Polaris Project, La Strada and Liberty Asia

data collaboration to disrupt human trafficking

Project:

Polaris Project, La Strada International and Liberty Asia will use their $3 million Global Impact Award to establish a new global alliance that shares data and best practices between regional anti-trafficking organizations and helps to protect more victims from this crime. Google Ideas and Palantir Technologies will also support the development of this international database and response system.

Impact: Human trafficking feeds conflict, instability and repression worldwide, enslaving nearly 21 million people and generating over $32 billion in illicit profits every year. Local efforts provide vital help to victims in need, but resources and information are siloed from organization to organization, and region to region. Human trafficking is a fluid international crime and response efforts must be too.

The power of aggregated global data will enable three anti-trafficking organizations — Polaris Project, La Strada International and Liberty Asia — to help more victims escape these situations and identify larger, global trends that can inform broader strategic intervention. This new network will illustrate which response efforts are most effective, which sectors undergo global spikes, and if the reduction of slavery in one country coincides with an increase elsewhere. The ultimate goal is to protect millions of potential and current victims.

Watch the announcement video

charity:water

clean water through real-time data

Project:

charity: water will use its $5 million Impact Award grant to pilot the installation of real-time water monitoring technologies at 4,000 water points across Africa by 2015.

Impact: Water is a critical and life-saving resource, but one in nine people across the globe — a total of 800 million — lack access to clean water sources. Water projects and hand pumps are built in remote areas to help get clean water to those in need, but at any given time approximately 1/3 of hand pumps built by groups such as local governments, multilateral agencies and NGOs, are not functioning. Harnessing the power of technology and real-time data, charity: water will install remote sensors to monitor and record actual water flow rate, allowing more effective maintenance and provision of clean water to over a million people. Insights from the aggregated data will inform better planning for new water projects and published data will not only provide performance accountability for individual projects but will prove the value of transparency across the development sector.

Consortium for the Barcode of Life

DNA barcodes to safeguard endangered species

Project:

The Smithsonian Institution’s Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) will use its $3 million Impact Awards grant to create and begin implementing ‘DNA barcoding’ as an actionable tool for protecting the world’s most endangered wildlife. Working with researchers in six developing countries, CBOL will build a public library of DNA barcodes that law enforcement officials can use to identify confiscated material.

Impact:

More than 35,000 of the world’s 1.8 million named species are considered to be in danger of extinction, either regionally or globally. Of these, 2,000 are protected from illegal international trade by the strictest trade regulations under a UN treaty. Intercepting wildlife as they are transferred across borders and prosecuting traffickers are critical to slowing illegal trade, but current detection tools are too slow, unreliable, and either too expensive or simply unavailable to developing countries where most protected species live. DNA barcoding is a cost-effective, rapid, standardized approach that can identify species by matching short DNA sequences in a global database. The Consortium for the Barcode of Life will work with researchers to assemble the database and will train enforcement officials to use this technology to disrupt illegal trade.

DonorsChoose.org

Startup materials for new math and science classes

Project:

DonorsChoose.org will use its $5 million Impact Award grant to provide public schools across the U.S. with start-up materials to create 500 new advanced placement science and math courses. Materials could include lab supplies, calculators or textbooks. In addition, DonorsChoose.org will help successful AP teachers reinvest in their classrooms and students.

Impact:

In the U.S., girls and minority students are less likely to study math and science in college or pursue related careers than their counterparts, in part because they are not exposed to adequate advanced classes in high school. Research shows that encouraging students to participate in advanced placement (AP) math and science courses significantly increases their chances of taking such courses in college and pursuing related careers. DonorsChoose.org is partnering with the College Board to help increase this participation by providing start-up materials for 500 new AP science and math courses at public high schools that commit to enrollments reflecting their school’s overall diversity. In addition, successful teachers will receive additional materials for their classrooms to help inspire students to pursue further advancement in math and science.

Equal Opportunity Schools

data analytics to close science and math education gap

Project:

Equal Opportunity Schools will use its $1.8 million Impact Award grant to identify 6,000 high-performing yet under-represented students in 60 high schools and move them into advanced high school classes. Students will be selected using data that demonstrates potential to succeed and readiness for greater challenges.

Impact:

Every year over 600,000 low-income students in the U.S. miss out on the opportunity to be placed in advanced classes that could provide the training they need to succeed at college. These opportunities are in many cases literally across the hallway.The Equal Opportunity Schools model will enable an additional 6,000 students to be identified and moved every year. In the long run, Equal Opportunity Schools aims to shift perceptions of what underrepresented students can achieve if given equitable learning opportunities.

Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media

technology to analyze and ultimately transform gender disparities in media

Project:

Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media will use its $1.2 million Global Impact Award to support the development of new software to analyze gender portrayals on screen, allowing previously time-intensive research to scale globally and accelerating the positive representation of female characters in children’s media.

Impact:

Although the world’s population is more than 50 percent female, women are outnumbered by males three to one in U.S. media and five to one behind the camera. Additionally, female characters are six times more likely to be depicted in family films as partially nude with extremely tiny waists or sexually-suggestive clothing.

What kids see on television at a young age has very real effects on their development and social and cultural behaviors and beliefs. These negative images contribute to increased likelihood for girls to have poor academic performance, body image issues, early sexual behavior, and less promising life and occupational choices.

This project will use automated technology to analyze how females are portrayed in children’s media. By speeding up a previously manual and time-intensive process, research findings on gender inequality can more easily scale across the world — educating people and aiding organizations that work to promote women and girls in a positive, healthy and accurate way.

Give Directly

Electronic cash transfers directly to the poor

Project:

Give Directly will use its $2.4 million Impact Award grant to scale up its model of direct cash transfer to Kenyan families living in extreme poverty, and to expand its operations to a second country.

Impact:

Despite assumptions, cash transfers are a proven approach to lifting people out of poverty. Research has documented substantial positive impacts on a wide range of development indicators including business profits, farm profits, investment and savings, adult work hours, children's school enrollment, children's health and anthropometrics, and infant birth weight. GiveDirectly's mission is to make this effective, efficient alternative available to donors everywhere, and in doing so to set a new benchmark for the nonprofit sector.

World Wildlife Fund

umbrella of technology to protect wildlife

Project:

World Wildlife Fund will use its $5 million Impact Award grant to adapt and implement the use of specialized sensors and wildlife tagging technology, coupled with cost-effective ranger patrolling guided by analytical software, to increase the detection and deterrence of poaching in sites in Asia and Africa.

Impact:

The illegal wildlife trade, estimated to be worth $7-10 billion annually, is emptying our forests, landscapes and oceans. This criminal industry devastates endangered species, damages ecosystems, and threatens local livelihoods and regional security. This grant will enable World Wildlife Fund to test advanced but readily-replicable technologies in four key African and Asian landscapes. Together with local and global partners, World Wildlife Fund will help nature’s frontline protectors get out ahead of poachers by utilizing innovative technologies.