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Young People Are Digitally Rebuilding Tulsa's Black Wall Street

Kristi Eaton

May 26, 2021 |

Next City |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Urban Coders Guild provides STEM education opportunities to underrepresented communities and is working with local students to build websites for the businesses destroyed during the Tulsa Race Massacre. While none of the businesses operate today, the program builds awareness of the massacre while also teaching students coding skills to build websites. The course is also considered a “prep” course for the future because it teaches students how to interact with others as well as listen to and accept feedback from others. The group partnered with Tulsa Community College students to create the content and logos.

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How Social Media Fact-Checking Limits, But Can't Eliminate, Online Disinformation

William Newlin Fabian Munive Lora Yordanova Mack Brown

May 20, 2021 |

Grady Newsource |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States

Social media companies are using artificial intelligence to help identify misinformation. Once identified, human fact checkers will verify the posts. Facebook uses 60 partnered fact-checking organizations as well as SimSearchNet++ image-recognition system that can identify image manipulation and slight changes to misinformation. Hundreds of millions of posts are flagged every year and those that are identified as “false” or “altered” are labeled with warnings and distribution is reduced.

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Jirogasy's solar computers power offgrid schools in Madagascar

Chuma Asuzu

May 03, 2021 |

Hardware Things |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Madagascar, Antananarivo

Jirogasy developed solar-powered computers and, maximizing a partnership with an education NGO, has helped expand computer access among rural schools without access to a grid. Using internationally-funded grants, they created the Jirodesk II, a Windows 10 powered PC that can be powered by the grid or charged via a solar panel. The computers are monitored remotely, which allows users to quickly get tech support, and the company monitors usage in Watt-hours for its “pay-per-use-until-you own model,” where users pay per number of Watt-hours used, and after a certain number of Watt-hours the machine is paid off.

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Algorithmic Redlining Is Real. Why Not Algorithmic Greenlining?

Vinhcent Le

March 31, 2021 |

Governing |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Detroit, Michigan

Urban planning algorithms have contributed to the racial wealth gap by prioritizing funding for communities that don’t need extra funding, but which would create a higher return on investment. The algorithm bias negatively impacts neighborhoods that are typically Black and poor. Detroit’s water and sewage utilities were disconnected as a result of an algorithm, highlighting the “fundamental pitfall of algorithms, as well as the risks that they can be misused or produce unintended consequences.”

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Schools Look To Algorithms To Flag Students Who May Harm Themselves

Alisa Roth

March 03, 2021 |

NPR |

Radio |

3-5 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Mason City, Iowa

Companies like Gaggle are typically used by school districts to track student online behavior, but now they are tracking something else—self-harm. Machine learning flags words that might indicate a student is thinking of hurting themselves. “It gives us insight into what the student's thinking.” Gaggle identified 64,000 student references to suicide and self-harm. The company claims to have saved 927 student lives. In Mason City, districts receive alerts when a student’s search is flagged. “Nicole Pfirman says there have been a few times where she believes an alert saved a kid's life.”

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An AI is training counselors to deal with teens in crisis

Karen Hao Abby Ohlheiser

February 26, 2021 |

MIT Technology Review |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States

Crisis hotlines and chat services are turning to technologies such as AI tools to help assist an oft-overburdened system. At The Trevor Project, AI is used as both a risk assessment tool and as a role-play simulator to train volunteer counselors to correspond with callers. Users of these tools stress that they are not a replacement for counselors, but rather a tool to help the humans in these roles.

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How some frustrated COVID-19 vaccine hunters are trying to fix a broken system

Danny Westneat

February 17, 2021 |

The Seattle Times |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Washington

Retired software engineers in Washington have joined together and created a website that aggregates all available COVID vaccine appointments by using "screen scrapers." Although the site doesn't allow the visitor to book an appointment, it has routinely averaged "10,000 visits a day from anxious shot hunters."

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Treetop sensors help Indonesia eavesdrop on forests to cut logging

Harry Jacques

February 11, 2021 |

Thomson Reuters Foundation |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Indonesia, Solok, West Sumatra

In Indonesia, there are 27 “Guardian” sensors eavesdropping on forests as a way to monitor them for cases of illegal logging. The organization Rainforest Connection uses artificial intelligence to analyze the audio from these sensors and if the system picks up the sound of a chainsaw, it sends a mobile alert to community patrols in the area. This technology can be scaled for other parts of the world and habitats. “We're basically building a nervous system for the natural world," says Topher White, founder of the nonprofit.

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How a Young Activist Is Helping Pope Francis Battle Climate Change

David Owen

February 08, 2021 |

The New Yorker |

Text |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: Holy See (Vatican City State), Rome

Molly Burhans, a young cartographer and environmentalist, is using GIS technology to map out the Catholic Church’s global property holdings to encourage them to improve the environmental impact on the lands they own. Burhans’ organization called GoodLands has been working with various parishes and dioceses to help Church leaders — including Pope Francis — understand their vast landholdings. While finances and COVID-19 have impacted her progress, Burhans’ maps have been used for other purposes like mapping Catholic radio stations in Africa and tracking the whereabouts of priests accused of sexual abuse.

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'Changing the game': Black in Technology works to support Black students in computer science

Greta Travaglia Jennifer Tran

February 02, 2021 |

The Daily Tar Heel |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United Arab Emirates, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Black in Technology was created to support Black students in STEM at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The organization has planned numerous events for its members related to mentorship, recruitment, and community building on campus in the STEM and technology industry, and successfully helped them receive internships and job opportunities, while raising the visibility of Black and Latinx students in technology fields.

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