For Ila Kumar, the first question in technology design is not what can be built. It is who the technology is for, what context it will enter, and who needs to help shape it from the beginning.
That approach guides her work in the Lifelong Kindergarten group at MIT, where she studies how technology can support healing, connection, and independence for young people who have experienced trauma, particularly those involved in the child welfare system.
Designing with people, not around them
Kumar’s work begins from a clear premise: tools meant to help communities should be created with those communities. In her view, meaningful innovation does not come from engineers or designers working separately from the people affected by the problems they hope to solve.
She describes community-based design as essential because it can account for needs, barriers, cultures, and concerns that may not be visible from the outside. As she puts it, “I really think that community-based design is the only way that we can make technology that accounts for communities’ needs, but also their barriers, their cultures, their concerns.”
That belief has shaped the direction of her doctoral research. Kumar arrived at MIT in 2021 expecting to complete a master’s degree, but she decided to stay for a PhD after becoming deeply engaged in the work. She is now preparing to enter the sixth and final year of her PhD.
Her path into this area started earlier. Kumar grew up in Philadelphia, attended the University of Pennsylvania, and worked on projects that connected technology with mental health or psychology research. Those experiences led her to question whether “tech for good” projects were producing the long-term impact she hoped to see.
Why technology for youth care needs context
Public discussions about technology often frame the issue as a simple choice between accepting it or rejecting it. Kumar’s work treats that as too narrow, especially when the users are young people navigating trauma, care systems, relationships, and personal development.
Digital platforms can create risks for young people’s mental health and development. They can also help young people process emotions, deepen relationships, and practice healthy vulnerability. The difference, in Kumar’s work, depends on how carefully the tools are designed and whether they fit into the care and support systems young people already use.
This is why her research does not treat technology as a stand-alone fix. A mobile app, a communication tool, or an AI-related resource can only be useful if it reflects the realities of the people using it. For youth impacted by trauma and the child welfare system, that means design choices must be made with attention to trust, expression, care relationships, and the limits of text-heavy communication.
One project, developed in partnership with Stepping Forward LA and with input from the young people who would use the app, replaces text-heavy interaction with a visual collage system. The goal is to help young people impacted by trauma and the child welfare system express emotions that may be hard to put into words and build a stronger sense of connection with one another.
Building tools inside care systems
Kumar is also working with the Justice Resource Institute on an ongoing mobile app project. The app is being designed to help youth take an active role in their treatment-planning process and continue working toward their goals outside the therapy office.
The project is being designed and evaluated with clinicians and youth. That detail matters because the tool is not being developed for a generic user in a generic setting. It is being shaped around the people involved in care and the situations in which support actually happens.
“We are not sitting at MIT designing tools and just throwing them at people,” Kumar says. “We’re designing it together. We need to actually have the folks that are relevant to providing the care in the room.”
That principle also appeared in a 10-month technology leadership circle Kumar co-facilitated with Foster America. The program brought together people with lived experience of foster care and technology experts to imagine how digital technologies could address gaps in care for young people in the child welfare system.
The work reinforced a broader lesson: youth-centered design is not only about listening to young people. It also requires attention to the social services around them. For technology to support care, the innovation process has to include the systems and people that provide that care.
AI adds urgency to the conversation
Kumar’s research has increasingly moved into artificial intelligence because young people who have experienced trauma are already using AI to make critical life decisions. According to the source article, many caregivers were not aware this was happening.
That gap has led Kumar to focus on helping care providers talk with young people about AI. She has led training workshops with organizations that serve young people impacted by trauma or involved in the child welfare system.
The issue is not presented as a blanket rejection of AI. Instead, Kumar’s work points to the need for informed conversations between young people and the adults supporting them. If young people are already turning to AI, then care providers need ways to understand that use, discuss it, and support better decision-making around it.
Relationships shape the research
Kumar’s commitment to young people extends beyond the lab. She volunteers as a court-appointed special advocate, working one-on-one with a young person in the child welfare system while pursuing her PhD.
That role has strengthened her understanding of the challenges young people face and her belief that relationships are central to lasting change. Her direct work with young people has also shaped how she thinks about research, mentorship, and community engagement.
Last summer, Kumar and another graduate student in her lab mentored two interns with foster care experience during a six-week program that combined technology, creativity, and personal growth. “It felt like a real privilege,” Kumar says. “Even the six weeks was not enough.”
She has also worked to support community-based research at MIT itself. With the Priscilla King Gray Public Service Center, she co-taught a course on community-driven innovation. She later created a biweekly community of practice linking researchers across MIT and Harvard University who are conducting research alongside communities.
As technology becomes more deeply woven into young people’s lives, Kumar’s work argues for a practical shift: innovation should move beyond the lab and into the communities it is meant to serve. For youth technology, trauma support, child welfare, treatment planning, and AI conversations, the central design question remains the same: who is in the room when the tool is created?