#109 - Diabetes Detection, Economic Empowerment, and Election Integrity!
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#109 - Diabetes Detection, Economic Empowerment, and Election Integrity!
Hi everyone, and welcome to the Impact Labs Newsletter! If you like what you see and know others who would be interested in subscribing, send them this email and they can join the fam by signing up here! 😀
Impact Update
The 7th annual Impact Fellowship will be taking place in San Francisco this year! The program is designed for currently enrolled university students (undergrad or graduate) with computer science experience who hope to level-up their skills and meet with others who are committed to improving the world through technology! The first wave of applications closes on October 27th!
In the News
💾 IBM creates a new processor that could make AI compute 35x more efficient. Watch out Nvidia!
🔊 This recent paper demonstrated how a neural net can detect whether someone has type 2 diabetes with up to 89% accuracy using just a 10-second voice recording!
🤧 A new pill is being developed that could help reduce the effects and shorten the duration of smell and taste loss for people with Covid.
👷♀️ Cement is a massive source of greenhouse gas emissions, and this company is doing its best to decarbonize the whole sector.
💰 The World Bank approved an $832M economic empowerment and education initiative for millions of women and girls living across southern and eastern Africa.
Opportunities
Coding it Forward is looking for current and recent students to participate in the Coding it Forward Fellowship, a paid, 10-week summer fellowship that empowers early-career technologists to innovate in local, state, and federal government offices across the United States. Fellows work across cybersecurity, data, design, product, and software to build a more equitable and effective government for all. If you know any bootcamp, undergraduate, or graduate students who might be a good fit for their next cohort, consider nominating them (it takes less than 2 minutes). A member of the Coding it Forward team will reach out to nominated candidates with next steps. More information about how to apply can be found on their website. Applications are open for just two weeks, from October 16 - 29, so be sure to apply soon if you’re interested. Feel free to send questions to recruiting@codingitforward.com.
We got to hear from a teammate at Recidiviz during our annual Impact Summit, and we think they’re awesome. Here’s a bit about their work in their words: “Our mission is to accelerate progress toward a smaller, fairer, safer criminal justice system—and to do so at-scale. Recidiviz is a tech startup meets justice nonprofit: we take the speed and problem solving of the tech world and apply it to big public policy challenges where there is huge opportunity for impact. Using modern data infrastructure and thoughtful product design, we’ve been able to safely and permanently reduce incarceration and improve outcomes. We work side-by-side with justice-impacted communities, ecosystem partners, and leaders of the criminal justice system to build a better path forward.”
They’re currently looking for a software engineer with 3+ years of experience to join their team! If you apply, tell ‘em Impact Labs sent you!
Elicit is aiming to create an AI assistant that will enable scientists to be more effective and efficient. Their models are tuned to help researchers easily upload PDFs and extract relevant insights. We believe that speeding up the pace of scientific inquiry and output is one of the most under-explored avenues of impact, and we’re excited by the companies that are making moves in this space. They have multiple engineering roles open, along with a PM role as well. Apply here!
Wikimedia is hiring for multiple engineering and PM roles too! Check ‘em out and see if any of them are a fit! We all know that by helping Wikipedia, you’re helping all of us!
Datavant is on a mission to connect the world’s health data. They have several engineering positions available for more experienced candidates.
What We’re Watching
Lots of a16z this week! Check out their recent piece on how we could scale nuclear power, and Marc’s recent manifesto on techno-optimism. We have some thoughts, and we’re working on a blog post in response. If you want to share your perspectives, email us at hello@impactlabs.io with the subject line “techno-optimism” and let’s chat!
How much is enough when it comes to large tech platforms and elections?
Relatedly, check out the Integrity Institute.
Want some good news? Play around with the data at Human Progress and see the trends of improvement in human welfare across the globe.
Also, some good news on ocean cleanup efforts!
Quotes We Love
“Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be”
-James Baldwin
That’s all for now! See you in your inbox in another 2 weeks!