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How Californians are resorting to crowdsourcing to get their Covid-19 vaccine

Kelsey Piper

January 15, 2021 |

Vox |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, California

Residents of California are working together to crowdsource where COVID-19 vaccinations are being offered, and who they're being offered to. While the state has failed to implement a transparent dissemination strategy, 70 volunteers joined forces to create a spreadsheet that keeps track of what clinics are offering the shot and what parameters must be met to receive it. Users have reported that they were able to schedule an appointment because of this effort.

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How Open Source Experts Identified the US Capitol Rioters

Rowan Philp

January 15, 2021 |

Global Investigative Journalism Network |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

Digital sleuths preserved a trove of evidence from the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by acting quickly to "scrape" and archive videos, images, and other data from social media. Investigative journalists from Bellingcat, the Toronto-based Citizen Lab, and Czech data archive Intelligence X were among those who responded before rioters, worried about criminal charges, began deleting posts. Crowdsourcing calls for assistance also produced a robust response from people anxious to aid law enforcement or debunk post-riot disinformation.

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One, two, tree: how AI helped find millions of trees in the Sahara

Amy Fleming

January 15, 2021 |

The Guardian |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: Algeria

Tree mapping helps researchers understand deforestation and climate change, however the technologies used often miss trees that aren’t clustered. Researchers, in collaboration with NASA, used high-resolution satellite images, previously only available to commercial entities, to find a surprisingly large number of trees in the Sahara Desert. Using AI deep learning and one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers at the University of Illinois, they identified more than 1.8 billion trees, manually marking nearly 90,000 so the computer could “learn” which shapes and shadows indicated the presence of trees.

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On its 20th birthday, Wikipedia might be the safest place online

Heather Kelly

January 15, 2021 |

The Washington Post |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

Wikipedia’s large number of volunteer editors document history in real time, while making sure different viewpoints are considered and avoiding misinformation. While other social media sites are hesitant to label unreliable sources and misinformation, Wikipedia clearly labels controversial and unproven topics and deploys many tools to avoid false information. A single page per topic makes monitoring easier, pages can be locked from new edits, and people who frequently make false edits can be banned. While it doesn’t claim to be a reliable source, editors do follow policies meant to keep out anything untrue.

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How 'emancipatory sex-ed' can help prevent rape

Sarah Treleaven

January 14, 2021 |

Maclean's Magazine |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Canada, Windsor, Ontario

Flip the Script is a course that teaches rape prevention without the usual blame-the-victim undertones. While teaching college-age women to assess and avoid risks, it places the responsibility squarely on the people who rape, not on women's behavior. The approach, also called Enhanced Assess, Acknowledge, Act Sexual Assault Resistance Program (EAAA) is sex-positive, encouraging women to think about their own pleasure as much as guarding against victimization. It has been shown to reduce rape and lower women's feelings of self-blame.

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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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Pandemic Boosts Effort to Improve Inmates' Welfare

Evidence Chenjerai

January 14, 2021 |

Global Press Journal |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: Zimbabwe

As part of the coronavirus lockdown in Zimbabwe, people were banned from visiting prisons, but a mobile app has allowed relatives to send supplies to those who are incarcerated via their cellphone. This newest initiative in the succession to reform the prison system uses mobile money to send supplemental goods from the prison’s tuck shop to relatives who are incarcerated.

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Cooperation and Chocolate: The Story of One Colombian Community's Quest for Peace

Agostino Petroni

January 14, 2021 |

Yes! Magazine |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Colombia, San José de Apartadó

Plagued by an internal war, a group of villages in Colombia created a “Peace Community,” declaring themselves neutral in the conflict and focusing their efforts on cultivating the 150 hectares of cacao trees in collectively owned plots to sell to global markets. While villagers still experience violence, the earnings from their crops go into a collective pot and the community decides together how to distribute the funds. “To them, this is actually a very profound act of transcending traditional capitalist society models and building something together,” says an anthropologist who has studied the community.

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The Seneca Nation Is Building Food Sovereignty, One Bison at a Time

Gabriel Pietrorazio

January 14, 2021 |

Civil Eats |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Collins, New York

Gakwi:yo:h Farms aims to increase the Seneca Nation’s food security and sovereignty by engaging in traditional agricultural practices. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the farm has been able to continue its work to establish a bison herd, tap more trees for maple syrup, and increase its various livestock operations. They still face challenges due to a lack of a food-processing plant, but they’ve been able to expand their land to keep food close to their community.

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How Bison Are Saving America's Lost Prairie

Joe Hanson Michael Werner

January 14, 2021 |

PBS |

Video |

5-15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Oklahoma

Tall grass prairie used to span across 13 states in North America. However, after settlers arrived grassland prairies were decimated. By reintroducing bison to the land along with seasonal fires, the nature conservancy, which manages the Joseph H. Williams Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in northeastern Oklahoma, resuscitated the prairie. The preserve is the largest tract of grassland prairie remaining in the world.

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