government, with minors in Japanese and Studio Art from Georgetown University, in the U.S.

Dominique is our Research Lead.

Rachael Burton

Location: Bristol

Headshot of Rachael Burton looking straight at camera with a large smile and side-parted shoulder length hair on a white casual shirt, against a grey background

Rachael Burton is a producer with experience across the creative, cultural and technology sectors. At Careful Trouble she produces research projects that explore and anticipate the social impacts of technology, technology policies and forecast possible futures.

Alongside her work at Careful Trouble, Rachael is a freelance producer and Action Learning facilitator. Rachael is currently working with M/Others Who Make. She is a Trustee for Attitude is Everything.

Before joining Careful Trouble, Rachael produced large-scale multi-partnership research projects at Watershed. Most recently these included Playable City and University of Bristol research project Connecting Through Culture As We Age.

Rachael is our Producer.

Rachel Coldicutt

Location: London

Headshot of Rachel Coldicutt with a chin-length bob & short bangs, wearing a colourful necklace on a navy blue dress against a grey background, slightly smiling.

Rachel Coldicutt is an expert on the social impact of new and emerging technologies, and executive director of research consultancy Careful Industries and its sister social enterprise Promising Trouble.

She was previously founding CEO of responsible technology think tank Doteveryone where she led influential and ground-breaking research into how technology is changing society and developed practical tools for responsible innovation. Prior to that, she spent almost 20 years working at the cutting edge of new technology for companies including the BBC, Microsoft, BT, and Channel 4, and was a pioneer in the digital art world. Rachel is an advisor, board member and trustee for a number of companies and charities and a member of the Ofcom Content Board. In 2019, Rachel was awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours for services for the digital society.

She is currently writing a book about careful innovation.

Rachel is the founder and Executive Director.

Anna Hamilos

Location: London

Headshot of Anna Hamilos, a British-Greek Cypriot woman slightly smiling wearing a bright pink jumper against a grey background.

Anna Hamilos is a passionate, empathic individual with an ability to lead agile innovation programmes that result in positive social impact. Relationship and partnership building has been at the heart of Anna's career from her work at the Greater London Authority, London 2012, CABE and Nesta. In 2021 Anna was selected for the prestigious Clore Experienced Leadership course, and before joining Promising Trouble, Anna was a Senior Associate with Collaborate CIC. Prior to that Anna was the Head of Y Lab (Y Lab is Nesta's public service innovation lab for Wales). Anna led the design and delivery of major programmes - Infuse a WEFO funded initiative for the Cardiff Capital Region, the EdTech Innovation Programme, a joint venture with the Department for Education in addition to the DCMS funded Future News Pilot Fund (FNPF).

Anna is the Director of Culture and Practice.