Meet the Vegan Hacktivists: Steven Rouk

Let's get to know Steven Rouk, the newest addition to the team! This January, Steven joined Vegan Hacktivists as our Director of AI Programs. He's the Founder and Executive Director of Connect For Animals and co-creator and instructor of Amplify for Animals, a 12-week AI training series for animal advocates.

With a background in data engineering, analytics, and product development, Steven has a knack for AI and systems thinking – which is all about looking at the big picture rather than individual parts in isolation – to accelerate progress for animals and improve long-term well-being for all.

Read on to discover where Steven gets his dopamine kick from (outside of his tech-y and philosophical endeavors!), what he thinks we need to do to achieve long-term change for animals, and what advice he'd give to someone looking to get involved in activism.

Hint: Steven enjoys hikes!

Hey, Steven! Tell us a bit about your background. What do you do outside of Vegan Hacktivists?

Hey! I've been the executive director of the organization Connect For Animals for the last four years, and over the last year I've also been helping animal advocacy organizations with AI training and implementation work. Previously, I did data and research work at Mercy for Animals, and I have a background in math, data engineering, and data analysis.

I was studying AI back before ChatGPT came out, and my AI claim to fame is that I emailed OpenAI back in 2016 asking if they had an email newsletter.

Wow, 2016! It’s almost hard to imagine thinking of AI back in 2016. Did they respond?

They replied and said no, just follow them on Twitter.

You could say, Steven peaked (pun intended) in his AI famehood during that conversation. Pictured: The view from one of Steven’s 2025 hikes

How did you come up with Connect For Animals? Between CFA and your AI work, these two programs feel quite different. Or maybe they’re not so different after all?

Both CFA and AI work come from trying to answer the question "How will we truly move the needle for animals?" We need to operate at scale, and I think tech can help with that.

CFA is about using tech to help people discover advocacy opportunities at scale, and AI is about scaling up our operations and impact with the same resources. I built CFA because it seemed like the highest leverage use of my energy back in 2022 – the question on my mind was: “I'm just 1 person, but what if I could help 1,000s of people get more involved in high-impact advocacy work?”

I'm investing heavily in AI now because of the same reason – it all comes down to impact and skills fit. I'm also a big fan of alternative proteins (although I don't work in that space), because I think if we can get market forces working for us with cheaper/tastier/better products, then that could shift things at a huge scale very quickly.

Occasionally, Steven likes to dabble in creating AI-generated images – here’s one of them!

You've been in the movement for a decade now. What have you observed about its direction over that time? Any blind spots or major wins worth noting?

I think it's great that more of the movement is now thinking more globally and more about all animals – chickens, fish, animals in non-Western countries, wild animals. I think that we could still do a better job of thinking about how real change happens in the world. The outcome that we want is reduced suffering and more well-being for animals, but how do we get there? That answer isn't obvious.

We should keep studying how things really change in the world, not only in the short-term but in the long-term. We need people, we need power, and we need to understand longer term effects and macro forces like global economic systems.

So how did you learn about Vegan Hacktivists, and how did you make the decision to join?

I've known about Vegan Hacktivists for many years and have always been a huge fan. One of the first projects that I heard about was the 5 Minutes 5 Vegans Twitter responder app. I remember laying on my couch in Boulder, Colorado, replying to people on Twitter about veganism and thinking how cool it was that there was this whole community of developers and techies building projects to help animals. All these years later, it's great to be part of the team helping organizations with AI.

Steven on one of his favorite hiking trips of 2025

What is your role at VH, and what are you working on right now?

I just started with VH this year, and my role is helping organizations with AI. We're working on building AI agents and automations for organizations, so that they can do even more to help animals with the same resources. We have some other exciting AI training and implementation work in the pipeline. My main goal is to help our movement use AI to help as many animals as possible.

Can you give us a hint about what's coming next?

We're thinking a lot about how to help organizations learn about and implement AI strategically as much as possible. There are so many opportunities here, and that is both overwhelming and exciting. I'm really excited to think about scaling up our AI capabilities in this space as much as possible, as quickly as possible.

An AI-generated image created by Steven

Which book(s) are you always (or currently) recommending to people, and why?

Cloud Atlas is one of my favorite novels of all time (I love every book by David Mitchell), and after I read the book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, I couldn't stop telling people about it for the next year. Also a huge fan of the book 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.

What are some apps or tools you couldn't live without day-to-day?

Codex and Chrome. Most of my life these days is spent in AI coding terminals (Codex) and browser tabs (Chrome). Wispr Flow for voice-to-text is a huge win as well, and I’m becoming more and more of an OpenClaw fan (we’ll see if it sticks).

Steven’s AI-gen Pokémon Trading Card (2016 internet culture nostalgia, anyone?)

How long have you been vegan, and what made you go vegan?

For me, I think the core has always been about reducing suffering and just creating a better world. I was hit pretty hard with some video footage of animal suffering and realized how my choices played into that pretty directly. I went vegan (~2013, I think?) to remove my direct contribution to the system that created products out of animals, partially to remove demand and partially out of solidarity and as personal transformation. Since then, I've been working on tackling the larger system, because I know that my personal demand (or lack thereof) is just a small piece of the system.

What is one piece of advice you'd give to someone looking to get involved in activism?

Dream big, but start somewhere. I did a lot of things that were "small activism", meaning they probably had very little impact or were focused on small numbers of people or animals. But those things kept me inspired and engaged, and they helped keep the fire burning over the years to work harder and smarter for animals.

I hope that my activism today is more impactful than it was 5-10 years ago, and I hope in 5-10 years it will be even more impactful still. Remember the chickens and fishes of the world, and think globally (your country isn't the only one with animals in need), and remember the wild animals of the world too.

Steven is a big fan of picturesque landscapes – we definitely see the appeal!

What's your go-to dish to make?

I have this one chana masala recipe that I've made for years and really love, and recently there’s this German cabbage stew that’s exquisitely flavored (the toasted caraway seeds really make it). If I'm feeling lazy, I’ll make “janky soup” which is basically just random veggies and noodles and bouillon thrown in a bowl with boiling water. I’ve also been known to eat entire baguettes dipped in olive oil as meals (big fan of bread and olive oil).

Fill-in-the-blanks:

If I could only choose one programming language to code in for the rest of my life, it would be Python.

My favorite famous vegan person is Peter Singer (one of my favorites, at least).

The book The Longest Struggle by Norm Phelps changed my life.

I could never get sick of sweeping landscapes and distant horizons.

All animals are great, but my favorite is the squirrel.

One of Steven's highlights is spotting squirrels on his daily walks in the park 🥹