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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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These Doctors Are Using AI to Screen for Breast Cancer

Will Knight

January 27, 2021 |

Wired |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Massachusetts

With many women skipping routine mammograms due to COVID-19 restrictions, doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital are using an artificial intelligence algorithm to identify those at risk for developing breast cancer. The approach has proved successful in multiple instances, with those flagged by the algorithm three times as likely to develop cancer. “What the AI tools are doing is they're extracting information that my eye and my brain can't,” a doctor using the tool explained.

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An Algorithm Is Helping a Community Detect Lead Pipes

Sidney Fussell

January 14, 2021 |

Wired |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Flint, Michigan

BlueConduit, an analytics startup, applies statistical models to identify neighborhoods and households that might have lead pipes. The models include dozens of factors, such as the age of the home and proximity of other homes where lead has been found, to help predict likely locations of lead pipes and create a ranking by likelihood that cities can use to prioritize which pipes to examine. In Flint, MI, about 70% of the homes identified using the models had lead pipes, compared to about 15% of homes where excavations did not use the model. The company is working with organizations in dozens of other cities.

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Hack Your Future, Belgium's coding school for refugees

Lorenzo Di Stasi

December 24, 2020 |

The Local |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: Belgium

Hack your Future Belgium offers free IT training to migrants to help fill the country’s worker shortage in that sector and help newcomers gain skills and find work. Most participants are asylum seekers or refugees and all of the teachers are volunteers. Classes for the eight-month program are in English and held on weekends to be inclusive of those with other obligations. No previous IT knowledge or personal equipment is required, but selection is based on motivation and language skills. Students receive substantial coaching and support and about 85% have found an internship, job, or went back to school.

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The Newest Weapon Against Covid-19: AI That Speed-Reads Faxes

Tom Simonite

December 22, 2020 |

Wired |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Contra Costa County, California

Researchers from Stanford University have developed a software that uses machine-learning algorithms to identify and flag urgent faxes about COVID-19 cases. While the project doesn't have complete accuracy, it has helped overwhelmed and overburdened health care workers at the health department in Contra Costa County, California work more efficiently.

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A Clever Strategy to Distribute Covid Aid—With Satellite Data

Tom Simonite

December 17, 2020 |

Wired |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Togo

To quickly distribute money to poverty-stricken areas in Togo during the coronavirus pandemic, the country's government turned to mobile cash payments. Working with a nonprofit and UC Berkeley’s Center for Effective Global Action, Togo established a system of mobile payments to reach 30,000 of Togo’s poorest people who were identified via satellite imagery and image analysis algorithms.

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Can an Algorithm Prevent Suicide?

Benedict Carey

November 23, 2020 |

The New York Times |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

Veterans Affairs' Reach Vet program uses an algorithm weighing 61 factors to flag veterans deemed at highest risk of suicide. While its results have not been shown to affect the suicide rate, it has more than doubled high-risk veterans' uses of V.A. services and been associated with a lower overall mortality rate. Built on an analysis of thousands of previous suicides in the V.A.'s system, Reach Vet assesses scores of facts from medical records, including some that are not obvious to humans trying to spot problems. Doctors then intervene and ensure the veteran has a suicide safety plan in place.

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These Algorithms Could Bring an End to the World's Deadliest Killer

Apoorva Mandavilli

November 20, 2020 |

The New York Times |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: India, Nandurbar

An app that uses A.I. to scans lung X-rays is helping two hospitals in rural and remote parts of India to identify cases of tuberculosis that they otherwise would have been likely to misdiagnose. Medical professionals caution that the app is not a replacement for a clinician's diagnosis but say when used in conjunction with a clinical assessment, the interpretation of a chest X-ray is likely to be more accurate.

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How to prevent drowning

Claire Bates

September 22, 2020 |

BBC |

Podcast |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: Israel

Three projects show how effective national strategies can be to reduce accidental drownings, which kill an estimated 320,000 people worldwide each year. In Israel, artificial intelligence software processes video feeds from beaches to alert lifeguards to emergencies. The three African nations sharing Lake Victoria have invested in inexpensive weather forecasting gear and public information services to alert people who fish or traverse the lake. And Bangladesh's systems of daycare and swimming lessons are saving the lives of previously unsupervised children at highest risk of drowning.

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