In California, just as low-income residents struggle to find affordable housing, farmers also face a cutthroat farmland rental market. If beginning farmers can’t find land for agriculture, then the ‘young farmer movement’ is a pipe dream. In California, 41 percent of all farmland is rented out to others, and new tenants face exorbitant rental prices, lands of poor quality, and predatory leases. There is a tremendous opportunity to leverage emerging data science and geographic information system methods to address the land access issue. In collaboration with California Farmlink, a farming direct service provider, Farmview is a tool that assists beginning farmers in the acquisition of farmland. Farmview combines public data about land ownership with local knowledge contributed by farmers to show farmers the location of available land and its associated attributes. This project will run workshops with farmers in California, conduct user testing, and roll out a statewide tool.
Housing has gotten unaffordable across much of the US. With home prices having gone from 2X to 4X the median family income over the past 40 years, 53-77% of the population can’t afford to buy today in metro areas across the country. This means that they are forced to rent for years on end instead of building their assets, perpetuating the cycle of being locked out of the market. HomeSlice is putting home ownership within reach for people who can’t afford to own today by making it easy to buy homes in groups. By removing the current barriers to fractional ownership – from the creation of co-owner agreements to the elimination of liability for co-owner default – it is making shared home ownership a viable and attractive option for millions of Americans. Its mission is to democratize home ownership.
Each year, over 4 billion pounds of citrus pulp waste are produced by the juicing industry in the USA and Brazil. This waste has caused significant disposal problems, but could be repurposed as a polymer to account for all the plastic bottles required by the orange juicing industry. The ZestBio Orange Bottle project is a synthetic biology effort that aims to convert citrus pulps and peels into plastics using eco-friendly conversion technologies. This project aims to give familiar wastes new life by fermenting them with highly engineered microbes that can produce chemicals normally produced from oil. Put your orange juice back in the peel with ZestBio plastics.
Unauthorized migrants are now held in U.S. detention facilities in greater numbers than ever before. More than 40,000 people—a new record—are currently held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Many unauthorized migrants report that they experienced human rights violations in prison ranging from severe overcrowding, inadequate healthcare and even sexual assault. President-elect Donald Trump has announced that he plans to deport 2-3 million undocumented immigrants, indicating that the increase in the incarceration of immigrants will likely continue. MigRadio, a new podcast produced in English and Spanish, will feature deported immigrants relating their personal experiences in U.S. detention facilities and prisons. The show will be produced from a migrant shelter for deported immigrants in Mexico. This bilingual podcast about the fastest-growing federal U.S. conviction—unlawful reentry—can explain the story of immigrant detention to U.S. listeners, advise lawmakers about the consequences of our immigration policies and educate migrants about their rights in detention.
The Somo Project was started to invest in social entrepreneurs committed to changing their own under-resourced communities by providing the necessary training and tools they need to succeed. In Swahili, “somo” means “to learn lessons.” The organization is called the Somo Project because of the team’s belief that talented and visionary entrepreneurs exist in the poorest settlements around the world — but their contributions are often overlooked in development initiatives. Somo identifies people with intimate knowledge of their communities and the relevant social context to address problems such as sanitation, children’s nutrition, job training, and educational opportunity. At the organization’s core is the belief that local context matters and people know their communities and what they need, but often lack the resources to grow and scale a venture. Somo enables people to find their own solutions rather than dictating what their communities need.
Dost will give low-income moms a leg-up on their child’s primary school readiness and amplify the impact of existing early childhood education programs. Through short, prerecorded voice messages delivered via a call to feature mobile phones, Dost offers moms a low-cost and highly scalable approach to access the knowledge they crave and unleash their child’s potential. Dost is unique because it delivers action-oriented content and can reach illiterate moms using technology already in their hands. Dost’s theory of change is to improve educational outcomes for children by empowering functionally illiterate moms to participate in their child’s education. (Note: This project originally won in the Big Ideas “Mobiles for Reading” category)
LiftEd is an iPad application that enables special education professionals to measure students’ academic & behavioral performance on individualized learning goals, analyze learning trends to modify instruction and intervention methods real-time, and ultimately share student progress with districts & parents on-demand. It resembles an EHR and acts as a centralized repository for a student’s case team to track progress, collaborate, and maintain a transferrable record longitudinally. LiftEd aims to strategically focus on schools to provide aggregate data for administrators that can aid in compliance with federal funding mandates. In addition to significantly saving educators time and providing the ability to work remotely, LiftEd also increases the transparency of student data for parents in order to mitigate risk of lawsuits. It also enables a real-time analysis of progress and modification to classroom activities in order to accelerate student learning. All of these features are accessible from a tablet. The flexible data collection methods and intuitive applied behavior analysis caters to all educators, not just advanced professionals in clinical settings.
Poor mental health is a widespread issue plaguing college students across the country. SafeSpace is a website and mobile application for UC Berkeley undergraduates to comfortably share their similar mental health issues through an anonymous, peer-led chat. By keeping it anonymous, students do not have to worry about being stigmatized. SafeSpace will facilitate the transition of first year, transfer, and minority students (including those with disabilities) into Cal by providing them with an outlet for psychological support. The project plans to initially target these groups, although it will not be exclusive to these populations. SafeSpace will serve as a means for students to adapt to the challenges associated with attending a large university, understand that there is a community of people out there like themselves, and have a comfortable space to share their issues with someone who is able to relate to their struggles.
The Open Viral Load project aims to develop an open-source, affordable genetic assay test for HIV that can be easily modified to test other pathogenic diseases, such as tuberculosis and the Zika virus. As part of the Global TIES organization, the Open Viral Load team is working with both the UC San Diego School of Medicine and the Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique. The team will perform preliminary testing in Tijuana, Mexico, followed by secondary testing in Mozambique. This project will allow low resource communities to receive the regular testing they need in order to know the status of their viral disease or to quickly diagnose patients with other pathogenic illnesses. This in turn will help doctors issue proper treatment to those in their community.
