How a Tech Geek Is Using Machine Learning to Hold Human Rights Abusers Accountable

In October of 2019, the city of Eureka, California returned stolen lands to the Wiyot Tribe, the region’s Native American people. This was done over a decade after a brutal massacre on the land, which is an island that had slowly become overgrown and deemed uninhabitable. The Wiyots worked every weekend for years cleaning up the land, and now, with a clean bill of health and the property rights, they can start to heal as a community together again.

Program H is a group educational methodology that works with young men through participatory workshops, role-playing, and debates to reflect on toxic masculinities and promote more equitable attitudes toward gender. It has been implemented in more than 30 countries since 2002, successfully facilitated by males who act as gender equity role models. This story is available in Spanish here: https://solu.news/24kd

When the rise of Ebola in West Africa strict protocols when handling those who were dying or had died from the disease, public health officials began working with anthropologists and other social scientists to increase trust and influence people’s willingness to seek treatment. At the center of the success was the social scientist's recommendations for burial services which addressed concerns about first responders disrespecting the dead. Today, these social scientists are providing similar consult for the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 1890, an anthropologist used an early audio recording device called a phonograph to record three spokesmen for the Passamaquoddy tribe singing songs, telling stories, and pronouncing simple words. After years of efforts to eradicate Native American culture and language, these recordings were found again and shared with modern-day members of the Passamaquoddy tribe, who now use it to transcribe, interpret, and add to their cultural knowledge. The songs and stories have already begun making their way back into tribal events.

Camden, N.J. disbanded its troubled police department in 2013. It was replaced with a community-oriented team that worked in partnership with surveillance technology, violence interruption programs, youth investment initiatives, and vacant housing rehabilitation efforts, which altogether contributed to an 82% drop in homicides since 2012, including the city's first homicide-free summer (2025) in 50 years.

The Heartland Earthworks Conservancy finds and works to preserve ancient, Indigenous earthworks in Ohio. They use a device called a magnetometer to find electromagnetic remnants in the soil that reveal buried and disassembled structures like walls, ditches, and mounds.

The forensics-based human rights movement uses forensic science to identify victims of genocide and political violence buried in mass graves, allowing their families to arrange proper burial and bolstering collective history around these events. The strategy has been particularly effective in countries with state-imposed silence around past atrocities, such as Spain, where more than 9,000 bodies have been exhumed since 2000.

Students and educators in Nebraska are driving the change to change history curriculum to reflect history that places more emphasis on the narratives on indigenous and marginalized peoples. Students are emphasizing of historically erased narratives by creating social media videos, as well as creating petitions to change curricula in English and history classes.

Native and Indigenous individuals are using TikTok to share aspects of their traditions, challenge stereotypes, and empower young people to be proud of their culture. The videos range from instructional, teaching people indigenous languages or dance, to putting a "cultural spin" on trending content. The hashtag #NativeTikTok has over 1.3 billion views and users comment that the videos help them feel more connected to and proud of their cultures. The videos follow the tradition of preserving culture through storytelling and offer positive representations of Native and Indigenous people and their cultures.

When the Public Iconographies project asked people in St. Louis "how would you map the monuments of St. Louis?", it got 750 hand-drawn maps telling stories of often-overlooked sites throughout the city. By letting people from the community determine what is important, the project ended up with a data-filled report channeling freeform responses. They included the spot where a Ferguson police officer killed Michael Brown, the site of a 1917 race riot, and Cahokia Mounds, a pre-Columbian site in the city. The project formed a counterpoint to efforts to remove problematic symbols, like a Columbus statue.