Tag: Technology

The Power of Corporations Doing Good

Posted on by NationSwell Team

Dalila Wilson-Scott’s parents met during the Vietnam War; her dad was in the Air Force and her mom was a local Vietnamese woman who didn’t have much more than an elementary education. “When I think of the broader work of inclusion and opportunity, that’s my parents’ own story,” says Wilson-Scott. “A focus on economic opportunity and diverse perspectives is just something I grew up with.”

Today, Wilson-Scott brings the passion for equality and diversity from her upbringing to her roles as the senior vice president of community investment for Comcast NBCUniversal and the president of the Comcast Foundation.

In the third installment of our series 10 Leaders on Business for Good, NationSwell founder and CEO Greg Behrman chats with Wilson-Scott about her social-impact work and the changing nature of corporate civic engagement.

Is there a moment in your career where your background allowed you to understand the merits of equity and inclusion in a way that others couldn’t?

I wouldn’t say there was one defining moment, but I remember being in a meeting once and a woman said, “I’ve never met anyone who grew up poor.” I was like, “Well, I guess technically if you looked at income data, you could argue I fit into that demographic.” I mean, how do you know if you grew up with somebody who was poor or not? Her perception was that no one in that meeting could have grown up poor; otherwise, how would we have ended up in the same place? It helps to realize that people have a tendency to form those kinds of assumptions.

What are some things that set Comcast NBCUniversal apart in the way they address corporate citizenship and social impact?

As a recent example, I’d say how we came together so quickly after some pretty astronomical hurricanes in a short amount of time. During Harvey and Irma, we really showed up, from opening our Wi-Fi network so that emergency workers and everyone else — whether they were a Comcast customer or not — could be as connected as possible. We leveraged our presence through our TV stations around the country to help drive donations to the American Red Cross. We even launched new technology on our X1 platform, where people could say into their voice remotes “Hurricane Harvey” or “Irma” and make an immediate donation toward relief and recovery.

What do you think are the ingredients to success for corporate social responsibility programs?

Authenticity is so important. Wherever a company chooses to focus its efforts, it’s got to feel true to its brand. Imagine if we at Comcast — a technology and media company — were to suddenly say, “Oh, now we’re going to tackle health issues.” That’s probably not a space where we can have as much impact as companies that are thinking about global health every day. Sure, we could maybe have an effect from a delivery standpoint — for example, how technology can make delivery of resources better — but that would come off as inauthentic and probably not sustainable. And those two things are key.

How are CSR efforts different than they’ve been in the past?

It was more common in the past for social-enterprises to be criticized as not being the best for business, and I think that’s definitely changed. At minimum, companies need to have a purpose and define it in a way that every customer and employee can get behind. Before, it was enough to say, “We’re going to make the best product in the world, and we’re going to make a lot of money from it.” That’s not acceptable anymore to message it in that way. The standards are higher, and more companies are aspiring to deliver their product or service in a way that is purpose-driven but still profitable and focused on delivering results for both communities and company stakeholders.

What drives you? What’s your North Star?

For sure, my children. But I’ve also been fortunate to find my voice and use it to challenge assumptions and the status quo. If I’m going to do that and take that kind of risk, I want it to be for the greater good. There are so many people I’ve met — and I’ve been one of those people in the past — who don’t have the ability to have their voice represented at so many different tables. While I’m not at every single table, I know that I’m more fortunate than a lot of people. The amount of inequity in society frustrates me, especially how it’s just an assumed state for most people. All of us should be able to find our ability to impact that, and I’ve been fortunate to make that my life’s work.

Dalila Wilson-Scott is a NationSwell Council member.

Highland Park Takes Power Back

Posted on by robbie

Soulardarity is a nonprofit organization that puts energy control in the hands of the community.
After a utility company repossessed more than 1,000 streetlights in Highland Park, the Michigan-based group began raising money to install solar-powered streetlights on the town’s dark streets.
Soulardarity envisions a future where energy is cooperatively owned and the wealth it generates is used to make communities stronger together.

Welcome to the Future of Urban Living

Posted on by robbie

What might a city look like in the future if a tech company had a say in it? How can cities harness all the data at their disposal — on things like traffic, crime, health and income — and use it to eliminate the most common woes of urban living? At its core, the goal of a smart city is to improve the quality of life for its residents, by providing them good jobs, a clean environment and safe, sustainable infrastructure.
But as cities race to implement technology that can respond to the needs of its citizens, concerns over things like privacy, ownership and the energy needed to power millions of data-collecting sensors have increased right along with it.

Everything Is Connected

Though the term “smart city” is relatively new, the concept of cities using data to inform policies isn’t. More than a decade ago, for example, Seattle passed an ordinance that instructed its department of transportation to conduct a data analysis of city streets, taking into account traffic patterns, speed limits and collision history with the goal of encouraging residents to walk, bike and ride public transit more often.
More recently in 2015, the U.S. Department of Transportation launched the Smart City Challenge. A total of 78 mid-size cities responded, presenting ideas for revolutionizing their highways, roads and public-transit systems through the use of data, applications and other technology. (The winner: Columbus, Ohio.)
Besides easing the burdens of city life for residents, technology plays a major role in keeping them safe, too, especially as America’s infrastructure rating continues its steady decline across the board.
In September 2016, a team of engineers from Michigan State University and Washington University in St. Louis put self-monitoring stress sensors on the Mackinac Bridge — one of the longest suspension bridges in the U.S. — to log information on wear and tear, and send alerts when maintenance or repairs are needed.
“These sensors are going to continuously monitor the health of the structure, and if something goes wrong, then it’s going to report that to the cloud,” said Shantanu Chakrabartty, one of the sensors’ developers. “If something happens, you can go back and see that a certain part of the structure experienced abnormal levels of strain, and then according to that, you can schedule your emergency response and your maintenance.”

Michigan’s Mackinac Bridge features self-monitoring sensors that measure wear and tear and increase safety.

A New Model Emerges

Half the fun of envisioning a smart city isn’t just the nifty gadgets that make roads more stable, water cleaner or traffic lighter. What’s most exciting for many engineers and developers is the idea of making a city responsive to the people who live there.
An example is New York’s LinkNYC program, which is replacing thousands of pay phones around the city with kiosks that provide free Wi-Fi, phone calls, device-charging stations and touchscreen tablets that connect residents and tourists to city services and maps.
A more futuristic example is Sidewalk Toronto — a partnership between Sidewalk Labs, an Alphabet company, and Waterfront Toronto, a local organization charged with the revitalization of the city’s waterfront. The goal: Design an entirely new neighborhood on the city’s east side that will include sustainably built homes, roads designed for self-driving cars and green spaces that can adapt to how people act within them. (“Nobody’s using that bench? Let’s try moving it to a sunnier area then.”) If a tech company took over urban planning, this is what it might look like.

Private-Public Partnerships Put to the Test

But despite the competing interests of the private sector, which looks for ways to monetize its efforts, and the public sector, whose goal is to provide free services, there is the sense that tech companies will eventually be viewed as trustworthy gatekeepers of data — so long as they provide benefits to the city.
“This is a change in outlook,” Roman Serdar Mendle, smart cities program manager at the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, said a brief. “In the past, those concerned with sustainable cities saw the private sector as bad, and governments and NGOs as the ones that were fighting the good fight. Now companies are seen as the solutions providers.”
And then there is the confusion about who actually owns the data being harvested: the outside companies hired to collect it through sensors and other means, or the local officials who rely on it to make their cities smarter.
“We’re in the learning business, that is wholly true,” says Tracey Cook, executive director for  Municipal Licensing & Standards for the City of Toronto. By regulating Uber, for example, the city was able to gather data on every single trip that occured, down to where people were getting picked up and dropped off, “within inches.”
That information could inform the city’s future endeavors with Sidewalk Toronto, for example.
As cities become more reliant on the private sector to fill gaps that government can’t, the way forward, it seems, is two-fold: Cities will continue to use the data it collects on its citizens with the goal of improving their lives, and then partner with for-profit companies to ease concerns on privacy.

A New York City resident uses a LinkNYC kiosk to access free Wi-Fi, calling and other digital services.

The Future Is (Almost) Imminent

At first blush, smart cities sound like the ultimate solution for bridging the opportunity divide by giving people in all neighborhoods equal access to technology, creating a sort of digital utopia. But a backlash is brewing, not only over reasons of privacy but also over resources. The more a city relies on the Internet of Things — an interconnected network of devices that communicate with each other — the more energy is needed to power said “things.”
Currently, 7 percent of the world’s internet is used by the information technology sector, with that percentage expected to triple within the next two years. Annual Bitcoin transactions, for example, consume as much energy as the entire country of Iraq, according to the Bitcoin Energy Index.
As more and more people flock to urban areas, a partnership between tech companies and the services people use every day in a city — be it public buses or green spaces — is warranted. But given the privacy and environmental concerns that have yet to be addressed, the full-on smart city still has its obstacles.

Your Brain on Virtual Reality

Posted on by robbie

It was famed critic Roger Ebert who first who first called film “the most powerful empathy machine in all the arts.” But over the past few years another medium has begun to claim that mantle: virtual reality.
As the kickoff to the winter film festival season approaches, a wave of new projects promises to immerse viewers in different worlds that help them better connect with subjects. But VR’s power to stoke empathy reaches further than just the movie industry. Even as far back as 1992 the federal government recognized the impact VR can have on military training exercises.
Journalists, activists and doctors are among those using the technology to bring about action around some of today’s social issues.

Solitary Confinement

In 2016, The Guardian was rolling through an online and print series on life in solitary confinement. The newspaper’s stories, videos and podcasts appeared around the same time that Albert Woodfox, a 69-year-old man who had spent over four decades in solitary confinement, was released from prison, renewing the debate on how the U.S. treats its prisoners.
As part of their series, The Guardian produced its first VR project, called “6×9,” which simulates the experience of being held in isolation for 23 hours a day, every day. “People hadn’t thought the cell would be so bad, or so small,” Francesca Panetta, The Guardian’s executive editor for virtual reality, told the Digital News Initiative last year. “They didn’t realize that people were in for nonviolent crimes, or for so long.”
Since then, other news organizations have used VR to explore the psychological toll that isolation can have, such as 2017’s After Solitary, produced in part by PBS’s Frontline.
 

In an immersive virtual reality film, Planned Parenthood shows viewers what it’s like to be harassed and insulted while entering the clinic for an abortion.

Abortion

It’s one thing to hear about the throngs of angry protesters that confront women who visit abortion clinics. It’s another to experience that vitriol for yourself.
“Across the Line” was produced by Planned Parenthood and debuted at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Featuring real audio of protesters outside of clinics, the VR film gives viewers a first-hand experience of what it’s like to access an abortion while being harassed, cajoled and insulted.
In one screening, a Republican lawmaker was so visibly shaken by the film that he stormed out of the room, says Molly Eagan, vice president of Planned Parenthood Experience and the executive producer of “Across the Line.”
“Seventy percent of the people I showed [the film to] were in tears,” she tells NationSwell. “I am not a filmmaker; I’m a public health person. I did not have any idea about the emotional impact that a seven-minute VR piece would have on the viewers.”

Pain Management

As the number of Americans addicted to painkillers and other opioids remains a significant problem, VR is providing drug-free pain management to hospital patients. The Virtual Relief Organization, a project sponsored by the Center for Social Change, brings VR headsets to medical facilities at no cost, allowing patients to simulate the experience of traveling to destinations around the world as part of their recovery process.
The technology may even be helpful in revealing injuries that doctors have a nearly impossible time diagnosing, such as mild concussions caused by small impact during athletics or military training.
The company Sync-Think recently received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to start using headsets to track eye movements when an injury has been sustained. The technology, Eye-Sync, records, views and analyzes eye movements and can analyze brain health in 60 seconds, according to the company.
“The EYE-SYNC technology was initially developed to identify changes in brain function after injury,” founder and Stanford neurosurgeon Dr. Jamshid Ghajar says in a press release. “However its application has evolved significantly in recent years, and we intend to leverage our core technology to expand the many ways we can help people get the most out of their daily life activities.”
For the time being, the verdict is still out on whether the form can truly change how people think and act. You can, however, say it’s entertaining and seems to be helping in some way.

Microsoft’s Secret Weapon

Posted on by robbie

As a child growing up in a tiny town in the Midwest, Mary Snapp absorbed the importance of commitment to community from her parents. “Literally every night, my parents were out at some meeting, and my dad delivered Meals on Wheels to seniors,” she recalls. Today, as corporate vice president and the first head of Microsoft Philanthropies, Snapp leads the technology company’s corporate citizenship initiatives.
Recently, NationSwell founder and CEO Greg Behrman sat down with Snapp to discuss the importance of companies providing a structure of support for social good and volunteerism.
GB: What is one approach or guiding principle at Microsoft Philanthropies that differentiates you from others?
MS: Microsoft’s Giving Campaign started 30 years ago when co-founder Bill Gates’s mother, Mary, told him that it was important to build philanthropy into the fabric of the company. We commit to matching employees’ volunteer time hour-by-hour and donations dollar-for-dollar. Last year, employees raised $142 million for nearly 19,000 nonprofits and schools worldwide. The program really encourages creative volunteering, such as Hacks for Good, where employees come up with ways to reduce demands for sex trafficking to things related to weather forecasts and water conservation. It’s really, truly unique.
For the past three decades, Microsoft has also been committed to supporting education. We believed 30 years ago, and we still believe today, that it’s really important for young people, especially underserved populations and girls, to learn science, technology, engineering and math. Our Technical Education and Literacy in Schools initiative started with one engineer volunteering an hour of his time several days a week to teach computer science at an underserved school. After a couple of years, he had nine other engineers joining him. This year, Microsoft employees are in 350 schools in 30 states team-teaching computer science alongside a teacher.
GB: Do you think what you’re doing to engage employees around social good is having an impact on employee engagement and enthusiasm, and the culture at Microsoft?
MS: I only have purely anecdotal evidence, but I think it does. For example, I recently met with some senior level employees who told me that they came to Microsoft specifically because of the ability to volunteer. And I’ve had a number of conversations with our data science lead who told me that his employees are constantly being recruited by outside companies, but they choose to work at Microsoft because they want to do things that give them purpose.

As corporate vice president for Microsoft Philanthropies, Mary Snapp leads efforts to expand Microsoft’s social impact around the globe.

GB: As you look forward into the world of corporate responsibility and philanthropy, what’s next for you and Microsoft?
MS: Two years ago, at the World Economic Forum, there was a lot of talk about the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the cloud. Last year, most of the discussion was on artificial intelligence and robots. We realized that we have an obligation to talk about digital skills and jobs for the future, but that we also need to urgently think about middle skills — jobs that are beyond a high school diploma, but don’t require a college degree — as well.
Fulfilling this middle skills area is coming at a pretty fast and broad clip. We believe that, as a big technology company, we have a particular responsibility to help ease the transition that’s coming with technology. We hope to work in urban and rural communities to build out technical skill programs so that as we move forward, technology does not leave people behind.
GB: What advice might you have for someone at the beginning of his or her career that aspires to lead business in the direction of sustainability and responsibility?
MS: Many young people have to overcome things that I didn’t, but it’s still possible for them to achieve their dreams. These dreams may change over time, but they need to have persistence and an interest in continuous learning. And I’d be sure to tell them that they’re going to make it, because they are.
 

What We’ll Teach in the Future Hasn’t Been Invented Yet

Posted on by robbie

The question isn’t if a “100-year life” is coming, but how soon? It’s inevitable. I’m excited to think about living on this earth longer and having more opportunities to make a positive impact.
As co-founder of a business that offers training for in-demand skills, I think a lot about lifelong learning. The world is transforming so rapidly that jobs continually disappear and new ones appear. It used to be that traditional education was this thing you received in your youth. “College-educated” was an adjective you applied to yourself, and either you were or you weren’t.
But now, the skills you need throughout your life change. Those you need when you’re 25 years old look very different when you’re 35, 45, 55 or older. Your education should evolve throughout your entire life. To stay relevant, you need to adapt — always. The idea of a “100-year life” multiplies that reality even further.
Those who are living to be 100 years old – assuming that they’re productive and healthy – will no longer retire in their 60s. Instead, they’ll have opportunities to witness more economic shifts and discover more opportunities for lifelong learning.
The idea that you have one profession throughout your lifetime will go away. Instead, people will have a kaleidoscope of careers. Think of it: “In my 20s, I was a digital marketer, in my 30s, a programmer, in my 40s, I was flying cars… ”
Your learning and career should go hand in hand, not “first you get educated, then you have a career.”

If you’re living to 100 – or more – it’s hard to predict what you might be doing in your later years. My company, General Assembly, is teaching certain programming language that’s popular now, in 2017. What we’ll be teaching in the future likely hasn’t been invented yet.
Still, as a society, we’ll need to ensure that we’re doing what humans are fundamentally best at. To me, that means focusing on areas of creativity. To be human is to create. For a 100-year life, I hope that means creating as much as possible, be it art, music, community or a new business.
Despite all the technological advances we have to look forward to, I don’t see them competing with raw human creativity anytime soon. Or with the potential for deep relationships. As people get older, they need more care — something that can’t be done with a robot, app or website.
The idea of living to 100 is exciting to me. I’m alive during some of the most quickly evolving times in history, and I’d be able to experience more of that.
But I do have fears about where the world is headed. I worry about climate change, the geopolitical climate and the potential for war, strife and famine. How will humans living longer further tax the planet? How will it impact our economy? How much of this “extra” time will we spend in ill health?
At 100, would I simply be another person taking from the world? That doesn’t feel morally just to me. I feel it’s a privilege to be alive, healthy and conscious, pursuing my passion. With that gratitude comes a big sense of responsibility for leaving the planet a better place than I found it.
If I’m able to live to that age, I’d want to still be doing something positive and meaningful. The idea of retiring in the traditional sense doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t ever want to stop creating and working. I also want to relax and enjoy life as much as possible; that’s the additional piece of the puzzle. But it would be unfortunate if we’re only able to extend our lives, not the years that we’re active and healthy. I want to be able to travel, volunteer and have deep relationships.
Not that we should throw all that stuff to the end of our lives. Cultural consciousness is already moving away from that idea now. In my work, I interact with people in their 50s and 60s who are taking classes, learning new skills and starting their own businesses. They’re not saying, “I’m too old to go back to school.” They’re not stuck in a job because they feel it’s too late to change. They don’t feel like they’re past their prime, which is inspiring to me.
And who knows? Maybe five years from now, they’ll try something else new.
We all have the ability to plug in and become relevant, no matter what stage of life we’re in. We also have the opportunity to be as present as possible. If I get to live longer, I don’t want to value time any less. To me, there’s no point in taking 80 years of existence and simply spreading it out to 100.
The more we can educate, uplift and empower each other, the better chance we have of not just living to be 100 years old, but saving the world.

Matthew Brimer is an creative instigator, social entrepreneur and community builder. He is the co-founder of General Assembly, a 21st century educational institution with campuses and clients around the world, and the co-founder of Daybreaker, a global community and lifestyle brand producing conscious morning dance experiences across the globe. He is also an advisor and angel investor in a handful of early-stage startups.
This post is paid for by AARP.

Uniting Forces Against a Digital Divide

Posted on by robbie

The digital divide, an alarming technology gap in our nation’s public schools that threatens to leave children in disadvantaged districts behind, cuts across small rural towns and big cities alike.
Across the nation, approximately 6.5 million U.S. students lack connectivity to the Internet. And half our country’s teachers lack the support to incorporate technology into their lessons.
The one-hour documentary, “Without a Net: The Digital Divide in America,” directed by Academy Award-nominated director Rory Kennedy and narrated by actor Jamie Foxx, profiles schools, teachers and students who are hurt by a lack of technology access.
“There isn’t a single industry that hasn’t been touched by the innovation of technology,” Rose Stuckey Kirk, president of the Verizon Foundation, which produced “Without a Net” points out. “How can we not give kids the skills and tools they need to succeed as adults?”
“Without a Net” recently premiered on National Geographic and is a selection at the New York Film Festival. Watch the film now at digitaldivide.com.
This post was paid for by Verizon.

Fighting Cyberbullying Can Be as Easy as Pressing Pause

Posted on by robbie

Rebecca Sedwick was a victim of cyberbullying at the age of 12. Her death sparked a national conversation about how to best address cyberbullying. People began asking how parents could better manage their kids’ digital communications. “I’m aggravated that the parents aren’t doing what they are supposed to be doing,” Florida Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told CNN during the investigation into Sedwick’s death.
But Trisha Prabhu, who, inspired by Sedwick’s case, created the anti-bullying app ReThink when she was just 13, found that it wasn’t necessarily the parents’ responsibility to manage their kids’ online presence; rather, it was important for teens themselves to understand that what they say to a peer could be devastating.
“Here we are, giving teenagers this incredible power to communicate as digital citizens. And quite frankly, they’re not really equipped to make those decisions,” Prabhu, now 17, says. Her app uses an algorithm that recognizes and flags offensive language before it’s sent via text message or posted online. “There are severe consequences and lifelong scars when someone is bullied, and cyberspace compounds the effects.”
Numerous studies have shown that the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that manages impulse control, develops during teenage years but matures later, when people reach their mid-20s. That lack of impulse control leads to words a teen aggressor might regret. It’s also inspired anti-bullying advocates to find ways to encourage teens to second-guess their online interactions.
Prabhu’s ReThink app, which has been pushed by the Los Angeles Police Department and other organizations, uses an algorithm that is able to recognize and flag offensive language, then halt the message from being sent, allowing the sender a second chance to evaluate what they’ve written.
ReThink’s linguistic models are able to tell the difference between a user complaining about the weather, say, versus a user who’s sending a threat to someone. So for example, typing out “I hate the rain” would not be flagged. But messaging “I hate you,” on the other hand, would trigger the app’s filtering tool, which pops up when the user hits send and asks, “Are you sure you want to post this message?”
The app is invaluable to organizations that have been looking to technology as a disruptor for negative online messaging. Initial trial runs of the app found that 93 percent of teens that use it changed their minds about sending a message. ReThink now has more than 1.1 million users around the U.S.
“All the app does is shoot a question back to you, and it helps give you another filter,” says Jane Clementi, whose son Tyler was a victim of suicide in 2010 after his college roommate outed him by posting a sex video online. “I always tell people to take a breath, reread what they’ve written and if it’s not building someone up, if it’s tearing them down, I would hope that they would reconsider what they’ve written or maybe even discard it.”
Jane and her husband, Joe, started the Clementi Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to preventing the kind of bullying their son endured. The couple has endorsed the ReThink app and appointed Prabhu to the foundation’s board.
“Technology like the ReThink app gives you a second chance,” says Joe. “And you don’t always get a second chance on a lot of things.”
The 2017 AllStars program is produced in partnership with Comcast NBCUniversal and celebrates social entrepreneurs who are powering solutions with innovative technology. Visit NationSwell.com/AllStars from Oct. 2 to Nov. 2 to vote for your favorite AllStar. The winner will receive the AllStar Award, a $10,000 grant to help further his or her work advocating for change.
Correction: A previous version of this video incorrectly stated that Trisha Prabhu had already graduated from high school. She is currently a senior in high school. NationSwell apologizes for the error.
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Participatory Budgeting Goes High-Tech in the Big Easy

Posted on by robbie

New Orleans has made significant strides since Hurricane Katrina battered the city’s neighborhoods in 2005. Since then, it’s brought back its main industry — tourism— and older areas, including Faubourg Marigny and Tremé have become new again.
But long-time residents, who witnessed billions of post-Katrina dollars go to waste on poorly executed recovery and cleanup efforts in some of the hardest hit areas like the Lower Ninth Ward, are wary about how the government spends money.
“No matter what the dollar amount was, if the house next to you is still vacant and blighted and your street light still doesn’t work and your street still has potholes, it just doesn’t matter,” says Kelsey Foster, campaign manager for the Committee for a Better New Orleans. “That kind of translated into, ‘There’s money coming into town. I don’t see it happening on my block.’”
To increase civic participation and build interest in how government budgets, Foster created the Big Easy Budget Game, a multi-platform application that lets people suggest how much money the government should be spending and on what.
“We believe in the idea that cities work better when the people who live in them have a say in how they work. We believe that every New Orleanian has a voice, and every voice should be heard,” Foster says. “And so we’re here just to make sure that no matter what the issue is — whether we’re talking about the city budget or we’re talking about water management or paving streets — we think that the community needs to be consulted and that they know what’s best.”
The game is simple: Players log in and see a couple dozen white cups on the screen representing various spending allocations, as well as a finite number of red beans (a tip-of-the-hat to the local food staple, red beans n’ rice). Each bean represents $1 million dollars, and players choose where the beans go, be it rodent removal or civil service jobs. The results are tallied and used to inform budget meetings and local activists on how residents feel money should be spent.
“What is surprising is how off we are in regards to the priorities that are coming up from the ground, and then where the budget and the resources are being allocated,” says Latoya Cantrell, a New Orleans city councilwoman. “So one example could be youth and families, right? We spend about 3 percent of our budget on youth and families, but clearly, from the game [we see] our residents want more resources going toward youth and families.”
Before migrating online in 2016, the Big Easy Budget Game started as a physical game two years prior with actual red beans and cups. But from a data perspective, red beans are messy. They can break and manually counting them can result in a higher margin of error.
“It took forever,” Foster says, laughing.
So a digital version of the game was created.
In addition to desktop, The Big Easy Budget Game is available on mobile, which is beneficial to low-income communities, including those living of the Lower Ninth Ward who may want to offer their suggestions, but don’t access to a computer or broadband
Volunteers are also available to sit down with community members in neighborhoods with high illiteracy rates and walk them through the game.
The game is now being modeled and used by two other U.S. cities, says Foster.
“Our hope very much is that our next city council and our next mayor will really take to heart citizen participation and community involvement and come to us first and talk to us,” she says. “If we don’t start [the conversation] now, we’ll never get there.”
The 2017 AllStars program is produced in partnership with Comcast NBCUniversal and celebrates social entrepreneurs who are powering solutions with innovative technology. Visit NationSwell.com/AllStars from Oct. 2 to Nov. 2 to vote for your favorite AllStar. The winner will receive the AllStar Award, a $10,000 grant to help further his or her work advocating for change.
 
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Borderwise: The Program That’s Making It Easier to Pursue the American Dream

Posted on by robbie

One word described Luis Aponte’s experience living as an undocumented immigrant in the United States: helpless.
“Not [being] able to drive, not being able to travel or those things. Those things really wear you down,” says Aponte, a 40-year-old project manager for a parking company in Jersey City, N.J. “While I was here without documents, my father passed away, and I was unable to go and see him. Things like that — that makes you sad.”
After marrying a U.S. citizen, Aponte spent thousands of dollars trying to become one himself. He visited multiple immigration lawyers, but the bureaucracy — and the hefty price tag — of the American immigration system made it seem like an opportunity out of reach.
Aponte’s experience isn’t unique. Millions of undocumented immigrants and those with expired temporary visas live in this country because the process of becoming an American citizen can take decades and cost tens of thousands of dollars. It’s this flawed system that inspired a Canadian to create a tech workaround that eliminates the minutiae of immigration law and makes it simpler (and cheaper) for migrants to achieve U.S. citizenship.
“I started looking into the process, Googling around, trying to figure it out, and after a couple of hours of banging my head against the wall, I gave up and started looking into hiring an immigration lawyer … but it cost me thousands of dollars,” says Jeremy Peskin, co-founder of Borderwise, a digital platform that drastically reduces the time required to fill out immigration forms — from hours to just 10 minutes — by turning the mounds of paperwork into a simple survey.
Since its launch in 2016, Borderwise has helped hundreds of immigrants begin the application process.
For years, Peskin tried to gain citizenship, holding employment on what he describes as an “alphabet soup” of work visas. After marrying his wife (a American citizen), he confronted the problems of the immigration system face-to-face.
“I sat with my immigration lawyer in his office, and we started discussing my case. And I could see as he sort of walked through a decision tree that he had spent years learning to figure out exactly which documents and forms were required to compile my application because there’s potentially over 12 different forms, over 40 pages of paper work,” Peskin says. “I realized that if we could have an expert design a piece of software, we could use technology to dramatically streamline the process of preparing these applications.”
Working to bring his idea of the American Dream to fruition, Peskin enlisted the help of his own immigration attorney, James Pittman, who at first was hesitant of the idea.
“Immigration law is way too complex for that,” Pittman recalls saying. “There’s [sic] just too many exceptions. No matter how much you program a software, you can never duplicate a human being in all of the complexity and nuance.”
Peskin and Pittman looked to machine-learning technology to solve for the intricacies, complications and problem solving that immigration lawyers typically handle.
The result? A two-pronged platform: one portion used by immigrants themselves who want to become a citizen through family sponsorship; the other, a cloud-based version used by law firms. Both streamline immigration paperwork, while also giving those applying for citizenship more insight into how the process works.
By eliminating much of the work typically performed by attorneys, Borderwise has made the entire process more affordable.
“The lowest an immigration lawyer would ever charge for a family-based green card application is $2,000, and frequently, they would charge $5,000,” Peskin says. “The median income for an immigrant in the U.S. is $40,000. So for many just preparing a green card application, it’s close to 10 percent of their annual wages.”
Borderwise charges just $500 — almost 90 percent less than traditional methods.
Aponte, who used Borderwise, says the platform was simple, cheap and easy. What’s more, the process evoked strong emotions about his father, who passed away in Aponte’s home country of Colombia.
“I’m 100 percent sure he would have been super happy … with my wife and my beautiful family,” he says. “He would have been extremely happy.”
The 2017 AllStars program is produced in partnership with Comcast NBCUniversal and celebrates social entrepreneurs who are powering solutions with innovative technology. Visit NationSwell.com/AllStars from Oct. 2 to Nov. 2 to vote for your favorite AllStar. The winner will receive the AllStar Award, a $10,000 grant to help further his or her work advocating for change.
 
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